UX: Don't Make Me Think Revisited (aka 3rd Edition)

When I came into the office in January I realized that Santa (aka Steve Krug) via Amazon had left me a belated X-mas gift via mail!

If you are in UX and haven't read this book (in any edition), I can't over emphasize how important this book is. Steve is great at making complex things seem "common sense" and his super reasonable, laid back, humourous approach can warm even the grumpiest usability Grinch.

The "revisited" (or "reloaded" for Matrix fans..) part also includes a whole new chapter on Mobility (Chapter 10, titled "Mobile: it's not just a city in Alabama anymore"). Really this chapter will take you 20 minutes to read but it could change your life, I mean app. It might be worth it to just to buy the book only to read this new chapter! It's 21 pages of very, very relevant material for anyone doing mobile development.

For something more "fun", have a look @ Steve's Blog on how he played with the covers before settling on the current design.

(http://someslightlyirregular.com/category/usability/)

=) Then... for even more fun do a quick search in Amazon of the book to see what other covers exists! It took me a bit to identify the 1st edition cover being so vastly different from 2nd edition, but I did find one in German with a neat look (Das intuitive Web!). So from 1st to 2nd edition, not much changed, but Steve and the published definitely made some whole-sale changes for 3rd edition. I personally think it looks great.

(Amazon Web Search URL)

With a gun pointed at my head, (ignoring that I consider Steve a friend) and told I could only get my team-mates and stakeholders to read just one book, this would be that book. It totally puts UX concepts into things the "everyday" person can understand. The examples (updated in 3rd edition) are incredible helpful and the humour makes it easy to get though the book in single day or sitting (although you might want to spread it out to let it sink it more or just constantly keep using as a reference).

Hope that helps...

Wayne Pau

p.s. In full disclosure, I admire Steve's knowledge and expertise in usability and even more importantly I really like him as a human being. He was generous enough to add me to acknowledgements page (yes I'm that Wayne Pau) but really my contributions and insights (if any) in the Mobility Section (Chapter 10) were very tiny. He's just that nice of guy! Thanks Steve...