Usability: Don't make the user think, make it obvious

Category: Professional.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug.
I read excerpts from the book through the above link on Amazon.

Insightful points:

- Don't make the user think on your web site.
For example, instead of a search box with three drop-downs for keyword, author, and title; give a search box with books as default. Why do you want the user to think about what a keyword is?

- Users don't read line-by-line on a shopping web site.
For example, if you have a couple of paragraphs and an image of each product, and there are five such products on your web page, don't expect the user to read the first, second, third, fourth, and then fifth paragraphs. Their reading won't be linear, it will be random and will elicit a click on the first link they prefer.

- Users glance in a muddled way and click on a link that catches their fancy
For example, If a user has come to buy tickets, make it obvious that you sell them and give a link, which shows that.

Don't make the user think, make it obvious. A search box should be obvious. A user shouldn't be made to think about what to enter in a search box based on some drop-down (in another box) to be selected.

- Omit needless words - like the one struck off.
Let the users glance through your site and click on the links (as words) they are looking for.