I’ve taken an excerpt from a chapter of “Don’t Make Them Think.” This brilliant  book is written by Steve Krug. This book is an incredible eye opener, especially for creatives who may be designing purely for the beauty of the site or for writers - like me - who may have a tendency to want to put the next great novel on a client’s website.

Why are things always in the last place you look for them? Because you stop looking when you find them. —Children’s riddle

In the past five years I’ve spent a lot of time watching people use the Web, and 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 our finely crafted text, figuring out how we’ve organized things, and weighing their options before deciding which link to click.

What they actually do most of the time (if we’re lucky) is glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. There are usually large parts of the page that they don’t even look at.

We’re thinking “great literature” (or at least “product brochure”), while the user’s reality is much closer to “billboard going by at 60 miles an hour.”

What we design for vs. The reality

As you might imagine, it’s a little more complicated than this, and it depends on the kind of page, what the user is trying to do, how much of a hurry she’s in, and so on. But this simplistic view is much closer to reality than most of us imagine. It makes sense that we picture a more rational, attentive user when we’re designing pages.

It’s only natural to assume that everyone uses the Web the same way we do, and—like everyone else—we tend to think that our own behavior is much more orderly and sensible than it really is. If you want to design effective Web pages, though, you have to learn to live with three facts about real-world Web use.

Fact of life #1: We don’t read pages. We scan them. One of the very few well-documented facts about Web use is that people tend to spend very little time reading most Web pages.

The net effect is a lot like Gary Larson’s classic Far Side cartoon about the difference between what we say to dogs and what they hear. In the cartoon, the dog (named Ginger) appears to be listening intently as her owner gives her a serious talking-to about staying out of the grabage.

But from the dog’s point of view, all he’s saying is “blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah.” What we see when we look at a Web page depends on what we have in mind, but it’s usually just a fraction of what’s on the page.

What designers build vs. What users see

Like Ginger, we tend to focus on words and phrases that seem to match (a) the task at hand or (b) our current or ongoing personal interests. And of course, (c) the trigger words that are hardwired into our nervous systems, like “Free,” “Sale,” and “Sex.”

You can only get away with a site that people muddle through until someone builds one down the street that makes them feel smart. If life gives you lemons… By now you may be thinking (given this less than rosy picture of the Web audience), “Why don’t I just get a job at the local 7-11?

At least my efforts might be appreciated.” So, what’s a girl to do? The answer: if your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboards, then design great billboards.

Hugs and success, Wendy Maynard

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