Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems |  | Author: Steve Krug
Publisher: New Riders Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $17.79
as of 3/11/2010 06:46 CST details
You Save: $17.21 (49%)
New (34) Used (17) from $17.79
Seller: betterbks
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 925
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 168
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.5
ISBN: 0321657292
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.7019
EAN: 9780321657299
ASIN: 0321657292
Publication Date: December 18, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780321657299 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Accessories:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
It's been known for years that usability testing can dramatically improve products. But with a typical price tag of $5,000 to $10,000 for a usability consultant to conduct each round of tests, it rarely happens.
In this how-to companion to Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug spells out an approach to usability testing that anyone can easily apply to their own web site, application, or other product. (As he said in Don't Make Me Think, "It's not rocket surgery".)
In this new book, Steve explains how to:
- Test any design, from a sketch on a napkin to a fully-functioning web site or application
- Keep your focus on finding the most important problems (because no one has the time or resources to fix them all)
- Fix the problems that you find, using his "The least you can do" approach
By paring the process of testing and fixing products down to its essentials (A morning a month, that's all we ask ), Rocket Surgery makes it realistic for teams to test early and often, catching problems while it's still easy to fix them. Rocket Surgery Made Easy adds demonstration videos to the proven mix of clear writing, before-and-after examples, witty illustrations, and practical advice that made Don't Make Me Think so popular.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
Recipe for real-world success December 25, 2009
Harry Max (Mountain View, Ca USA)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
When I designed the user experience for the first secure on-line shopping experience at Virtual Vineyards, I lived by a number of principles, two of which were: Quality is an Iterative Process, and The Results of Testing is Information, Not Quality - that demonstrable improvements in design and implementation come from what you choose to do with that information.
Steve Krug's "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" hits the nail on the head (with a hammer) by making usability testing in the real world understandable, practical, and doable by any Web development team. Highly recommended.
To the point and right on January 5, 2010
N. Kelcher (Seattle)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
It took just a few hours to devour this book. Steve has developed a practical process for anyone new to usability testing. Even though writing is "agonizing" to Steve, this is well written. Worth every penny.
Practical and Inspiring January 18, 2010
W. A. Carpenter (Portland, OR USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Steve Krug, well known in the web design world for his book "Don't Make me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability," has achieved success again with "Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems."
This book only takes a few hours to read but contains everything you need to know to test web pages, applications, forms, and anything else you might have designed that could benefit from a good review, which is pretty much everything. He covers the nuts-and-bolts of testing in a very clear, sequential way; he also manages to inspire you to actually do the testing.
This book is well designed, the author's tone is warm and friendly, and he throws in a few great footnotes to entertain you as well. Highly recommended.
Make Web Designers Think! January 27, 2010
Hendericus Onsman (Corrimal, NSW, Australia)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Steve Krug is the author of the bestselling book Don't Make Me Think!, which has racked up worldwide sales of 250,000 since its publication in 2000.
That book based its approach to assessing and improving the usability of websites on the injunction in the title. If visitors to websites have to figure out what to do on a website, then the website is operating at a disadvantage.
Krug offered some very pertinent, uncomplicated advice on web usability, how to judge it and how to implement solutions to problems that are identified.
When updating that first book in 2005, Krug decided that Rocket Surgery Made Easy had become necessary: a handbook for putting usability principles into practice, focusing in particular on user testing.
The title refers to the phrase Krug coined (and trademarked) to summarise his view that all of this is just common sense: it's not rocket science and it's not brain surgery.
It also gives a clue that Krug, while determinedly practical and grounded in the day-to-day business of designing and building websites for paying clients, approaches the subject with considerable humour and playfulness. It's apparent that this is partly out of a concern that usability might be a dry subject for some, but also because Krug is a very funny guy. I think we'd enjoy his workshops, if he ever brings them to Australia.
Rocket Surgery Made Easy is itself easy reading. Less than 160 pages, it is well laid out, charmingly illustrated by Mark Matcho and very, very well edited - big hat-tip to the people at New Riders.
The basis of the book is that it offers how-to advice on actually running user testing sessions. Krug is well aware that many designers and developers cannot afford the expansive, expensive and time-consuming approach to user testing that requires hiring rooms with two way mirrors and video equipment to observe and record user actions as they test a website under controlled conditions, so he has devised a budget approach based around the catchphrase of "A morning a month, that's all we ask". Catchy phrases are an identifiable part of the Krug approach.
Because it's well-written, because Krug is witty, and because the subject material is based so much on common sense, it's easy to whizz through the book. But how much will it change the way a web designer or developer works?
Frankly, while I agree with the need for it, and understand the benefits to be gained, user testing is unlikely to form a significant part of my day-to-day work scenario, at least while I remain a one man design band juggling a roster of new websites and long term clients. The logistical practicalities of even "a morning a month", using three testers without a lot of complicated equipment, are prohibitive. I accept that this may give me and my clients headaches into the future.
However, Krug's books - the first explaining why usability matters, the second explaining how to do it - do give me a platform for addressing usability issues. The way Krug explains stuff allows and encourages me to engage with usability issues. Walking through his approach to user testing tells me a great deal about how I think about usability and how I can improve it. This alone gives me a competitive edge over designers who don't "get" usability
Perhaps both these books should be bundled under the collective title Make Web Designers Think! It's what Krug does extremely well. He raises simple but devastatingly critical usability issues, explores his own way of thinking about them and then offers ways to deal with them.
Krug points out - and emphasises - that anyone can do this. But the fact is that many web designers do not give themselves over to critical thinking, and even when encouraged to do so, may not be sure how to analyse, document and translate their thoughts into design changes.
It is these people that will likely get the most out of Rocket Surgery Made Easy, but they may also be the last designers to actually buy it.
Still if it does anything to get even highly experienced web designers thinking about what they are doing in a critical, insightful and constructive way, it will help to shape a better web.
"I see dead people" and Yogi Berra quotes February 4, 2010
Andrew Schechterman (Seattle, WA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
As always, Steve at his best . . . pithy, short and sweet, loaded with practical tips and reminders, all couched in humor. A very quick refresher (or UX-Usability Studies 101), even for folks long in the field, and of course a great paperback to give to those who are new to the somewhat elusive "user experience, information architecture, interaction design, usability" world. Lots of great tidbits which re-anchor us to the core issues and keep us from getting too distracted with all the other "stuff." Only thing I wish he had emphasized a bit more, though he does speak to it when addressing the "How many users do you need?" issue, is that, even without a lab or a video camera or a laptop, you can still succeed . . . almost any type of "fail forward, fail fast" iterative reviews of concepts, wireframes, screen elements, flows, paper, models and/or digital, will unearth gold. Wonder what his next book, in, umm, nine years, will be about?!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
|
|
|
