Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug – The Rabbit Hole

“Don’t make me think!” For as long I can remember, I’ve been telling people that this is my first law of usability. It’s the overriding principle—the ultimate tie breaker when deciding whether a design works or it doesn’t.

In all the time I’ve spent watching people use the Web, the thing that has struck me most is the difference between how we think people use Web sites and how they actually use them. When we’re creating sites, we act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading all of our carefully crafted text, figuring out how we’ve organized things,

I think the rule of thumb might be something like “three mindless, unambiguous clicks equal one click that requires thought.”

Take advantage of conventions Create effective visual hierarchies Break pages up into clearly defined areas Make it obvious what’s clickable Eliminate distractions Format content to support scanning