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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 a streamlined 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”.)

Using practical advice, plenty of illustrations, and his trademark humor, 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 uses the same proven mix of clear writing, before-and-after examples, witty illustrations, and practical advice that made Don’t Make Me Think an instant classic.

Steve Krug (pronounced “kroog”) is best known as the author of Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, now in its third edition with over 350,000 copies in print. Ten years later, he finally gathered enough energy to write another one: the usability testing handbook Rocket Surgery Made Easy. The books were based on the 20+ years he’s spent as a usability consultant for a wide variety of clients like Apple, Bloomberg.com, Lexus.com, NPR, the International Monetary Fund, and many others.

His consulting firm, Advanced Common Sense is based in Chestnut Hill, MA. Steve currently spends most of his time teaching usability workshops, consulting, and watching black-and-white movies from the ’30s and ’40s.

Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
Steve Krug, ISBN: 9780321657299
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