Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 Usability testing for every website owner/manager/designer January 3, 2010
Lyz Cordon (Leeds, UK)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Having read Don't Make Me Think some time ago, I've been eagerly awaiting this 'how to' book and have had it on pre-order for a while. It was worth the wait. Having read it in a matter of hours I think any website owner, manager, designer or developer would find it an interesting and informative read.
This book explains what you can gain from regular usability testing and shows you step-by-step exactly how to facilitate usability testing and collate the results into an action plan. You don't need a load of fancy, expensive equipment or programming skills and Mr Krug usefully includes all the scripts (narrative not programming) you need to conduct your testing. He also covers how to: conduct debriefing meetings, manage the fixing of problems, get buy-in from stakeholders and potential pitfalls and how to avoid them.
Really all you need to start your own usability testing is this book and the skills to organise a meeting - the book tells you what to do at what time point so it really is a case of following the instructions. I particulalry like the short, to the point chapters and as with Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability the design layout makes it super-easy to use with decent sized type broken down into manageable chunks.
Get started in usability testing February 8, 2010
C. Jarrett (Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire United Kingdom)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you want to find and fix usability problems in your web site, the bad news is that finding them on your own is extremely difficult. You'll overlook massive show-stoppers because you know how the site is meant to work.
The good news is that usability testing, getting someone else to use your web site while you watch them, is very easy and extremely informative.
In this short, encouraging book, Steve Krug explains what you have to do in his wonderfully approachable style. In Don't Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, he zeroed on in the really important points about web site usability. In this new book, he's done it again with usability testing. It's boiled down to the essence of an approach that anyone could use, in 'a morning a month'.
Steve does not claim that this is a comprehensive manual for how to do any type of usability test. For that, he includes recommendations for further reading, such as Handbook of Usability Testing: How to Plan, Design, and Conduct Effective Tests.
Not does he claim that his method is full-on, professional testing. In fact, he says: "If you can afford to hire a usability professional to do your testing for you, do it".
This book is for anyone who wants to make sure that their web site is easy to use, but doesn't have the budget for a professional.
Having said that, I am a usability consultant and I still found it worthwhile to read this book. If you've struggled to get clients to make the changes that you know are necessary, then here's an opportunity to pick up some ideas.
(Disclosure: Steve wrote the foreword to my book Forms that Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability (Interactive Technologies))
excellent book - demystifies in plain language January 22, 2010
T. Duffin (Edinburgh)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is an excellent book, the follow up to his "Don't Make me Think" which gave us several simple benchmarks which we try to adhere to when designing any website. This book shows you how to test your website - on your own - simply and cheaply, and if it does nothing else for you other than persuade you to start testing your webpages, then it's worth 10 times the cost of the book. Just buy it, read it over a weekend, and feel as if you've been handed a machine-gun in a room full of enemies armed with only feathers.
Steve Krug has done it again March 24, 2010
Niels Müller Larsen (Aarhus, Denmark)
An increasingly important subject spelled out, easy to understand, easy to adapt. Even programmers can do it!
Usability tsting made EXTREMELY easy March 19, 2010
M. Kjeldsen
There's not much to say really. Steve Krug has made user testing even more easy to approach than he did in "Don't make me think".
If you're into user testing of products (or just really, really curious) this book is a must read.
The best part? The book is read within a few hours but the contents will last for life. Buy it!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
|
