There's no place like home.
"The point is, we face choices all the time on the Web and making the choices mindless is one of the main things that make a site easy to use" (Krug 43).
It is safe to assume that users don't mind a lot of clicking as long as they believe they are on the right track to their final destination. Users want to make "mindless choices" that end up being the right choices in the end. If a website is fairy easy to get around and is simple and basic, these "mindless choices" won't have to be so "mindless".
We need to make sure that our sites are easy to get around, simple and some what basic so our visitors can maneuver around; however, we need to make sure that our pages around overwhelmed with text. Krug explains that we need to get "rid of all those words that no one is going to read" because the "extra words suggest that you may actually need to read them to understand what's going on, which often makes pages seem more daunting than they actually are" (43).
By reducing our word count by half, we eliminate the noise level of the page, allows for the useful content more prominent, and makes the pages shorter. No one wants to scroll down a page; that is way to much work to do. (hahaha)
Krug wants to "kill" two things: happy talk and instructions.
The happy talk is small talk that basically is just a way to be sociable yet takes up way too much space on the page. This type of writing is just a way to fill up a page to fool readers, well not really, into thinking this is a reliable and trustworthy site.
Instructions are also on the "to kill" list. No one reads instructions, we all know that. I never read any instructions because I like to figure it out on my own. If you are to put instructions on a site make sure that they are self-explanatory or as close to it as possible.
In chapter 6, Krug emphasizes the idea of having a home button in sight. "Having a home button," Krug says, "in sight at all times offers reassurance that no matter how lost I may get, I can always start over, like pressing a Reset button or using a 'Get out of jail free' card" (66).
This is another way to help omit instructions. If you are to have a home page link on every page on your site, instructions would be useless.
It is safe to assume that users don't mind a lot of clicking as long as they believe they are on the right track to their final destination. Users want to make "mindless choices" that end up being the right choices in the end. If a website is fairy easy to get around and is simple and basic, these "mindless choices" won't have to be so "mindless".
We need to make sure that our sites are easy to get around, simple and some what basic so our visitors can maneuver around; however, we need to make sure that our pages around overwhelmed with text. Krug explains that we need to get "rid of all those words that no one is going to read" because the "extra words suggest that you may actually need to read them to understand what's going on, which often makes pages seem more daunting than they actually are" (43).
By reducing our word count by half, we eliminate the noise level of the page, allows for the useful content more prominent, and makes the pages shorter. No one wants to scroll down a page; that is way to much work to do. (hahaha)
Krug wants to "kill" two things: happy talk and instructions.
The happy talk is small talk that basically is just a way to be sociable yet takes up way too much space on the page. This type of writing is just a way to fill up a page to fool readers, well not really, into thinking this is a reliable and trustworthy site.
Instructions are also on the "to kill" list. No one reads instructions, we all know that. I never read any instructions because I like to figure it out on my own. If you are to put instructions on a site make sure that they are self-explanatory or as close to it as possible.
In chapter 6, Krug emphasizes the idea of having a home button in sight. "Having a home button," Krug says, "in sight at all times offers reassurance that no matter how lost I may get, I can always start over, like pressing a Reset button or using a 'Get out of jail free' card" (66).
This is another way to help omit instructions. If you are to have a home page link on every page on your site, instructions would be useless.
Leave a comment