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Reddit mentions of Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

Sentiment score: 70
Reddit mentions: 108

We found 108 Reddit mentions of Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition. Here are the top ones.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
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Found 108 comments on Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition:

u/testmypatience · 35 pointsr/startups

The books get outdated too fast.

This should help you though.

---

Validate Your Skill Level

Are you currently a web programmer? If no, please do not attempt to become one to code your own dynamic website as security is a huge issue and it will take you years to catch up. It is not a reasonable effort to put forth if you want to keep your sanity, not burn your spare time, etc. Not saying you can't learn it, just saying it takes a lot of work and time that most entrepreneurs don't have to use and in some cases waste.

You can learn how to do html and css within a few months but using a CMS system is much cleaner and easier and if you need something dynamic, you will probably need a developer.

You generally need to know at least php and mysql for dynamic websites unless you want to get into the confusing worlds of joomla and drupal. I hear decent things about Ruby on Rails though on par with php and mysql learning curve I think.

Want to Learn Web Programming Anyway?

Try CodeCademy for interactive programming learning.

No Coding Skills Start Here

Get / Use the following:

  • Hosting: Bluehost.com
  • Domain name: Buy through Bluehost and get a privacy option on it
  • Web Platform to one click install: WordPress a CMS platform
  • Find an appropriate responsive wordpress theme here: Themeforest.net
  • Install and configure these free plugins in order: Better WP Security, BackWPup, Akismet, Yoast, Broken Link Checker, FirmaSite Theme Enhancer, Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin, Date/Time Now Button, and Advanced Responsive Video Embedder
  • Buy other plugins you need here: CodeCanyon.net
  • Need an affiliate manager?: Use Linksert.net and it's free WordPress plugin.

    Need Something More Dynamic?

    You have a few options. This list goes from least expensive to most expensive. Just know that most things you want to do already have a plugin or theme designed for them for WordPress. There are however a lot of exceptions to that guideline and that is why you look at the following options.

  • Least Expensive end
  • Hire someone to develop a WordPress plugin to do that dynamic stuff (cheaper than second option)
  • Hire someone to build you a custom WordPress theme that has the functionality you need.
  • Hire someone to develop the site from the ground up.
  • Most expensive end

    The reason why WordPress is mentioned a lot is because it is a CMS aka Content Management System which allows you to manage a ton of the pages and posts and various other aspects of the website. If a developer really needs to, they can modify the core parts of WordPress. Rarely will you need someone to build you a brand new website and honestly you really do want a CMS or you are going to have a hard time.

    Some developers can be found here: Elance (freelancers), Matchist (freelancers), and Glowtouch (dev company vetted by Bluehost)

    Things to remember with website development

  • Try to use a responsive website themes and plugins so that it can fit any screen size including tablets and phones.
  • Get familiar with what they call "sticky footer" so that your footers don't end up halfway up the screen on low content pages. Example and info.
  • Get familiar with the concept of having a fixed header as it will promote a lot of use of your website. Example and info.
  • Design is important. You have ~2.6 seconds to capture their attention before they bounce. Read this book to learn about it: "Don't Make Me Think"
  • Best colors to use for design and other design tricks (the best you are going to find): Article and Video

    I am actually writing a series on this because this guide is way too small. You can sign up to be notified on this quick google form I threw up.
u/meliko · 27 pointsr/AskReddit

Depends on what you want to do — UX is a pretty broad field. I'm a user interface designer with a UX background, which means I've designed sites, web apps and mobile apps, but there's plenty of UX positions that don't require any sort of visual design or front-end development experience.

For example, there are labs that conduct user research and interviews, run focus groups, or do user testing. Hell, you could even apply to be a user tester at a site like usertesting.com. Not sure how much money you can make from that, but it's something.

Also, there are UX positions that go from beginning research and discovery for projects up through the wireframing, which doesn't require any visual design experience. You'll usually hand off your UX work to a designer or a developer to implement.

Some good books to read about UX are:

u/the_wood47 · 22 pointsr/graphic_design

I’m a print and basic web designer that’s been making an overhaul towards UI/UX the past few months so maybe I can offer some help. I’m actually working on a mobile app’s case study as we speak! You may have already noticed that UI/UX tends to get many different definitions depending on who you ask. With this said the path I took was focused on research methods (competitor research, demographic research, user testing, etc), UX deliverables (personas, user flows, wireframes, etc), prototyping, high-fidelity design and front-end coding (I’ll touch on that a little more in a bit).

 

When it comes to UX research I found the following resources immensely helpful:


Books (Reading? Yes, reading. Trust me these are worth checking out…pretty short too)

  • Don't Make Me Think

  • UX Team of One

  • Lean UX


    Podcasts (Listen on your commute, while you’re folding laundry, whenever)


  • User Defenders Podcast


    Websites (It’s also a good idea to Google some successful UX designer’s portfolios)


  • UX Mag

  • Reddit User Experience

  • “How I Became a Unicorn” <— Seriously check this out

     

    Basically what UX teaches you is that all design decisions need to be backed by an informed reason. That reason is found by doing proper research and testing.

     

    Now for UI design. There’s always Bechance and Dribble for inspiration, but a lot of the pieces you find on there lack context and are merely pretty to look at. So don’t get too obsessed. For software, personally, I’m a Photoshop to Sketch convert. It’s $100 but MAN is it worth it. There’s a number of things that make Sketch attractive (vector based, easy exporting, etc) but I guess the simplest way I can put it is that Sketch just feels…lighter than Photoshop. But it’s really personal preference, if you’re a master at using Photoshop for web design then don’t feel like you have to get Sketch. With that said I HIGHLY recommend investing in Meng To’s Design+Code. While it mainly focuses on iOS design, there is a lot of information that goes across the board for UI design, and it will give you an organized learning method (plus a discount on Sketch).

     

    It’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with Material Design. Google’s presentation of the topic gets a little too in-depth at times so you may just want to Google search for other explanations of Material Design (that’s a bit ironic huh?).

     

    Okay so now you know how to design a basic UI right? Well what if you want to make your designs interactive? There’s quite a bit to benefit from actually seeing your designs work (or not work). Over the past couple years there’s been a gigantic influx of prototyping programs. They all have their pros and cons. Personally I use Pixate but at times it can be a little restricting. My iOS developer friend recommends Origami, it has a pretty steep learning curve but I think I may switch to that at some point.

     

    The key to becoming effective at UI design is the same with any other form of design: practice, practice, practice.

     

    Okay, now on to coding:

     

    Depending on your goals you may have to alter your studies a bit. For example, knowing your way around HTML/CSS and jQuery will give you more control of the design process, improve your relationship with developers on your team and make you EXTREMELY marketable. However, in many cases, only a basic knowledge of those languages I mentioned is required (jQuery being more of a bonus). As a designer you may not even touch the coding side of things at all, it really just depends on the team you’re working with. With that said I HIGHLY suggest taking a dive into front-end coding eventually, you’ll hate yourself for not learning it earlier. Ditch dreamweaver too, pickup SublimeText. Team Treehouse and CodeAcademy are fan-fucking-tastic. Learned a lot from their education programs.

     

    Whew, if that seems like a lot it’s because it is. Hopefully I broke it down into digestible chunks though. Remember, design is a never-ending learning experience. Don’t stop learning.
u/dantesus · 19 pointsr/web_design

Don't Make me Think A good design philosophy book. It's relatively old, but a lot of the ideas are still used today.

u/dreasgrech · 18 pointsr/programming

First of all, for any software development questions you may have, I suggest you post your questions on Stackoverflow because the people there will surely provide you with answers.

Now, for a list of books I recommend:

JavaScript

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide; if you're new to JS, start with this one.

JavaScript: The Good Parts; not a beginner's book, but a must-read if you are going to use JS

If you are going to be using JS, you will most probably be developing using a framework, and for that I seriously recommend mastering jQuery because as they say, you will write less and do more!

CSS

CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions

Web Usability

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability; the book that shows the users' perspective when viewing a website

Performance

High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers and Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers;if you want to get serious about performance for your websites

u/You11You · 17 pointsr/Design

https://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

The way I learned UI design quickly was to put together some designs and ask for critiques from designers. There used to be a website where you could get critiques for your designs (in exchange for giving critiques yourself).

u/ilikeUXandicannotlie · 15 pointsr/userexperience

Here are some things I (and I know others) have struggled with. I think the web is exploding with resources and information, so I don’t necessarily think we need to explain what a prototype is. There’s better places elsewhere to learn things about UX, but I think we could provide some good resources for not just people new to UX but everyone else too. I’m coming at this from what I wished I would have access to when I was trying to get into the field. I know that /u/uirockstar has some good walls of text that probably should be included as well. Feel free to suggest any changes to what I have here.




I really want to begin a career in UX/UI. What do I do?


Well, first it’s important to know that UX and UI are not synonymous. While many job postings combine them, UI is a subset of UX, just as research and information architecture are. UI is still important and if you can do both, you do increase your value. While many see UX as a research field at its core, the UX/UI title implies that it’s only about creating pretty things.

The first step is learning more about the field, which brings us to…



What kind of education do I need?


If you are still in school, there are more places recently that are offering courses in human-computer interaction. You can even try to create your own internships. There are very few UX specific schools, though they are starting to pop up, like Center Centre and General Assembly.



Yeah, yeah, that’s great. But I already graduated, so where do I start?


Any focus on people or technology can act as a solid foundation for learning UX. Because there has never been a set entrance path into the field, UX roles are filled with people from many different backgrounds. The most common degrees for those in the field though are design, psychology, communications, English, and computer science. link

There are a number of people in the field who are self-taught. There are tons of books, blogs, and designers (here are some helpful resources) which provide enough UX stuff to keep us all busy. When I first started reading about it, I quickly got overwhelmed because there was so much information available and most of it was intended for those who already had a pretty good grasp on things. The Hipper Element’s crash courses in UX and user psychology are great places to get a fairly quick overview.

There are books like The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan Weinschenk and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug that make for great first books.

UX Mastery has a great eBook for getting started, appropriately titled Getting Started in UX. Kevin Nichols’ UX for Dummies is both very readable, yet detailed. You can even buy the eBook if you don’t want people on the bus to think you’re a “dummy.”

Lastly, Fred Beecher has a very extensive Amazon list of recommended UX books, depending on what area you are looking to learn more about.



Great. I’ve read a whole bunch of stuff and have a pretty good idea how UX works. Now how do I get someone to hire me so I can gain experience?


Hey, easy there. While, yes, there are lots of UX jobs out there, very few are entry level and not many employers will hire someone who has only read about it and not actually done it. You can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job. I know. Frustrating, right?

You have to prove that you can do it. One way to do this is site redesigns.

Go find a website that lacks in it’s user experience and figure out how to fix it. Maybe it’s a small business down the street from you or maybe it’s a feature on eBay you think could be better. Redesigning sites is a good way to practice a process and make mistakes on your own time. If you can involve the owner from that small business down the street, that’s even better because then you can get a sense of the customers (users) that you will be designing for.

Once you have done this, you have (some) experience! Start a portfolio and add to it!



But I have a resume. Why do I need a portfolio?


Resumes are great. But resumes won’t get you a job starting out. It’s a million times more effective to show potential employers what you have done, rather than showing them a resume showcasing that you are a team player and proficient in Microsoft Office. But you should still have a resume that outlines your UX skills.



But I’ve never worked in UX! What should I put on my resume?


You don’t need to put all of your old jobs on your resume if they are unrelated to the field. Most places still want to see some work history so they know you haven’t been living in a cave for the last four years, but they don’t care about how you sold vacuum cleaners or trained circus horses. Maybe you can relate some crossover UX skills to your previous work.

Back to portfolios. They are a lot like elementary math class in that you want to show your work. Potential employers are much more interested in how you made a design decision rather than the final result. If your portfolio just has a bunch of fancy wireframes, that doesn’t tell them how you took specific personas into account and you are simply showing them something that looks pretty. And just because it looks pretty doesn’t always mean it makes sense.



Okay. I have a portfolio with a few unsolicited site redesigns in it.


Congratulations! But I have some bad news. Are you sitting down?

No one wants to hire you yet. You haven’t worked on any “actual” projects that showed how your UX skillz helped a business. I know I suggested you do site redesigns to get practice and you should because that is work you can take to a nonprofit or another small business and say, “here are some trial runs that I’ve done that prove I know what I’m doing and now I can help you for free in exchange for adding it to my portfolio.”

They’ll probably be skeptical and say, “hmmm… I don’t think my website needs this newfangled user experience you speak of and—wait did you say free?”

You both get something out of it and you’re doing it pro bono, which relieves you the pressure of making one tiny mistake. (There is a great site called Catchafire that matches non-profits all over the country with people looking to donate their time and skills.)

Once you have a portfolio displaying your work and some experience, start applying! But there is one more aspect that goes into getting hired and that is the people who will hire you.




Ugh, but isn’t networking just using people for my own professional gain?


I had this same mindset and it probably delayed my entrance into the field. I wanted to rely only on the quality of my work and trusted the rest would follow. I avoided networking and meeting people in the field because I didn’t want it to seem like I was only mooching for a job.

But the fact is people are altruistic in nature and like helping others. Many people also enjoy talking about themselves, and those are the two main principles of an informational interview. You’ll also find that people are excited to help others get started since they remember how difficult it was (see: this blog post).

It wasn’t until I started getting those informational interviews and talking with people at UXPA and MeetUp groups that I learned another side of UX, but also got more familiar with more hiring managers or those that knew them. Whenever possible, people will hire those they know and like. Until you get out and start shaking hands and kissing babies, you will be just another faceless name in a stack of resumes.

Meeting with recruiters/staffing agencies is also a good route as they make money by finding you a job, so they have a vested interest in giving you constructive criticism.




I've heard that you have to live in a big city to get a job in UX.


Move. Just kidding. But while it’s true that larger cities like New York, San Francisco, and Seattle are full of opportunities, there are plenty of other places around the country that have jobs. Here are the top 20. If you live in a tiny city, expect a tougher time finding a position.



Okay, I got an interview. How do I not mess this up?


Some great advice is to go all UX on your preparation and treat the interviewer like a user.

.......to be continued.



Blogs:

u/cutestain · 14 pointsr/personalfinance

Personally I am a UX generalist and work as a freelancer for early stage startups. I don't seek work on "game changer" projects like Fitbit, Snapchat and Pokemon Go but instead projects to improve processes that make current businesses more efficient and profitable. There is so much money to be made on these projects.

I design the app from top to bottom.

  • User Interface (UI) -icons, forms, images, microcopy, etc.
  • Graphic design - typeface,colors, sizes, etc.
  • Information Architecture (IA) - layout on a single page
  • Style guide & Pattern library - UI & IA in aggregate
  • Usability testing -feedback from users on your design
  • User experience research - what does the business and the market place need

    Here is some of the knowledge one would need to be successful:

    App Design Basics

  • Google Material Design
  • Apple's iOS Human Interface Guidelines
  • Stephen Anderson's Seductive Interaction Design

    Overall Concepts

  • Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  • John Maeda's Laws of Simplicity

    Psychology for microcopy (short instructions) and influence in design

  • Richard Thaler's [Nudge] (https://smile.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X?sa-no-redirect=1)
  • Anything by Dan Ariely
  • Mental Notes Cards by Stephen Anderson

    Software needs

  • Sketch by Bohemian Coding $99/yr for basic design work
  • Zeplin for conversations with clients and developers $15/month
  • Proto.io $29+/month for prototypes (shows transitions on and between screens)
  • The Noun project for finding icons $99/year
  • Zoommy App - for finding high quality Creative Commons 0 (CC0, free) images $4.99 once

    Places to see samples of work

  • Dribbble
  • Codepen.io

    My general suggestion is to start by designing something to solve a problem you care about for a business/industry you would want to work in. Don't expect perfection but practice constantly. Build your process and constantly improve for 6 months to 1 year. Then you're probably going to confidence, skills, and samples of work that are good enough to get a job.

    Edit: formatting always gets me
u/Eurobob · 10 pointsr/design_critiques

This is quite the mess you've got here. I'm sorry to be so negative, but there isn't a single thing i like about this.

Your 'nav'/login section is too large, garish & out of place. Not to mention the fact that the login button shouldn't be in the nav.

The colour scheme feels like an afterthought. Everything seems so random. I don't know why your two lists are styled so differently.

Your text is too large in places and the line height is too small. Everything is very bunched up and cluttered.

The arrow on the about link is nothing short of horrific.

Going back to the text, there is no sense of hierarchy. Decide what information is most important and make sure it is clear at the top of the website. Secondary info can go below the fold if needed to keep it from looking messy.

The contact us bit again looks like an afterthought.

The logo is hideously lazy.

Overall, i don't know where to look first to find the information i'm looking for. Don't make me think!


My advice? Start again. But before you do so, have a look at some similar websites for inspiration, USE A GRID!, if you want to do a text-based design, learning the basics of typography is an absolute must.

u/doctoraw · 10 pointsr/design_critiques

I would look for a template that you think is good for his content and then adapt it. I'm not saying that you copy it, but you can inspire yourself in another's work. I'd suggest http://themeforest.net/

That said, you are not changing the design, you are changing the position of the content. You could maybe start rethinking the content tree. I would make always available the contact info. It's the best thing to do for the users and clients love to be always available ;)

You could think about the design in little pieces. For example: you have a book gallery to redesign, look for other book galleries that you like and then design stephen's.

This is my attempt. It's super simple. but I think that's what make it understandable.


http://i.imgur.com/VqwTj.png



Ask me anything you need.

I would also change the body text line-height: to 140% to make it more readable.

*edit: I would also make bigger the 'men and women' titles.

I suggest you to read Don't Make Me Think. It's a little old usability book that you could be read in half a day and will blow your mind :)

PS. Sorry for my English.

u/h-town · 9 pointsr/webdesign

Designing for the web? First thing to do is read "Don't make me think." It's a thin book you should be able to knock it out in no time.

If you are coming from a print world remember CMYK and inches mean nothing, this world is RGB and Hex colors and pixels. Telling the web guy you want a 15% tint of a Hex color isn't helpful.

Be aware the site, text and text flow will look slightly different depending on the browser and platform. How the page, text and forms look on a Mac in Safari is not the same as a PC with IE7 (or 8 or 9) or a mobile device. Your careful word wrap and precise leading is going to be lost.

Map out the likely clients who are the target of the website and their likely viewing device and browsers. Design for those first. If you are designing a site targeting corporations chances are the viewing will be on a PC with some version of IE. If you are designing a site for photographers targeting designers and ad agencies then a Mac with Safari or FF is your most likely target. If most of your viewers are going to be on laptops or mobile devices keep that in mind first.

Include a Photoshop page with all the main colors used. Text color(s), link colors (link, visited, hover and active colors) and all other colors (background, page, dividers, etc.) that will be showing up.

Finally, online is not like working in InDesign, Quark, Illustrator or even Photoshop. Approve everything at 100% size. Just because the vector files, and 6 point type, look great at 1200% in Illustrator doesn't mean they will translate to 72 ppi in a browser.

Other than that, what everyone else said.

u/KevinJD · 8 pointsr/webdev

Took me too long to figure out the search box wasn't a button.

Don't make me think

Edit: Its not even a cursor on mouseover in chrome.

u/vampire_kitty · 8 pointsr/webdesign

Don't Make Me Think is an interesting book that if you can find it in your local bookstore and browse through it might be helpful. It's a small book so you could scan through and see if there are interesting bits that might be useful.

On the whole, though, I'd suggest you find an editor to SEVERELY cut down the amount of text that needs to be read for instructions if you find that people aren't reading it.

Page 45 of the book I mention is a chapter called Omit Needless Words (needless is crossed out). A couple of quotes from the chapter:

"E.B. White's seventeenth rule in The Elements of Style:

"17. Omit needless words.
"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should contain no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."

On the next page a section starting with the bold line:

"Instructions must die

"The other major source of needless words is instructions. The main thing you need to know about instructions is that no one is going to read them - at least not until after repeated attempts at "muddling through" have failed. And even then, if the instructions are wordy, the odds of users finding the information they need is pretty low.

"Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to the bare minimum."

Then there are some examples. The writer is a consultant for web usability and has been doing it for years and the suggestions are based on his (and others') research. You are finding the same thing that others are finding: they aren't going to read the instructions. See if you can find another way. If you want some ideas, poke through the book (or others that are like it) and see if you can configure a method that makes it self-explanatory as suggested by the writer.

Without seeing the site itself, I cannot offer much else.

Good luck!

u/[deleted] · 8 pointsr/web_design

Don't Make Me Think is a good introduction to web interface usability.

u/Prozachian · 6 pointsr/webdev

I've read this book a couple times, technically it is about UI but it helps with how you should layout your page and the reasons why to lay it out that way.

Steve Krug's Don't Make me Think.
https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

​

You can also torrent it legally.

u/DigitalSuture · 6 pointsr/webdev

These gentlemen above my comment will be the exact answer you are looking for. Especially the save/make money comment. That is job security/advancement/streamlined processes all rolled into a concise statement. Pull information about what you need from UX/UI design, Steve Krug "Don't make me think" with small real world cheaply produced benefits, and also add in the fact of how many hours wasted to the company that the developers are spending trying to update something.

"Don't Make Me Think" by Steven Krug

How E-bay make 300 million dollars by moving a button. Design matters

u/EricTboneJackson · 5 pointsr/learnprogramming

I'd recommend Don't Make Me Think, which is a crash course in UI design for people who are not designers in their day job.

u/thebigbradwolf · 4 pointsr/webdesign

Read Steve Krug's: Don't make me think.

There's also a case for web underdesign. Also, learn the practical implications of

Fitt's law

Principles of Design.

Rules of Gestalt

There's maybe a few more things, but if you can do this, you'll be pretty well off. Also, The last rule is functional trumps pretty. Something ugly and working is better than something beautiful and a pain to use.

u/s1e · 4 pointsr/userexperience

I'm sorry if the reply turned out a bit too general, but the individual steps depend a lot on the specifics :)

As I said before, it's crucial that you understand the problem domain as good, or better than your customers. I like to think of it as the Fog of War in strategy game maps. I can only effectively perform once I have explored enough territory to see the big picture. Here's roughly how I would try to wrap my head around such a challenge, if the company hired me to help:

Customer

Who are the customers? It's actually possible to think of the customers just in terms of their needs and desires. But it's useful to know their demographic attributes, so you can choose whether your solution is going to be a lateral or a niche one. For instance.. Trello is a lateral solution, because the kan-ban methodology can be applied to many different types of problems. On the other hand, It could be argued that 500px is a niche solution, because it caters to photographers more than meme authors. It's very easy for 500px to figure out where photographers hang out online and in the real world, should they choose to reach out to them in any way.

The job (Problems / Desires)

The customers usually have some sort of job to be done. That job is driven by their desire for a benefit, or a lingering problem that needs solving. Those benefits can range from monetary to peace of mind or social status. And problems can range in severity. Furthermore, different customer segments can rate some problems and benefits as more important than others. This is the combinatorial explosion of stakeholders and their points of view, that informs a strategy of a good product designer, and causes an uninformed designer to arrive at an optimal solution only through brute force or sheer luck.

Solution

Sometimes the solution has to be drawn up from scratch, optimized or entirely re-imagined. So what is the existing solution? What would an utopian solution look like? A complex problem might require a solution in the form of a toolkit of multiple core activities (Like Google, HubSpot or Moz). A focused solution though, can be embodied in a single product (Caffeine.app keeps your mac from going to sleep). If a solution is complex behind the curtains, but you make it simple and gratifying from the user's point of view, it may seem like magic to them.

Business

The things that you do behind the curtains are some core activities, that might require some key resources. That's how the business makes sure it spends less than it earns on a customer (unit economics). It's easy to paint a picture where the world is split between sociopathic capitalists with a greedy agenda & empathic designers, who champion the user's priorities. But a similar solution with a sound business foundation will always be better for the customer, because it stands a better chance of outperforming the economically inferiour solution in the long run. It's the job of a designer to balance between the two aspects. So much so, that the Elements of User Experience places big emphasis on both Business Objectives & User Needs.

Communication

Once you love your people, and you have a way to show it to them, you'll have to start and maintain some sort of relationship. You can identify Touch Points or Channels. If, for instance, your customers are tourists looking for a place to grab a meal before boarding the next train, you can administer your solution right then and there, at the train station. But most of the time you'll be reaching out to your potential users somewhere between you and them, probably through a third party (online publication, app or ad network). It may take multiple exposures in different contexts, before somebody decides to give your solution a try. So a customer might bump into your message at certain touch points, open a communication channel like a newsletter or notification subscription, and only then decide to commit. There's often talk about a multiple stage funnel, through which we try to shove as much of our target market. But you can also look at customer lifetime stages as vertebrae in the cohort spine. For instance.. Slicing out customer segments by lifetime lets SoundCloud identify differences between a newcoming podcaster & a long-time podcaster, and communicate with each of them appropriately, even though most of the people that care about SoundCloud are producers and record labels. Staying on top of communication also helps you avoid conversion attribution mistakes, so you can communicate more effectively.

Here are some resources related to those subjects:

  • Value Proposition Design, Alexander Osterwalder: How to map the Customer, their Problems and Desires to a Solution.
  • The Innovator's Dillema, Clayton Christensen: Describes how disruptive innovators solve existing problems in novel ways.
  • Minto Pyramid Principle, Barbara Minto: How to communicate the value propositions to a rationally minded customer.

    A bit more business related:

  • Four Steps To The Epiphany, Steve Blank: A user-focused methodology for efficiently finding a viable business model, called Customer Development.
  • Business Model Generation, Alexander Osterwalder: His first book takes a broader look, dealing with booth the business and customer side of things.
  • Lean Startup, Eric Ries: What Steve Blank said.

    Once I have a good understanding, I would focus on Information Architecture, Experience Design, Production & Iteration. I can't spare the time to write about those now, but here are some related resources:

  • Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garret: What a typical experience design process is made up of.
  • About Face, Alan Cooper: Another take on the whole process, dives a bit deeper into every stage than Garret's book.
  • Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug: One of the first books to gave the issues of IA and UX design a human, customer point of view.

    I might write more about the specific subjects of IA and UX later, when I find the time. In the meanwhile, check any of the three books with italicized titles, if you haven't already.

    Peace o/
u/combinatorylogic · 4 pointsr/programming

I realised that UX design could be fun only after reading http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

u/poopMachinist · 4 pointsr/learndesign

Don't make me think by Steve Krug. The holy bible of UX.
Read it, learn it, love it.

u/hornytoad69 · 4 pointsr/web_design

Read Don't make Me Think, it's pretty good. It goes through design and layout ideas.

u/owlytravis · 3 pointsr/graphic_design

"Don't Make Me Think" is probably outdated but it used to be the best book on the subject. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0321344758

The Smashing Books (there are four now) are fantastic. Worth the money every year. You can also subscribe to the entire Smashing Library. https://shop.smashingmagazine.com/smashing-book-4-ebooks.html

"Stop Stealing Sheep" is an excellent typography book: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0201703394

u/okamiueru · 3 pointsr/programming

I get it. I should give the article the benefit of the doubt, like you gave my comment.

The first sentence was an exaggeration, maybe intended to provoke and make you read the rest. I don't blame you for writing off my comment -- there are too many bogus opinions and malformed arguments and conclusions, that not using past experience as a filter would be quite the test of patience, not to mention, a waste of time.

For what it's worth, I did skim ahead and read parts of it, and it seemed to try to convey "common sense" concepts, using conjecture and complicated constructs. It hurts my brain when I try to understand what is meant by "to use up cognitive resources". The more convoluted an explanation is, the less I feel it has been understood by the person explaining it. I have a strong distaste for psychology terms that add depth, but not clarity, as if trying to validate and give authority to the field or explanation.

A bit ironic for an article trying to explain the concept of "minimizing drainage of the cognitive tank" (to paraphrase).

So, what is this article really about? This.

Let me change my reactionary first sentence from "What a stupid article", to "What a waste of time -- anecdotal, conjectural, and even the bogus psychological experiments she references are completely misrepresented".

Thanks.

u/apieceoffruit · 3 pointsr/oculus

This rant is going to be substantially larger than the last one but I Hope i will clarify my point a little better.

Before I go into this, let me set some ground work. Regardless of the field you are in design tends to have a number of tenets and rules.
The most prevalent one in web design for example would be the "three click rule".(It should take no more than three clicks to get from any start to any destination point on a site)

Personally though I believe the rule of "Expectation" supersedes all other UI and UX rules.

Joel on Software explains this much better than I, that article is a fantastic read (and leads-in to reading Don't make me think one of the preeminent books on ui design)
Here is the excerpt I specifically mean:



> One day Pete's friend Gena asks him for some computer help. Now, Gena has a Macintosh iBook, because she loves the translucent boxes. When Pete sits down and tries to use the Macintosh, he quickly gets frustrated. "I hate these things," he says. He is, finally, able to help Gena, but he's grumpy and unhappy. "The Macintosh has such a clunky user interface."

>Clunky? What's he talking about? Everybody knows that the Macintosh has an elegant user interface, right? The very paradigm of ease-of-use?

>Here's my analysis of this mystery.

>On the Macintosh, when you want to move a window, you can grab any edge with the mouse and move it. On Windows, you must grab the title bar. If you try to grab an edge, the window will be reshaped. When Pete was helping Gena, he tried to widen a window by dragging the right edge. Frustratingly, the whole window moved, rather than resizing as he expected.

>On Windows, when a message box pops up, you can hit enter or the space bar to dismiss the message box. On the Mac, space doesn't work. You usually need to click with the mouse. When Pete got alerts, he tried to dismiss them using the space bar, like he's been doing subconsciously for the last six years. The first time, nothing happened. Without even being aware of it, Pete banged the space bar harder, since he thought that the problem must be that the Mac did not register his tapping the space bar. Actually, it did -- but it didn't care! Eventually he used the mouse. Another tiny frustration.

>Pete has also learned to use Alt+F4 to close windows. On the Mac, this actually changes the volume. At one point, Pete wanted to click on the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, which was partially covered by another window. So he hit Alt+F4 to close the window and immediately double-clicked where the icon would have been. The Alt+F4 raised the volume on the computer and didn't close the window, so his double click actually hit the Help button in the toolbar on the window which he wanted closed anyway, which immediately started bringing up a help window, so now, he's got two windows open which he has to close.

>Another small frustration. But, boy, does it add up. At the end of the day, Pete is grumpy and angry. When he tries to control things, they don't respond. The space bar and the Alt+F4 key "don't work" -- for all intents and purposes, it's as if those keys were broken. The window disobeys him when he tries to make it wider, playing a little prank where it just moves over instead of widening. Bad window. Even if the whole thing is subconscious, the subtle feeling of being out of control translates into helplessness, which translates into unhappiness. "I like my computer," Pete says. "I have it all set up so that it works exactly the way I like it. But these Macs are clunky and hard to use. It's an exercise in frustration. If Apple had been working on MacOS all these years instead of messing around with Newtons, their operating system wouldn't be such a mess."

>Right, Pete. We know better. His feelings come despite the fact that the Macintosh really is quite easy to use -- for Mac users. It's totally arbitrary which key you press to close a window. The Microsoft programmers, who were, presumably, copying the Mac interface, probably thought that they were adding a cool new feature by letting you resize windows by dragging any edge. The MacOS 8.0 programmers probably thought they were adding a cool new feature when they let you move windows by dragging any edge.

>Most flame wars you read about user interface issues focus on the wrong thing. Windows is better because it gives you more ways to resize the window. So what? That's missing the point. The point is, does the UI respond to the user in the way in which the user expected it to respond? If it didn't, the user is going to feel helpless and out of control, the same way I felt when the wheels of the dough bathtub didn't turn the way I pushed them, and I bumped into a wall. Bonk.


okay. big excerpt...
The point behind that is , it doesn't matter how clever your UI is if people are not getting the desired and EXPECTED results from the actions they take. If you see the word "File" in the top corner of an application and when you click it it opens a window instead of showing a menu strip....you will be annoyed.


What does this have to do with VR input?



Well, Let's take the xbox controller. If I showed you a game on a screen, one you had never seen before, showing a character in 3d with a third person camera and asked you what the controls are, despite never playing the game you can make a very safe bet that:

  1. the left analogue stick moves the character

  2. the right analogue stick moves the camera

  3. A is either interact or jump

  4. X is either reload or attack

  5. Y is either a menu or change weapon.

  6. B is either grab or a special ability.


    this is the point of expectation. it is bordering on muscle memory. It removes the barrier of entry for a new game. you can sit down and just KNOW how to play it.

    That is an amazing feat. It is a universal standard.

    Now let's take this one step further.

    It is one thing to say we immediately feel comfortable using a game controller but think of it this way,
    we feel TOO comfortable, when you need to turn around and you are holding a controller you instinctively use the right analogue.
    you do not use the oculus or actually look around.

    I have seen this time and time again. watch someone play an oculus game involving a controller and count the frequency of them turning around and looking at things outside of looking 20 degrees either side of their starting position.

    now do the same in a game which has them standing and has no controller. It seems stupidly obvious but if they HAVE to turn to look then they will and they will start associating real world actions of looking and dodging, if you give them any kind of "out" via an established "game" mechanism they will always subconsciously treat it like a game.

    There is one exception to this.

    Framing the reality.

    this is something I have talked about a lot in other posts on this subreddit and still feel it is sadly lacking in most games.
    The best and easiest way to deal with input limitations is to translate that limitation INTO the game and impose it on the characters themselves.

    Alone is one of the few games to have done this well. You can't move from your seat....neither can the character. instant experience buy-in.
    another example is a game i played on steam "Analogue: A Hate Story" In the opening section of this game you are talking to an AI. they ask you to type in a command...
    the ai say's they don't recognize it. there must be something wrong with the command parser, and they guess they will have to try to anticipate what you would like to do
    and provide context options. Bam Dialog wheel. ...but it is NOT a dialog wheel. it is an in-universe workaround to a problem. it is no longer a separate mechanic to interact with the world
    it is an in-world experience.

    this second sidetrack brings me back round to Lunar Lander. A game where you control the lander....with an xbox controller! this is 100% perfectly fine. because it is NOT an xbox controller,
    It is a lander steering device that looks remarkably LIKE an xbox controller.

    THIS is the crux of my point.
    The best User interface....is NO user interface. While that is an almost impossible scenario to reach the next best thing would be a context sensitive absolute minimal user interface. and I mean that with hardware too.

    When games (like most source engine stuff) have a keypad or button you actually press the number on yourself it is 1000 times more immersive than a little popup window with additional interaction options. stay-in world
    and only use ui if it cannot be expressed in-world. even then EXPLAIN it . it can be the hokiest crap in the world but at least say it is a headset, or ocular implant or a hallucination or SOMETHING. ensure the character as well as the player
    is aware of it.





















































u/presidenttrex · 3 pointsr/web_design

Well, I know UI and UX are not interchangable terms, but if you want to build UI's, either get really good at front end design at a smaller shop and design things yourself, OR go into User Experience Design, Interaction Design, or Human Computer Interaction (there's lots of names for things) and work on larger teams.

And they don't actually "do" any one thing on a daily basis. And differences between stakeholder needs, legacy, scope, and testing methods will radically change a project.

But here are some examples of stuff I've done in my first year doing freelance UX work:

  • I interviewed pediatric cancer survivors about their daily web habits and discovered the majority of them use their mobile phones for the bulk of their web browsing. So I wireframed a responsive site with hosted videos and a private comment section for learning about post-remission care and facilitate discussion between patients. I then sent those wireframes off to a front end developer.

  • My cousin's cupcake bakery was getting good traffic from social media (folks on Pinterest love cute cupcakes), but wasn't getting a lot of people actually using their site to order anything. So I organized some "guerilla user testing" offering cupcakes for a couple of minutes of folk's time and found that the online ordering process was poorly documented. I changed some WordPress plugins around on their site, changed the button size and copy on the site to make things more transparent, and checkout cart transactions online went up more than a third.

  • A local museum was in the process of changing their site around, so I helped set up an A/B test using Optimizely to figure out what best drove folks to the membership signup page. I got 50 billable hours out of it and went to a lot of meetings were I had to explain in plain English what I was doing.

    So there's no one thing you'd be doing if you dedicated yourself to UI design. There's elements of project management, front end development, graphic design, behavorial pyschology, and marketing in your toolbox and you just need to figure out what works best with what project.

    As for schools: My degree is in "Interactive Arts and Media" from a local art school, but my boss on the cancer project studied Ancient Roman History and another UX pal I worked with studied Feminist Literature at an Ivy League school. So there's really no "path" per se.

    > I need a structured environment

    Well, this is the bad news... design tends to be a passion for people, which attracts self-starters. This isn't really a framework for what we do because it's not an exact science. So you kind of need to be able to discipline yourself.

    But don't worry! I was like you too, and I figured it out because I have a passion for it.

    My favorite book (and it's a classic) is Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think." I've got like three or four used copies around my house because I loan them out a lot. And if you're close to a big college, they probably have a bunch of used copies for less than $10. But it's a great intro to how people look at interfaces and how folks gets started doing this work, and probably a good starting off point if you think this is for you.
u/fazool · 3 pointsr/UXResearch

I started in market research as well before transitioning to a UX Researcher. These are the standouts from the reading list I started with:

The Elements of User Experience - A great intro to the whole field of UX. In-depth and covers the user centered design process.

Don't Make Me Think Short but comprehensive book on usability.

Handbook of Usability Testing Everything you need to know about usability testing.

Interviewing Users This book is great and is one I go back to regularly. The author Steve Portigal, also has a podcast on user research, "Dollars to Donuts" which is worth checking out.

Another comment mentioned the Jeff Sauro book which is very good, and also the Userfocus blog and newsletter. I've done David Travis' courses as well and would recommend them to people new to the field.

https://www.usability.gov/ is a great resource for templates, methods, definitions etc.

NN/g and UIE are my two most read blogs/newsletters.




u/picklymcpickleface · 3 pointsr/webdev

It's less than $20, a PDF is also easy to find.
If you're going to read any books to learn something about UX, start with this.

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/

u/darwyn4 · 3 pointsr/web_design

that's the name of the book; don't downvote

u/all_or_nothing · 3 pointsr/gamedev

Don't make Me Think is a book I read while in college for interactive media design. If I remember correctly, it focused more on web usability, but the basic concepts hold true for most types of UI design.

As for tools, it would depend on your platform.

u/SpoliatorX · 3 pointsr/ProgrammerHumor

There's a book called Don't Make Me Think which is about usability and is quite good (I think) at teaching the right mindset for a developer. You want your interfaces to be as simple and easy to use as possible, everything else tends to flow from that.

More generally it's about looking at interfaces you like and trying to work out what makes them good. Usually when devs make something there's a tendency to cram everything in, so giving things more space is often a simple-but-effective technique. But yeah, be critical of others' work and try to work out what you can shamelessly steal.

u/PieOverToo · 3 pointsr/web_design

Web design books? Meh. However, I highly recommend books like "The Design of Everyday Things" and "Don't Make Me Think". The latter does take a bit of a web focus, but they aren't your typical how-to book, they're just intended to give you some perspective on ux design (as applied to the web and elsewhere).

u/anomalya · 3 pointsr/webdesign

Designing Interfaces is great, and I find myself coming back to it when I'm stuck on something. I should note, however, that the examples focus primarily on desktop applications. It's not a stretch to apply most of the concepts to web apps, but some of the patterns aren't really applicable. However, I primarily do web work and I still think it's worth getting.

A classic Web usability book that's really easy to get through is Don't Make Me Think. Much of what makes for good web design is common sense, but it's nice to have it reinforced/verified.

If you're interested in site architecture (you should be) or some theory behind decisions behind visual design (particularly regarding heavy information), I'd also recommend The Information Design Workbook. Half of it is theory and the other half is examples and case studies. It also has some really nice guidelines for working with clients, such as "What is a design brief? Why do I need it? What should be included in it?"

Designing for Interaction is alright... The interviews in it are interesting, but the subject matter is pretty basic. That being said, it is a good primer. I'd definitely pick Designing Interfaces over this, though, if you're choosing between them.

I've heard good things about Designing Web Interfaces, but I haven't read it myself, so... I can't personally recommend it. (O'Reilly generally has pretty high standards, though, so it's probably a safe bet.)

I'd second useit.com and smashing, but sometimes, nothing beats books.

(If you're interested in getting more into the psychology of it, or are interested in a specific topic regarding UI/UX, let me know, as I have more recommendations... I just don't know what you're interested in.)

u/hagbardgroup · 3 pointsr/gamedev

It's fun, although unconventional. People may have trouble navigating your site because of the layout. The movement of all the site elements also has my eyes bouncing up and around as I scroll through the page. Is it critical that those navigational elements scroll with the visitor?

The design you have to display work progress is clever ( I would love this if I were a backer), but I'm not sure it works in the scrolling format you have now.

An image of a face will draw the attention of visitors to what you want them to do. Right now, my attention gets drawn to the bouncing navigation bar, which fights with the video for attention through movement.

I think what you want the visitor to do is play the demo and then become a backer based on their enjoyment of that. Is that correct? The cute three liner of features does not convert me into a demo downloader. The other box of features gets me a little closer, but I'm still confused as to what your game actually is. The video makes it look like HOMM with more units.

I would think hard about what you want the person to do and then design it around that. You want to guide the visitor down a path that leads them to the single action that you want them to make. Once they go down that path, then they can explore the other site content (like the bestiary and so on).

Here's my take:

Good

  • Art style. Games should be fun. This is a fun page.
  • Font. Makes me think of old-school print ads for games that used to be in comic books.
  • The icons are fantastic in terms of the art.
  • Title. Makes me think of a children's book; reminiscent of a Roald Dahl title. I hope it's intended for children, maybe 10-14 -- am I off base?

    'Needs Improvement'

  • Font colors are not appropriate for the background. High contrast text is easier to read. I'm OK with the bolds being differently colored, but a designer might disagree.
  • Iconography is not labeled, and you must mouseover to learn what it means. If I am landing on this page from somewhere else, it's confusing.
  • The copy is too heavy on features and not enough on the benefits. Few people buy things based on features. They buy things based on what the features will do for them.
  • There is no hierarchy to the icons on the navigation bar. See 'suggested reading' for more on why this is an issue.
  • Center orientation is unconventional, but I can live with that because I'm a fan of columns and think more websites need to use them to improve readability.

    Suggested Reading

    Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

    This is an industry standard book on web design that is still applicable today and is well-regarded.

    If you believe that your current design is strong, do a coffee shop usability test where you take a laptop and buy coffee for random people, ask them to accomplish one of your site objectives, give them a short survey, and watch how they do without providing them with any assistance.
u/HeartyBeast · 3 pointsr/webdev

I’ve got an old copy of Don’t Make Me Think that features lists of screenshots of websites from the turn of the millennium. It’s remarkably interesting

u/hairyseaword · 2 pointsr/web_design

while nothing to do with coding like the others this is just equally important...usability, after all, what's the point of a site people cant use. Anyways a lot of common sense stuff but it's a quick read and very informative.

u/mrjinpengyou · 2 pointsr/webdev

Ok so by reading the about section I understand the intent but I'm not sure how it's an improvement over my address bar in my browser.

I don't want to sound like a jerk. I just want to challenge your idea and if you are serious in any way about this project you'll have answers for this, I'm just curious what they are. Maybe the answer is as simple as "it's a personal challenge" or "I think I can do better than Google or Yahoo/Mozilla for this". And don't get me wrong they are all valid reasons.

Here's my honest (and hopefully constructive) feedback: if you're trying to help the user by limiting the input without explaining what's going on: you're making me think. Obviously you're trying to fix a user experience problem (bookmarks are good for specific content but what if I want to quickly access a website in general) so I'd consider hiring a UX expert.

A common advice in the UX world is: if users keep hitting a wall maybe you should put a door there.

u/cannonpult · 2 pointsr/Entrepreneur

The copy needs some work.
The design, especially visual/aesthetic needs help too.

The main issue I see with the site is there's no order, rhyme or reason as to why it's laid out the way it is. To wit, any benefit is defeated by making me work for it.

It's effectively just taking the products mentioned on reddit and dumping them into an external page. Reddit's value in this case shouldn't be that something was merely mentioned, it's that it was upvoted and advocated for. That's what you need to show.

example: I search for smartphones and your site returns a ranked list based off of upvotes. You can included curated, worthwhile comments.

Just seeing every phone that's ever been mentioned on reddit or forcing me to read the comments to determine what a few people's opinions were does not add value.

u/axvk · 2 pointsr/webdev

Not annoying. It's a good question. Every icon has three states, default, hover, and active. The importance of these states is to give feedback to the user. There is a book called Don't make me think and it explains that the user should be able to navigate a site without thinking. This is done by meeting user expectations.

When a user hovers over a button it should react in some way to inform the user that it is indeed a button and they can click it. When a user clicks the button it should again react so that the user doesn't have to think about weather their click worked.

The button does turn your mouse into a pointer on hover, but that is not the expected reaction. The mouse should stay the way it is and the button should change. That is what all users have come to expect.

Some possible ways to achieve this.

  • Change the button color on hover then change it to a different color or back to the first color on click.
  • Change the opacity to something like .7 by default, .9 on hover, 1 on click.
  • Make the button get bigger or smaller on hover then change again on click. (This one is complicated because you have to make sure the other buttons don't move if they're float left or display inline.)

    They are many more options like adding borders, shadows, etc. Pretty much anything that css has to offer.
u/_Turul_ · 2 pointsr/graphic_design

This PDF will give you a pretty basic understanding of print design, and creating a portfolio, and it's free!
http://www.portfoliohandbook.com/PortfolioHandbook_UCID12.pdf


i've grabbed a stack off my shelf, i'll list a few here

[Thinking with type] (http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695) (Typography)

[Layout Workbook] (http://www.amazon.com/Layout-Workbook-Real-World-Building-Graphic/dp/1592533523/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374116370&sr=1-1&keywords=layout+workbook+a+real-world+guide+to+building+pages+in+graphic+design) (Typography & Page Layouts)

[Production for Graphic Designers] (http://www.amazon.com/Layout-Workbook-Real-World-Building-Graphic/dp/1592533523/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374116370&sr=1-1&keywords=layout+workbook+a+real-world+guide+to+building+pages+in+graphic+design)
(This one is more technical, Printing, Final Art Production, Etc.)

[Designing with Type] (http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Type-5th-Essential-Typography/dp/0823014134/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374116474&sr=1-1&keywords=designing+with+type) (Typography)

[Type & Image] (http://www.amazon.com/Type-Image-Language-Graphic-Design/dp/0471284920/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374116510&sr=1-1&keywords=type+and+image) (Combining Typography & Imagery)

[Color & Type for the Screen] (http://www.amazon.com/Color-Type-Screen-CD-ROM-Digital/dp/2880463297/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374116649&sr=1-1&keywords=color+and+type+for+the+screen) (Web Typography)

[The Element of User Experience] (http://www.amazon.com/Elements-User-Experience-User-Centered-Design/dp/0321683684/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374116686&sr=1-1&keywords=elements+of+user+experience+by+jesse+garrett) (User Experience/Web Design)

[Don't Make Me Think] (http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374116719&sr=1-1&keywords=dont+make+me+think) (User Experience/Web Design)

There are also a ton of threads here on Reddit about Design books alone, and there is still the rest of the internet!
These are most of the books I got from my first two years at well respected design program, some are more helpful than others. But it doesn't hurt to read!

Also if you really want to give this a shot, work your ass off! Know that there is someone out there that is willing to (and probably is) working harder at it than you! Design is just like any other field of business, you gotta put in the work to get what you want.

u/nildram · 2 pointsr/Bitcoin

So, again, really cool service. The chrome extension sounds ingenious.

That said, here was my experience:

  1. I figured, "let's try this out, I'm sure there's a book I want to buy"
  2. I wanted to buy this book: http://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758. I'm in Canada. Didn't see any indication that that's a problem on your site. The book is 26 CAD, cool.
  3. Run through your system, enter all the information, get to the bitpay button... "you want .44 btc?" That doesn't sound right.
  4. OIC, you're charging me the 42 CAD list price, not the discount, which is 37% off.

    I assume this is either a bug, or just the best you can do according to whatever arrangement (or lack thereof) that you have with Amazon.

    Naturally it's a deal breaker though, and it makes me hesitant to try again with another book.

    I'd be less hesitant if your form saved my data on refresh, but it doesn't.

    Still thinks its a killer idea once it's refined.
u/Just_Another_Thought · 2 pointsr/web_design

Don't make me think - The seminal book on web usability

The definitive guide to HTML5 - Great book to cement your current knowledge of HTML,CSS,and jscript while preparing you for more advanced concepts.

White space is not your enemy - I think this is the book every non designer should start with. It's the best introduction to the art of expressing through visual communication and introduces concepts that you'll start tweaking on your own as your repertoire and skill grows. It also introduces some valuable habits necessary of all designers.

Naturally these are just the books I would reccomend. I would also supplement them with up to date standards like Opera Web Standards Curriculm and active javascript practice that sites such as Codeacademy offer.

EDIT: Apparently, Opera's updated it's standard and donated them to W3

u/SnOrfys · 2 pointsr/videos

It took time for me to get used to the mouse 15-20 years ago as well... but now, I can't imagine going back to console-only.



Likewise, I've been using the Win8 preview for a couple of months (since it was first released on the MSDN) and it was a shame that it had no tutorials or tips or anything like there was with Win7... but once I figured things out, it's pretty efficient for working.

A lot of people seem to be complaining under the guise of "usability", even those who appear to be educated or informed on the topic. There is a concept that some people seem to be confusing though. Usability for a website (a-la the classic, and still relevant, Don't Make Me Think ) is not the same as usability for an OS.

  • It's not imperative that people know everything about your OS in <1s.
  • Yes, a keyboard shortcut you used to use is different. That's ok.
  • Yes, the shutdown button has been moved. You'll be alright.
  • alt+tab is different from win+tab? Oh noes.
  • etc.

    The valid complaint that I've actually heard from anyone who's used it for longer than few days is that there's no tutorial or guide for new/changed things. IIRC, there will be in RTM. Bitching about the pre-release apps (many of which were written by interns - good jobs on their part, but they're by no means production quality, release-day apps) says nothing about the OS itself.

    Like I said: I've used it for a couple of months now (didn't install the RC yet - still on the original preview that now has the disabled store) and I can honestly say that I find little change in my work habits, and I enjoy some of the new features (share charm mostly). It's basically Win7 with a huge start menu.
u/bishopanonymous · 2 pointsr/userexperience
  1. Read everything you can. Lean/Agile methodology books. Don't Make me think. Any and all articles you can find online. The Neilsen Norman Group. There are a ton of half truths and BS floating around the industry, so when you really know every side of the argument that is being discussed, you will impress people. "Well i know people used to say 5 users is the magic number, but I'm much more interested in Jared Spool's ideology that a team needs to be talking to 5 users every sprint". Which reminds me - I use twitter just for professional uses and it helps me get a pulse on what my professional colleagues are thinking and doing. I highly recommend this. I can throw out some good accounts if you are interested.

  2. Do you mean is it easy to break in to the industry? I managed to get an internship at a start-up here in the midwest with a degree in philosophy. Your post makes it appear that you are hungry to learn and interested in the field. That should come out in any interviews.

  3. In my experience, UX practitioners have a very wide range of backgrounds. Yes, if you have an HCI degree, you're going to get an easy job and a great salary. I think you have more than a good chance of breaking in. Knowing the little we do about you, I would say it might be a boon to you if you lean on your technical/mathematics background and focus on learning how to create/run/synthesize good user tests and research. I may be saying that because that's what I want to do.

    PLEASE take everything I've said as being directed towards a UX field. If you are looking more into UI design, you may need some additional training/schooling.
u/Swordsmanus · 2 pointsr/rpg

The character sheet is much like a website home page or phone/game interface, so you may want to do a usability test.

Print it out and make a mock character with it. Fill out different parts, see how easy/hard it is to enter representative values. See how easy/hard it is to find what you're looking for.

If you're happy with it, then have someone else run through it. Ask them to look up different features and see how long it takes them. It shouldn't take more than 1-2 seconds for them to find anything they're looking for.

You can find more on the topic of usability tests and interface design in Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think.

u/bleedcmyk · 2 pointsr/graphic_design

This is what many of the cool kids (and your new competition) are doing:

​

u/anonoben · 2 pointsr/freelance

Not all web dev work is making websites from scratch. Plenty of companies have websites already that they would like to add functionality to.

If you do have clients that want you to handle design you can subcontract without cutting into your costs too much. Designer hours are cheaper than programmer hours. If you really want to do it yourself, I'd recommend Don't Make Me Think for usability and The principles of Beautiful Web Design for making it pretty.

Other suggestions here are good. Use bootstrap and Kuler.

Don't learn flash.

u/wwb_99 · 2 pointsr/dotnet

Read http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

As suggested, modern UI frameworks really help -- it is harder to make something shitty in bootstrap than it is to make something OK looking.

Probably the biggest piece of advice I've got is to not overextend yourself here. Focus on making something that is usable that doesn't look horrible. Don't break new design ground if you ain't got it in you, that gets some real WTFs.

u/konkeydong · 2 pointsr/web_design

I've liked this book. It is from 2005 but many of the principles are still relevant.

u/AnonJian · 2 pointsr/web_design

TL;DR is cute. It doesn't play well if you're talking basic marketing or UX design or business survival.

The OP's topic touches on a wide swath of issues. Let us start with one of the major fallacies of personas. Posit: Do people think this? At 69,200 results, I would say yes ... a whopping lot. Persona Non Grata explains the problem...

>The main cause of this mess is that half of the personas out there are entirely made up, with no user research to back them. In most cases, no one on the design team has talked directly to users to find out who they are, so designers come up with an idea of a user type. The resulting personas are like the designer’s imaginary friends.

Imaginary friends. Or Cooper's elastic user. Same difference.

An introduction to personas and how to create them if you thought what I wrote was long, don't bother clicking.

Finally Reconciling market segments and personas brings this full circle to the OP's situation.

But wait, there's more to it. The OP touches on the basic problem: Designers think their designs work. Web galleries think the designs they feature work -- the whole vapid trendoid lot of 'em (see ...now that's opinion). Basic aesthetics transcends ...well pretty much everything, including segmentation and demographics.

Why Your Site Doesn't Need to be Pretty puts this proposition to the A/B split run test. Pretty loses.

Just adequately addressing the introductory basis for discussion of these issues could take another ten articles. Try to boil it down for people, they accuse you of just spouting opinions. TL;DR doesn't help ... but it does bolster my argument about how people also misinterpret what Krug wrote.


u/idny99 · 2 pointsr/userexperience

Great that you've been reading Psychology, good start. Here's a few resources that might help. These are in order as I'm not sure what stage you are at in terms of research/learning.

16 Must-Read Articles for the UX Newbie

Springboard UX

Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

Collection of Free eBook by UXPin

u/Hobogamer · 2 pointsr/web_design

Read the book "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

u/akie · 2 pointsr/webdev

"Too many clicks, gotcha"?? That's not really what he was saying...

In any case, a good read on the subject of (web) usability (or, generally, any piece of software), is Steve Krug's "Don't make me think". Do yourself and your employer a favor, and order 5 copies for you, your colleagues, your manager, ....

The reason I'm saying that, is that reading this book introduces you to a new mindset on how to look at issues like this. If you introduce your colleagues to that same mindset at the same time, you might be able to start building better software that is easier to use. It's really not that difficult once you start thinking about it, but you first have to start thinking about it, which is why you should get this book ;-)

u/50missioncap · 2 pointsr/web_design

I'd pick up a copy of Don't Make Me Think. It's not about design per se, but if you want to work on interfaces it's important to learn about usability.

u/Darkhack · 2 pointsr/software

Don't Make Me Think is a popular book on usability that I often see cited.

Joel Spolsky from Joel on Software also wrote a book, User Interface Design for Programmers

u/jaydeekay · 2 pointsr/web_design

If this is truly a web design class, you should cover the html box model in general, so the design students can understand the implications of making a design that's intended for web. What I really mean is that everything on the web is essentially a rectangle. Design with that in mind and you will save your developer a lot of headaches. Maybe study the layouts of some popular sites to illustrate concepts of web usability and good layouts.

User interface design is the really difficult part of web design, so you should consider trying to lend some time to that side of things. Here is a book that I've heard rave reviews about, although I haven't read it directly.

u/MadameInternet · 2 pointsr/casualiama

That's a very logical reason to learn Java and C.

My motivation actually started with web design, I always thought the internet was shit and I wanted to make it a more attractive and navigable place. That led to learning how the back end of those internets worked, and at the same time I really got into early FPS and thus learned a bunch about servers.

How I got to that point sounds very cliche but experimentation, and trial and error. Spoiler alert: if you write something, and it just works the first time, something is fucking broken I swear to you. Design should always be in your mind if you are designing something with an end user. If you'd like a very good resource for changing the way you think about usability I suggest the book Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug. Here's a free iOS sketch template.

Hands down in my opinion the best way to deal with thinking about design inherently is to draw that shit. You don't have to be good at drawing, but you know what you want it to look like in your head, just mock it up a little bit. I might also suggest mocking up your idea a bit in HTML5/jQuery if you could, just to get a nice process flow going.

Sorry if that was kind of ranty, I could wax poetic for days just answering the questions of user experience.

Waffles duhhh, specifically Belgian.

u/tapper101 · 2 pointsr/graphic_design

I think it's more common to go from web design to UI/UX, it's a natural transition. There's a lot you can learn from web design that applies to UI UX.

As far as straight up knowledge goes:

Nielsen Norman

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Material Design

Smashing Magazine

As far as practice goes I'm currently doing something that has helped me immensively lately. I'm copying an app or web site UI that I like every day in Figma, but you can use any design software - like Sketch, XD, Photoshop, etc. And then at least once a week, I make something original with the knowledge I've gained from the practice.

u/isogram · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

First of all, read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

It may be old in internet years, but it's still very relevant and one of the best books when it comes to understanding how to create a user-friendly website.

There's definitely a lot more to creating solid website and to be honest, this might be a bit ambitious if you've never been involved in creating a website before. Don't let that stop you from trying though.

u/ImagineMonkey · 1 pointr/web_design

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition - This should be required reading for anyone interested in web design. Just... the basics.

u/getcape-wearcape-fly · 1 pointr/graphic_design

Thanks! One of my friends told me I need to read up on typography as well. He recommended me reading THIS and also THIS before I even start college to get a better understanding of it all. Regarding HTML and CSS, hopefully we'll learn that during the Web design I, II and III during the course. Otherwise I know a college in town where you can get a Web Design diploma (2 evening classes per week) in just two months and that is basically ONLY html, css and dreamweaver. It's dirt cheap to do as well so I might do that if I dont get enough html/css experience from college.

u/i2rohan · 1 pointr/design_critiques

Hi. Great looking site. I really don't have too much to say on the design front, since I'm not really a designer.But here are few things I noticed as a user:



  1. As a user, I'd like to know what is your site from the moment I'm on it. I really don't want you to make me think. I shouldn't have to click 2 times ( homepage->shop or homepage->picture) to know that its a e-commerce site and that you are selling handbags.


  2. The shop button in the navigation bar doesn't throw up any drop down menu or any information about what store I'm entering. Again, as a shopper would you just enter a store without even knowing they sold?




  3. The picture on your homepage- the lady in blue holding a bag, doesn't really give the idea that you want me, as a customer to focus on the clutch. I frankly thought the focus was on the blue dress the lady was wearing until I clicked on it.





    I'd recommend you check out this book, Don't make me think by Steve Krug. Some of the advice might be really outdated now. But generally they are solid pointers to really build a great website.



    All the best and keep us posted!

    Edit: formatting,etc

    Edit2: Another point if I may add, you might want to move the "Free Shipping for all orders" text to somewhere below the shopping cart symbol. The space next to your logo could instead be used to mention something about your brand/your slogan,etc
u/Capolan · 1 pointr/AskReddit

you could start with dreamweaver, but its not free and you'll have to learn it - however knowledge of it pays off. But there are alternatives...

beginner HTML - check out kompozer - http://kompozer.net/ this will let you get away with not learning anything...

more advanced? - lot of my developers use HTML-KIT http://www.htmlkit.com/

In the agencies I've been in - no one uses Dreamweaver, they're all in things like HTML-kit (which is really popular it seems) and some were using plugins for ECLIPSE.

CSS - without question. start here: http://www.csszengarden.com/
Read this book if you can: http://www.amazon.com/Transcending-CSS-Fine-Art-Design/dp/0321410971/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255578225&sr=8-2

avoid tables at all costs unless you have data that actually needs to be in table form..but don't style with them.

Read this book if you can: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255578275&sr=1-1

as far as flash goes, its a fantastic thing to know. are you into code? if so learn AS3 - its where all flash is going. If you want easier flash to learn, the "timeline based" standard flash would suit you well.

Also - check out javascript animation - things like JQUERY make stuff possible that looks like flash, but isn't. very cool.

and if you don't want to do any of this - just go get a template somewhere ( http://www.templatemonster.com/ ) and fill it in. get some photos from istock and poof - Mcwebsite. slap some google analytics code into the site and you now have tracking for your Mcwebsite.





My experience? - I produced quite a few large company websites (+$80,000.00 sites), and have worked with and hired designers and developers many times. I personally don't do any of the things they do, but I know what tools they choose to use in professional situations.

u/ijurachi · 1 pointr/web_design

Not trying to be condescending but what you have is just random stuff thrown in on a page without any thought. Just for starters, try reading up on design process (pertaining to graphic design), color theory, typography, grid system, UI. Being able to write a few lines of HTML doesn't make anyone a web designer any more than buying an SLR makes you a professional photographer.

If you are indeed serious about venturing into web design, read the book Don't make me Think.

u/loudin · 1 pointr/startups

The simplicity is nice. I think you could use some more work on the "profile" page. It's very useful to have everything there, but the visual hierarchy of the page is off. And it's difficult to figure out where to click / how things are structured. Read the book "Don't Make Me Think" if you haven't - it has been so helpful over the years (http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758).

Your site is wicked fast. What's your stack and who's hosting your code?

What's the aim of creating this app and how do you plan on developing it in the future?

u/Poloniculmov · 1 pointr/Romania

La design nu pot sa zic ca ma pricep prea tare, dar domeniul ma preocupa din ce in ce mai mult. Thinking with type si The Elements of Typographic Style, The Design of Everyday Things, Grid Systems in Graphic Design, Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop si Don't Make Me Think sunt cartile care mi-au placut/din care am invatat cel mai mult, dar sunt clasice asa ca banuiesc ca stii de ele.

u/vuxanov · 1 pointr/design_critiques
u/frankchester · 1 pointr/web_design

Definitely looking better. I still think you need to cut the word count, especially on the services page.

One of the first things my web design theory lecturer taught me was: no one will ever read your website. That's really hard to hear because you want everyone to know what you're trying to get across. But look at a lot of the big .com businesses and they use so few words, or they break them up. For a site like yours, selling services, people are just too lazy to read.

I'd cut your services word count in half. It's tough but possible. Use big headers for each section, one short sentence and then some bullet points or something.

I recommend reading 'Don't Make Me Think' - it's a great book that explains this sort of stuff. It looks at the usability aspects of sites and you can apply that knowledge to any type of company site. It's really short and easy to read and probably one of the best web architecture books I've read.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334241134&sr=8-1


u/Chris_Misterek · 1 pointr/webdev

I like the mix of design and dev. In the position I have one week I’ll be designing a site or interviewing users and the next I’ll be developing a plugin for WordPress.

So, yes technically they’re exclusive but there are positions where you do both.

I started in https://codecademy.com did html/css, JS and PHP.

Then I started freelancing in my spare time building websites right after I learned the basics. That helped me a learn a ton that I probably wouldn’t have been motivated to learn on my own.

Then I was able to use the portfolio I’d built as a freelancer and land a the position I have now.

Now instead of freelancing in my spare time I help people try to take the same path I did.

UX is great to look into as well.

Here’s a few resources I’d suggest:

u/cryptalt · 1 pointr/safex

I agree.

  1. branding doesn't seem professional. Seems more like a mirror of the piratebay than a decentralized currency. The pirate theme has overtones of illegitimacy and illegality which are already inferred in the domain of exchanges and don't need further emphasis.

  2. Simplify the value proposition. In 10 words or less, why do I need safex?

  3. Clarify the use cases and provide examples.

  4. Roadmap is buried near the bottom. Should have link to roadmap on top and or bottom of site.

  5. Clarify which use cases can be done today with safex and what features are in progress.

    There's a race towards decentralized exchanges, especially for crypto currencies where ownership of your own keys and assets is essential for security. If safex doesn't do a more effective job at both communicating its value proposition and delivering features, other projects will gain an entranched foothold in the space (e.g. waves, block, bitshares).

    https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758
u/tehvlad · 1 pointr/web_design

Ok, try to get this book and you both read it. http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377291372&sr=8-1&keywords=dont+let+me+think


This can be what you need, trust me, i got into arguments in a very similar way with developers and designers, and this has solved soo many arguments that its insane. Its a very easy lecture and helps lots.


Have fun.

u/the_omega99 · 1 pointr/learnprogramming
u/alxfa · 1 pointr/UI_Design

Books for some in-depth learning:
Don't make me think - https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758
Designing Interfaces - http://designinginterfaces.com/

UX Pin also provides easy-to-read primers on many UI and UX-related subjects:
https://www.uxpin.com/studio/ebooks/

Articles:
https://sidebar.io/
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/

There are of course tons of more resources out there, but those (along with the other suggestions in here) might be a good start.

u/sylvan · 1 pointr/programming

I can't recommend anything offhand, but I'm there's bound to be books aimed at someone in your position: coders who have to produce decent web/web application interfaces.

Robin Williams' (no, not the actor) books like her Non-Designer's Design Book are good introductions to basic principles of layout.

Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability and Krug's Don't Make Me Think cover principles of good interface design. This looks promising too: Designing The Obvious.

u/mfung1 · 1 pointr/web_design

From your link, I'm guessing you're looking for aesthetics. The main idea is to think about how paper based content is layed out. Structure, hierarchy and usability heurisitcs will in turn make your sites look better.

Colours, fonts and the like are subjective; but you can't beat content which has great usability.

My course book for Web development was Web Design: A complete introduction, the technology it mentions is somewhat outdated but the design principles hold up well I found (2006).

Here's a list of books for web design by Creative Bloq:

http://www.creativebloq.com/inspiration/books-web-designers-11122782

My personal favourite:
Content Management:
http://www.amazon.com/Content-Strategy-Voices-That-Matter/dp/0321808304/ref=sr_1_1?tag=georiot-cbq-20&ie=UTF8&qid=1352287559&sr=8-1%3fie%3dUTF8&ascsubtag=hawk-884446355-21

Usability:
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/?tag=georiot-cbq-20&ie=UTF8&ascsubtag=hawk-318142612-21








u/JohnReedForPresident · 1 pointr/rust

\> "The thing which might be getting in the way is your attitude."

​

I have a big ege and also ADHD. See: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXcr3tdUCbQaZGyjf0Bp9E6gj2pWxLrVw

​

If you hire me, you also get my ego and my ADHD (mental health related) because those things are part of me.

​

\> "but if it does, when you leave out an impression of very annoying type of beginner/junior who probably gonna be resistant to learning anything."

​

I am annoying (I got it from my mother). I like attention. That being said, I can learn a lot really fast.

​

See: https://twitter.com/JohnReedForPres/status/1107447298043375616

​

Because of my attention span, I can hyper-focus on things that I am interested in and cram really fast. I don't really consider myself junior at say Bank of America because I wrote and provided the setup instructions, tutorials, educational resources, and even the plan for a new microservice, and people maybe 15 years my senior followed what I layed out. Because of my obsessive cramming of technical information, I can become a subject matter expert. I can also write a lot of code very very fast. For example, in college, I wrote maybe 15,000 lines of Java code in a 7 day (168 hour period) in coordination with a friend who added (I dunno 7k lines of code). I did the backend and he did the frontend.

​

\> "who probably gonna be resistant to learning anything."

​

Because of my ADHD, I don't listen to verbal commands well, but I do accept reasoning in written and textual formats. For example, I communicate better over text than spoken word, and I can text super fast on my phone. My texting is as fast as my computer typing, and I also take email, Tweets, and other form of text-based communication.

​

\> "I think this highlights it in particular. Provided it showed up in somewhat generally condescending context. It appears that instead of thinking that there is a reason for it, you write it off as something stupid."

​

I don't mean that the fact that people want braindead simple stuff is stupid. I think that is great. I think that most people are unintelligent relative to me, and also technologically inept, and so the design has to be made with that in account. "Don't make me think!".

u/spays_marine · 1 pointr/webdev

Looks much better already!

Some small things I'd tweak a bit:

- The vote icons could use some more contrast, chrome dev tools has a function that allows you to check this

- These vote icons have the same shape as the number of votes, it should be more obvious that these have a different function. Don't think about form first, think about function, as your visitors will not look at this and go "oh those 3 things fit well together!", instead, they'll go "hm, those seem like vote buttons, but the number also looks like a button, I wonder what that does..". Don't make me think.

- Similar story for the button that leads to the comments, it's only obvious that it is a button to the comments when there are no comments. Nuff said!

- Adding u/ and c/ was a good step, but I wonder whether the background colors aren't a bit much. They still draw your attention away from the title. I would just drop the colors all-together maybe.

- Above these two colored labels, you have a guiding text about the time of the post, but, it's only relevant to one of the labels.

For visual simplicity and readability, you could try to turn it into a sentence:

u/Dunky post in c/Wetenschap om 14u

Suggestion for the comment icon ambiguity:

u/Dunky post in c/Wetenschap om 14u | 28 comments

And then you can move that hamburger icon to the location of the comment icon perhaps.

u/Mathias_Mouse · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

I'm so glad you brought up that book. It's recommded by Mike Bostock too. The guy who did this. Amazing stuff. His source code is outstanding too.
https://d3js.org/

While we're at it, might as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

Any any resource you'd recommend, since you seem like you know what you're doing. I want to get even BETTER with giving users a better experience. No one should use bad software.

u/shaneknysh · 1 pointr/web_design

It's old but still valuable
https://www.amazon.ca/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

A book apart library
https://abookapart.com/

Smashing Magazine books
https://shop.smashingmagazine.com/collections/design

Rosenfeld Media
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/

for implementation stuff I'd start with Smacss
https://smacss.com/

u/omparay · 1 pointr/swift

Hi Jaspar,

Note the following:

  1. Is your app doing something that differentiates itself from the other apps that perform similar functions:
    1. Is your app limited to a subset of functions that other apps are already providing?
    2. Is it providing the exact same functions as other apps or does it do something unique that distinguishes itself?
    3. Is it providing a function that nobody else has thought of to do in a particular way?
  2. Is your app presenting information succinctly:
    1. Is it easy to figure out from a glance and without reading any instructions?
    2. Does it require people to have any experience with other similar apps?
      1. I myself know a lot about programming but I know nothing with regards to Elo (I had to look it up). Only after I had read about Elo did I finally start relating to some of your screenshots and the description of your app. THAT is a problem. Your app should present enough to get me by without me having to look up how something is supposed to work.
    3. There is a book called "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug. Read and understand it. https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758
  3. Did you take the time to build this app or are you rushing?
    1. Are you doing this to make a quick buck for yourself??? If so then you are thinking this through wrong... you should do this because its fun for you and you are ok with days, weeks, months maybe even years of pain before you get any kind of financial reward.
      1. Your immediate reward is the "coolness" of making something that makes you feel proud of yourself.
    2. For every "Yes" on your app was there at least several "No"? Did you reflect before doing something? On wether or not its been done before, and wether or not you were doing something new and exciting?
    3. Did you ask other peoples advice? Not just other developers or programmers but actual people who love music and who will eventually be the users of your app?
u/madhavsaxena · 1 pointr/web_design

Just my opinon (based on how I got to a point where I became marketable, obviously we all learn differently), but grids, aesthetics, ui/ux, etc. are the things that I would be focusing on right now.

If you can master all technical aspects of the field, you can grasp the marketing/sales side of things fairly easily imo.

To directly answer your question though, I've heard good things about this series: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steven Krug

u/coolsage · 1 pointr/web_design

I think everyone who does anything on the web should have a copy of Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug.

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is a nice overview of how to make useful and aesthetically pleasing websites for those without a design background (like myself).

Design for the Real World by Victor Papanek gets really deep into the subject of design and how it impacts society.

There are a lot more out there, but these are the ones off the top of my head that I found especially helpful.

u/CodingDojo · 1 pointr/web_design

For UX:

'Don't Make Me Think' by Steve Krug. --> This is a great book for UX and design fundamentals

Link to purchase
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321344758/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=33857011795&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5285549020583777492&hvpone=22.79&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_9tu6h5g71k_b

For Graphic Design Fundamentals:
'Creative Workshop - 80 Challenges to Sharpen Your Design Skills'

Link to purchase
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Workshop-Challenges-Sharpen-Design/dp/1600617972

For Design as a whole!
'The Design of Everyday Things'

Link to purchase:
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107

The UX book and Design as a whole books are shorter and will be quick to complete. However, the graphic design book will be quite challenging, especially if you aren't familiar with Adobe CS. But I assure you that you will be a much stronger designer afterwards. (When I first started off doing graphic design, I wish I had this book to give me projects to work on)

Overall, expect to spend ~$40 on all this, but these would be a great place to start I think. 1 month time to finish reading the books, and 3 months to finish all the graphic projects.

Hope this helps, good luck!

  • Stephen, Student Advisor @ CodingDojo, a 12-week bootcamp for aspiring web developers in Seattle & SF (more info at http://codingdojo.com/l/info/r ).
u/nut854 · 1 pointr/Design

Peter Morville's polar bear book is considered the original IA bible by many in the field and possibly how Information Architecture got it's name. I'd recommend having a commanding knowledge of the fundamentals in this book before doing much else.

Don't make me think is also widely refereed to in web design that focuses on IA and web usability. We commonly photocopy pages from this book and give them to clients who don't have a clue about the field.

Lastly, if at all possible, try going to next year's IA Summit. The people you will meet there and the ideas you will learn will be very valuable.

u/AlSweigart · 1 pointr/learnprogramming

The UI is the largest performance bottleneck in software. Who cares if you can shave a few milliseconds off your algorithm when the user has to spend 20 minutes googling for how to set up a certain feature?

A couple good (and short) books on this topic are Joel Spolsky's User Interface Design for Programmers and Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think

It's not about making the UI pretty to look at, it's about how easy and obvious it is to use.

u/Lurk_No_More · 1 pointr/vmware

Thanks. I appreciate that. I find the vmware site to be a behemoth. The designers could benefit from reading Don't Make Me Think.

Or maybe it's just me.

u/adamccc · 1 pointr/askmeaboutmyjob

I'd start by reading the bible ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314175129&sr=8-1 ) if you havn't already. Even the second edition is getting a bit old now but the lessons in it will always be true.

With ios development, things are a bit easier in terms of UI. Mainly because of the touch gestures (touch what you want, pinch to zoom etc.) but I think the thing to make sure about is clear navigation. Whether your making a game, information or utility app; getting to where you want quickly is key with iphone users.

u/DorkRawk · 1 pointr/compsci

Don't buy books on PHP, JS, or HTML. There are TONS of great references online. From that group of technologies it sounds like you're doing web development. Along with some of the excellent computer science books other people have recommended you should pick up some HCI stuff. Thinking about design is not just for designers any more. I suggest starting out with Don't Make Me Think: http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758 It's a quick, kind of fun read.

u/zurtri · 1 pointr/web_design

Royal blue is a good colour to start with. Also have lots of white space. The white space guides the eye.

I am sure that the engineers are smart enough to understand web design. I have no doubt of that.

Can I suggest the book "Don't make Me Think' as a good start? http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758

Feel free to PM me the result for critical review by an reasonable web dev.

Cheers!

u/GeneticAlliance · 1 pointr/web_design

First, check out Don't Make Me Think! by Steve Krug. It's an easy read and invaluable.

If you really like that approach then you should think about going into Interaction Design (aka usability, user-centered design, UX design, information architecture, etc.). I've been doing it for about 11 years and have only recently gotten into coding. Usually I produce wireframes and specs for the coders, do user research, and conduct usability tests. There nothing quite like watching someone trying to use your design and doing something completely different from what you expected.

I haven't kept up with some of the latest books out there, but some of my formative ones are:

u/markman1231 · 1 pointr/vancouver

Zzzzzzzzzzzz. I totally disagree.

Most of the programs offered by schools are years behind in terms of technology and standard practices. Honest to god, watch YouTube videos -- not because it's free, but because the information is of much higher quality, it's more recent and relevant, and the speakers will teach you how to use the best tools and practices.

No one values a degree anymore. They want proof of your experience and to see how diverse and detailed is your thinking. The best way to do that is put together a portfolio, jump into the first agency role that accepts you, and then you'll get real-life experience working on 40-50 projects per year. You'll quickly learn how the real world works and use that experience and feedback to sharpen your axe.

NOTHING beats Real-life experience.

And honestly start here.

u/thegad · 0 pointsr/web_design

Visually impressive, but from a UX perspective it's a bit much. My first thought: "Needs more contrast!"

Looks like you've got the raw skills necessary, if you brush up on your UX chops you'll be unstoppable. Check out Don't Make me think" by Steve Krug!