Last summer, while preparing for a week up north, I headed to the book store and stocked up on books. One of the books was DON’T MAKE ME THINK. A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Through the use of real world examples, the author, Steve Krug points out how many well known websites could have or should have been improved to make the user-interaction better. His advice is always simple and clear as is his advice on web-usability testing.

As a designer and a developer, it is often surprising to me how little thought most developers put in to the user-interface design. How many programs have you seen that opted to violate well-documented user standards? and for no apparent reason? Or worse programs that violate an implicit contract of simplicity with users… programs where you need to click “Start” to shutdown or use 6 clicks to exit an application.

Some of the best interface work I have ever seen was done not by a software engineer, but by a colleague who had a Masters in Psychology and was a self-trained developer. He had the amazing ability to create simple, elegant looking interfaces that were intuitive and easy to learn. I suspect they were not easy to code - but professional developers are often guilty of taking the short cut of easy-to-code instead of creating something beautiful.

Clearly, those designers (or often purely the developers) missed the UI-training classes or something - so, for them and for all developers, I highly recommend a quick read through this book. I guarantee, it will be time well spent.