Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.

The problem is, the rewards and the costs of adding more things to the Home page aren’t shared equally. The section that’s being promoted gets a huge gain in traffic, while the overall loss in effectiveness of the Home page as it gets more cluttered is shared by all sections

Nothing important should ever be more than two clicks away

Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to a bare minimum.

The main thing you need to know about instructions is that no one is going to read them—at least not until after repeated attempts at “muddling through” have failed

The problem is there are no simple “right” answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need—carefully thought out, well executed, and tested

Designers love subtle cues, because subtlety is one of the traits of sophisticated design. But Web users are  generally in such a hurry that they routinely miss subtle cues

usability is about people and how they understand and use things, not about technology.