Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited a common Sense Approach to Web Usability Steve Krug

Do a test of the competition.
 I mentioned in 
Chapter 9
 that it’s a good
idea to test some competitive sites at the start of any project. But it’s
also a great way to drum up support for testing. Everybody loves
learning about the competition, and because it’s not your site being
tested, no one has anything personally on the line. It makes a great
brown bag lunch event.
Empathize with management.
A few years ago at the UXPA annual
conference, I looked around and thought “What a nice group of
people!” Then it dawned on me: of course they’re nice. Empathy is
virtually a professional requirement for usability work. And if you’re
interested in doing it, you’re probably empathetic too. I recommend
that you apply that empathy to your bosses. Not in the “how can I
figure out what motivates these people so I can get them to do what I
want” way, but more in the “understand the position they find
themselves in” way, having real, emotional empathy for them. You
may be surprised by the effect.
Know your place in the grand scheme of things.
Personally, in the
situation you’re in, I think a little bit of humility goes a long way. The
reality is that in the business world almost everyone is just a very small
cog in a huge collection of cogs.
2
2
 
Sorry. Try not to take it personally. Do good work. Enjoy your home life. Be happy.

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You want your enthusiasm for usability to be infectious, but it just
doesn’t work to go around with the attitude that you’re bringing the
truth—about usability, or anything else—to the unwashed masses.
Your primary role should be to share what you know, not to tell people
how things should be done.
I’d also recommend two books that can help.
First there’s Tomer Sharon’s 
It’s Our Research: Getting Stakeholder Buy-In
for User Experience Research Projects
. Tomer is a UX Researcher at
Google, and I’ve never heard him say anything that wasn’t true, pithy, and
actionable.

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Any book with section titles like “Become the voice of reason” and “Accept
the fact that it might not work and that it’s okay” is obviously worth reading.
Leah Buley’s 
The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design
Survival Guide
is written specifically for people who are “the only person in

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your company practicing (or aspiring to practice) user centered design” or
who “regularly work on a team where you are the 
only
UX person.”
Chapters 3
(Building Support for Your Work) and 
4
 (Growing Yourself and
Your Career) are full of good advice and useful resources.

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