Review on Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think"

I honestly read Steve Krug's book through, because it was more attractive with less text and more images to make things clear to the core point for a user, or in this case, a book reader. The approach of designing the book is similar to the described content - in order to make it readable, it has been made concise, packed with illustrative pictures, and "scannable", as people nowadays mind reading books full of dull text. It can be compared with a usable web page described in the book. The author adds that the reader should not know everything to get the picture, this is why he has kept the content as concise as it is.
The other good thing about the book is that Krug also suggests better solutions for the existing flaws on web pages as well as possible scenarios and outcomes for different problems, making the book a true handbook for all kinds of web page makers.

Many parts of the book came to me as familiar from Hypertext and Interface and Interaction Design lectures. I think the lecturer has used parts of it in his talks. I think that this book is very interensting and easy to read and the author gives precise instructions on how to create a web page efficiently so that the user would navigate better and with less effort on it.

The book starts with guiding principles and moves on to navigation principles. Then the author talks about usability and user testing, finalizing the book with most common problems that might come up and how to fix them. He provides sample dialogues, images, and tables in order to summarize the topics. The author also brings up some of the accessibility problems that might come up. I am not going to retell the contents of the book, but I will point out a few notes that I took:

• the user should not think while he or she browses the web in order to grasp the site quickly
• the less the user thinks, the more efficient the page is, it is necessary to remove "noise"
• users scan only certain words that they think is necessary for them, they do not read the whole content
• help is not necessary, because users do not use it, they try to get through the page themselves, the same goes for introductions, not much "happy talk" needed there
• organize parts in a clear way
• keep pace with known web page conventions, make obvious what is clickable
• remove unnecessary words, make choices clear to the user
• a good road map will be necessary in the form of "breadcrumbs" or a good menu so that the user could not get lost
• bookmarks are necessary because they show you a large chunk of the menu and they should be visible
• page logo is important, as well as the navigation marker "you are here"
• site home page should note its identity, the hierarchy, and has to have a "search" button as well as the good things that draw people's attention to it.
• the users need to know that they findon the page
• show your own identity on the web page, but make it concise
• testing should be done in the beginning and the more people involved, the better it is. After testing the mistake should be fixed and then tested again

All in all I think the book was a good read and even the points that I took out were familiar to me from various usability lectures as well as hypertext lecture. It was good to align the content with your own real-life examples, and I am glad we have tried these solutions out in our lectures as well.

I would recommend the book to all starting web page creators since it is interesting to read, packed with lots of examples and really catches the reader's attention, just like a really functional home page should do!

Week 11. Individual reflection and assessment

I took out my learning contract and started revising it. According to my contract I managed to fulfill most of the parts:

• I learned a lot from the theoretical part of creating an e-learning course as well as got a good experience of managing a group - although there were minor setbacks, everything turned out pretty well in the end. As far as committing yourself to the role is concerned, I sometimes did too much, and should have loaded more responsibility to the other members. 
• Secondary school practice went as predicted, and I managed to post more information about the tasks in order to make them clear for the lessons I was absent.
• I think I even got a good load of experience of time planning, since I managed to do most of the weeks in time, but since I joined later, I had to do some of the tasks later as well. I did not have to create a to-do-list, but managed to remember how to do the tasks needed.
• What changed was the collaboration tool from pbwiki to google docs, and also our prototype environment appeared into weebly. Other sources were used as predicted.

I think I succeeded most of the time, thus I would (based on other team members' good words and the lecturer's good words) grade myself kindly with an "A". As far as my satisfaction is concerned, I really made an effort and succeeded!

Week 10. Prototype Evaluation, and other stuff.

You can find our group's thoughts from the prototype's blog post.

 New things about groupwork were the ones that there were no new things, we did our job, and those who were busy managed to add their opinions as well. Thus we created a common understanding of our course and posted it to our prototype's blog, since it was the most suitable place to put it in.
As for my personal contract, I understood that it is not utterly possible to make people to do their job unless they are available. And this way groupwork had to be re-organized. Those who care put more effort in working and those who have other priorities put less of an effort, but all in all we worked together well as a group. I think it is really about priorities and likes of the tasks.
I think I am still motivated to doing such things in later future, because I love learning by reflecting to yourself and the facilitator.
I think my learning contract has worked within the course, but I would reflect it more deeply the next week.

Week 9. Reflection

Since we have done pretty much until now, this week's tasks were quite simple. This week we tried to smooth the consistency of our e-learning course, and added some extras to the course (e.g. team members, and timeline). I felt that my course companions were very supportive this week and made me realize that it is not always necessary to take the lead and that group members are capable of working on their own as well. It felt relaxing.

I found out that in our group there is a very nice division: some are active and some inactive, but still we managed to do the necessary work. I think that without having all members present, it is still possible to finish the work in order to get a good e-course result.

What I have noticed is that I get a great leading experience, how to act as a leader, how to make people work, etc. Also a good skill :)

PS. The timeline can be found in our weebly course environment from team page.



Oh, and it's so good to acknowledge that creating an e-course is much more than learning about e-courses. Alice is a great example of a good learner - she has learned about social networks and different collaboration- and web platforms as well. I feel thrilled!
The same about Chiara and me - I think we both are learning from international group work. This is the first time I am working with such a varied group of people, and I am grateful for new experiences. To tell you the truth, I am waiting for comments on my posts and reflection, because this course is unique for its reflection "bonus". And, well, who doesn't like positive feedback (and constructive critical feedback as well).