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5 Comments

1.  

   atmj
   08/31/2010 at 10:04 am

   Review by atmj for Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
   Rating:
   BOUGHT THIS BOOK THE MINUTE I REALIZED IT WAS OUT:
   
   Having been a “Usability Professional” for a number of years, I purchased this Steve Krug book, the minute I knew he had another book out, without even paying attention to what it was about. This guy is just that good. This enthusiasm was due to his previous book “Don’t Make Me Think” which was a great book on how to make more usable web sites. First I was surprised, as initially I had not realized it was a book for User testing for non-Usability professionals… Next, I thought, Wow, this is a great book too.

   BASIC IDEA:
   
   The whole idea is to do quick usability tests with a few users, that are reasonably representative of your end users. This test would be viewed by your stake holders and be done in one morning each month during various stages of development of your site. This way, it gets to the right people when it’s needed. Anyone who does usability work, knows how laborious and costly tests can be. However that’s nothing compared to the sales pitch that has to be done, to get even the high impact issues fixed. There are always excuses.

   This Books Suggestion for Testing:
   
   * Lessens the cost of the text
   
   * Allows the testing to be more immediate
   
   * Gets the decision makers in front of it and hopefully behind the necessary changes with funding.

   This book has clearly defined steps on how to do this:
   
   * Software recommendations
   
   * Some scripts
   
   * How to recruit
   
   * How to run single morning tests.

   Also recommendations for approaching changes:
   
   * Get to the basic issues
   
   * Get them fixed
   
   * Let the trivia wait.
   
   * Tweaking is better than a redesign, and it is more likely to happen.

   However read the book on this, I’m only quickly paraphrasing.

   QUICK SUMMARY:
   
   As before his style of writing is conversational and sparse, giving you what you need to know when. It is laid out in a way that is brief but complete and very easy to read. Hmmm, sounds like he took his own teachings to heart. There are 16 chapters (and you can see inside the book here; so go look) He covers the why and how you can do a usability test on any site and get buy-in from your team when changes need to be made. Usability professionals can benefit from this book as well, as it has a somewhat interesting take on how to get Users in front of the Teams that make decisions on what gets changed. Since time is at a premium and Usability tests speak for themselves, this is one way, to get the money where it needs to go.

   All in all another winner of a book…now I’m waiting for the next one…
   

2.  

   Harry Max
   08/31/2010 at 10:25 am

   Review by Harry Max for Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
   Rating:
   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.

3.  

   Lars Tackmann
   08/31/2010 at 10:27 am

   Review by Lars Tackmann for Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
   Rating:
   Incredible and inspring book on how to locate and fix usability problems yourself. Most of the advice centers around web design, but the process described can easily be modified to any other product. The book is delightfully short (under 200 pages), very well written and packed with useful information.

   My own startup is following the process outlined in this book and the results are just amazing. Usability skeptics will be immediately converted once they see a test in action. I will be looking forward to the day where this stuff ends up in science curriculums, then we will truly enter a age packed with useful simple things and the clumsy 50 button VCR remote control will be a relic of the past. Highly recommended.

4.  

   Todd Parker
   08/31/2010 at 11:08 am

   Review by Todd Parker for Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
   Rating:
   This is by far the most concise, clear and fun to read usability book you’ll ever find. I’ve been involved in quite a few usability tests, but I always had the nagging feeling that I wasn’t doing things “the right way” because I wan’t a trained usability engineer. Steve cuts through all the bull and explains how anyone can really bake in usability testing and improve their products. A real joy to read from start to end, packed full of practical details and templates to make sure everything goes smoothly. Highly recommended.

5.  

   Kapil Chalil Madathil
   08/31/2010 at 11:59 am

   Review by Kapil Chalil Madathil for Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
   Rating:
   * Very well written
   
   * Short and sweet
   
   * The accompanying website provides excellent resources for conducting a usability test.
   
   * I highly recommend this book!

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