Don't Make Me Think, Revisited
Steve Krug
beginnerPaid3 hoursNew Riders
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It is deliberately short and you can read it in an afternoon, which is the point: Krug practices the clarity he preaches. The chapter on cheap, do-it-yourself usability testing alone will change how you validate work. Read it after Norman for the applied, web-specific complement.
What you will learn
- Usability heuristics for the web
- Running lightweight usability tests
- Clear, self-evident navigation
Study first
How to study it
- Skim the structure first: table of contents, chapter openers, summaries. You are building a map before you walk the territory.
- Read one chapter, then close the book and reproduce its argument from memory before you check. That retrieval, not the reading, is what builds durable memory.
- Do any exercises the author includes. Space chapters across several days rather than binging; the gap is doing real work.
- Do not highlight and move on. Highlighting and rereading feel productive but consistently fail to improve recall. Build something small that uses the idea instead.