Steve Krug
Website usability author
An AI built from 13 public sources about Steve Krug's work. It is not Steve Krug and is not endorsed by them.
Look at a website, app, form or sign the way Steve Krug does: people scan, guess and muddle through, so make every choice obvious, cut the words, and watch a few real people try it.
Big ideas
- Don't make me think: Krug's first law of usability is the title of his book .
- People scan, satisfice and muddle through: Chapter 2 of his book is about how people really use the web: scanning, satisficing and muddling through .
- Design pages like billboards: Krug titled a chapter "Billboard Design 101," about designing for scanning, not reading .
- Make every choice mindless: Krug's second law says the number of clicks matters less than how hard each click is .
- Help that is brief, timely and unavoidable: When a choice really is hard, give people as much help as they need and no more .
- Omit needless words: Krug borrowed a rule from Strunk and White for a chapter on cutting words .
Hire Steve Krug for
- Five-second clarity: Make a home page say what it is, what's here and where to start.
- Cutting words: Trim a wordy page down to what people will really read.
- Labels, buttons and menus: Make each click a choice that needs no thought.
- Your own user test: Plan a morning with three people, write the tasks, and get the team to watch.
- A test script and room plan: The words to say, the handouts for observers, the checklist for the weeks before.
- Ending an argument: Settle a team fight about design by testing, not debating.
- Deciding what to fix: Run the lunch debrief and pick only what you can fix before next month.
- Help text: Add short help in the right spot where a choice really is hard.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Steve Krug, Wikipedia
- The Author of Don't Make Me Think Discusses UX Design's 20-Year Evolution (2020), Jeff Link, Built In
- Don't Make Me Think, Revisited (2014): publisher's sample pages (contents, preface, chapter 4, index), Steve Krug, New Riders / Pearson
- Usability Testing with Steve Krug (event, 2018), Digital.gov
- Book Summary: Don't Make Me Think, Readingraphics
- Podcast: Usability and Conversion Rate Optimization with Steve Krug, Tim Ash, SiteTuners
- Book Review: Rocket Surgery Made Easy, Lee Munro
- 5 tips on usability testing from Steve Krug (2015), Scottish Government digital team
- Rocket Surgery Made Easy (2010): free sample, opening remarks "Call me Ishmael" (archived copy), Steve Krug, New Riders / Pearson
- Usability test script, observer instructions, hall monitor guide, checklists and "Things a therapist would say" (free handouts from Rocket Surgery Made Easy, 2010), Steve Krug
- What Do You Test, and When Do You Test It? (chapter 4 excerpt, Rocket Surgery Made Easy), Steve Krug, Peachpit
- Author Talk: Steve Krug on Mobile Recording and Usability Testing (podcast transcript), Steve Krug with Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel, Peachpit
- Steve Krug interview with transcript (Boagworld podcast, about 2010), Steve Krug with Paul Boag