Atomic Spin :: Elements of Software

Atomic Object just recently released a brand new website. I had opportunity to touch essentially every part of the project – programming, navigation, writing, moving content over from old to new, graphical design, stylesheets, and search engine juice. This is the first time I was involved in an end-to-end website project of this nature. It was a lot of work but a lot of fun as well. I learned a great deal.

One of the people who was instrumental in making this new site come to life was Dustin Tinney. He suggested I read Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug.

Steve Krug’s title is perfect. Everything he talks about in the book is geared towards making a website as easy to use and digest as possible. Humans aren’t lazy. We absorb information in specific ways. Anything presenting information should do so in a way that maximizes ease of absorption. A good website will get out of the user’s way. Interacting with a good website should be all but effortless.

Steve Krug’s book clearly illustrates basic principles. What’s great about the book itself is that it is as easy to absorb and as visually appealing as a really good website. When a book illustrates the very principles it’s advocating, you generally have a winner on your hands.

I know of a few things in our new site that aren’t honed quite as well as Steve would like. Still, we’re lightyears ahead of where we were. His book was incredibly valuable in wading through the seemingly unending series of decisions to be made in constructing our site.

The only criticism I have for the book is with regard to a small section related to navigation. The author discusses the difficulty of displaying navigation elements (menus, etc.) beyond 3 levels deep. He explains basic principles for evaluating schemes but never suggests any schemes! I was rather stuck on how to handle certain sections of our site that were somewhat deep in hierarchy (for instance, our Resource Lab). Thankfully, our friends at Fusionary Media (who did the site’s graphical design) suggested the solution. They recommended that our breadcrumbs always show the trail but that the navigation menu only go two levels deep. Beyond this depth, we simply listed the relevant deep links in the parent pages themselves. Voilà. Problem solved. It works well.

Steve Krug’s book is excellent. It’s the best book I’ve ever read on this subject. Of course, it’s the only book I’ve ever read on this subject, but I’m confident it’s certainly one of the best out there.