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Child pages (Children Display)

Background

  • This is one of the top-recommended (if not the top-recommended) UX books. It's up there next to "The Design of Everyday Things".



Summary

  • Guiding Principles
    • Ch. 1 - Don't make me think!
    • Ch. 2 - How we really use the Web
      • Scanning, satisficing, and muddling through
    • Ch. 3 - Billboard Design 101
      • Designing for scanning, not reading
    • Ch. 4 - Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?
      • Why users like mindless choices
    • Ch. 5 - Omit needless words
  • Things you need to get right
    • Ch. 6 -  Street signs and breadcrumbs
      • Designing navigation
    • Ch. 7 - The importance of getting people off on the right foot
      • The home page is the most desirable real estate, and there's very limited supply. Everbody who has a stake in the site wants a link to their section.
      • Unlike lower-level pages, the Home page has to appeal to everyone who visits the site.
      • Designing a Home page inevitably involves compromise.
      • The one thing you must make sure to do is to convey the big picture. "Whenever someone hands me a Home page design to look at, there's one thing I can almost always count on: They haven't made it clear enough what the site is."
      • As quickly / clearly / easily as possible, the Home page needs to answer five questions I have in my head when I enter a new site for the first time: 1) What is this? 2) What Can I do here? 3) What do they have here? 4) Why should I be here–and not somewhere else? 5) Where do I start?
      • The first few seconds you spend on a new Web site are critical.
      • After a quick look around, I should be able to say: 1) Here's where to start if I want to search, 2) Here's where to start if I want to browse, 3) Here's where to start if I want to sample their best stuff.
  • Making sure you got them right
    • Ch. 8 - "The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends"
      • Why most arguments about usability are a waste of time, and how to avoid them.
    • Ch. 9 - Usability testing on 10 cents a day
      • Keeping testing simple–so you do enough of it
    • Ch. 10 - Mobile: It's not just a city in Alabama anymore
    • Ch. 11 - Usability as common courtesy
    • Ch. 12 - Accessibility and you
    • Ch. 13 - Making usability happen where you work