Best for: Those new to conversion rate optimisation
It depends on where you are in your journey
What you think about this book is likely to be highly influenced by what stage of your conversion rate optimisation journey you are at the time of picking it up.
When I first read Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me think, there was some serious hype about the book for me.
Almost every other book that I’d read on the topic of Conversion Rate Optimisation had referenced the “Great Krug”. This happened a few times until I felt that this was going to be revelation of a read. I had been pointed to the great sage of our field and so the expectation was great.
The point is though that by the time I picked up this book I had already read a few other much more detailed and in depth books on the craft. My thought was that if those super in depth books were referencing Krug’s work then Don’t Make Me Think must be a dense work filled with everything I’d need to know.
Not so.
Don’t make me think is great on Kindle, but may be better in paperback due to colour illustrations.
What I thought of the book
I loved so much about this book, and yet I felt a little hard done by. In South Africa this one comes in at a steep ZAR370 and so at nearly ZAR2 a page, I expected a knockout, which it sadly wasn’t for me.
I love Steve’s casual writing style, the humour and the accessibility of his information (pun intended), but the book overall felt a little thin for me. Off the back of some really in depth CRO books I felt like I was charged for in depth knowledge and the experience was more like skimming across the surface of many highly important topics.
That being said potentially if this was the first book I read on CRO it would feel more enriching, or perhaps if it were half the price I’d feel better about the value equation.
I suppose having to make excuses for any book is somewhat a review in itself.
Recommendation
If you have some spare cash to throw around I do recommend that you read this book, but read it first rather then 5th/10th/15th in your CRO journey. It does a great job of laying out the basics that, despite how advanced you get in your conversion rate optimisation efforts, will stand you in good stead.
Main takeaways
The facts of web life
a) We don’t read websites, we scan them
b) We don’t make optimal choices, we click the first thing we think will satisfy us and suffice for our need.
Three laws of usability
1. Don’t make me think
2. It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless unambiguous choice.
3. Get rid of half the words on each page. Now get rid of half of what’s left.
When people land on your homepage they need to be able to say with confidence
- Here’s where to start if I want to search
- Here’s where to start if I want to browse
- Here’s where to start if I want to sample their best stuff