I am reading Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. His book discusses an interesting philosophy for creating simple and effective interfaces for users. The basic premise is making users think too much is a bad thing. Makes sense to me. I recently had my own encounter with being made to think which helped me appreciate the salient points of the book. And from there, I had a better understanding for how to make my own projects more intuitive. This is something you should think about too!
In reading the book, I was struck by how much of a simpleton the author thinks the average user must be. If the user can’t reach a conclusion quickly, the book presents, he is more likely to move on than continue looking. Users won’t read a paragraph of content. Count yourself lucky if they read to the end of the first sentence.
I am a big fan of creating interfaces that don’t require the user to hunt or guess what will happen. But should I really design a site the does not force the user to think? Isn’t it insulting to users to assume their attention span is that short? That users are that impatient? Will I truly draw active users to my site if I target the lowest common denominator so to speak?
Boy was I surprised to find out I was in this very category of user. Here is my sad tale.
I live in Napa where I belong to a number of wine clubs. I agree to buy a predefined shipment of wine every other month in exchange for discounts and other benefits. I got the following email from one such club a few months back:
Your July Wine Club shipment is set to ship or is available for pick up on July 14th. For those of you scheduled to pick up your wine, please note that we will also send an email and post card to let you know that it is available at the winery.
I read the email and drove to the winery the next weekend, on July 6th, to pick up my wine. What do you think happened when I got there? They told me that my wine was not ready for pickup. How can that be, I asked, I got the email saying it was time. We brought up the above email. Any ideas where the mistake was made?
You see, once I read “is available for pickup”, I didn’t read any more. I assumed the rest of the email was filled with marketing fluff or up sell or something else unworthy of my valuable time. I didn’t THINK to read anymore.
OMG, I am one of those users who doesn’t think!
The real issue here is the email. The tense is all wrong. If they simply had changed the words “is available” to the words “will be available“, then I would have kept reading to see when. I get hundreds of emails a week that I have to process while doing real work. Once I know what the email is about, a conclusion I am forced to draw rather quickly, I take whatever action is needed and move on. Plus, sending me an email in advance is useless as I am not likely to create an Outlook reminder for something like this. Would you?
I spoke to people at the winery about the issue after realizing that I would not get my shipment. They indicated I was not the only one who had done this. They did not give me my shipment early while I was there, which to me is just plain bad customer service. You see, it was my fault not theirs, right? I misread the email.
What I can tell you is that Steve Krug, the author if this book, is right on the money. We are all potentially users who do not think. You should keep that in mind as you develop your software. I’d recommend you get the book and then see how your work measures up. You just may be surprised.
UPDATE: After publishing this post, I received the follow up email from the wine club that my shipment was ready. This email was received on July 9. Here’s the email:
Your June club order has been processed and will be ready for pick up on June 30th at the winery.
Once again the tense is wrong. How can they say my pickup will be ready when the date referenced is in the past? Plus, if it was ready on June 30th, how come they didn’t give me my wine when I was there on July 6th? Truthfully, this is the downside of making users think. If your force them to really think about it, maybe they will conclude something other than you expected. I think I will email them and tell them to just email me when I should come over. Think they will listen to me?
