By Jeofrey Bean
If your potential and existing customers use the Internet as part of their customer experience with your business you need to know who Steve Krug is.
One of my favorite business books is “Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability” by Steve Krug.
Krug originally wrote his fun-to-read and insightful book for website and mobile application designers, developers, project managers, and marketing professionals. The book should be read by all people in companies where customer experience success depends on people using the web sites or mobile device applications of the business.
“Don’t Make Me Think” is Krug’s overriding principal, “When I look at a web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory. I should be able to ‘get it’ – what it is and how to use it – without expending any effort thinking about it.” (Don’t Make Me Think, 2nd Ed. P11).
When I mention this book to people they often ask me what Krug means by his title. To me it asks whether your web site or mobile application competes effectively with what people have on their minds, how busy they are and the environment they are in when accessing your business on the Internet.
Have you, as the experience provider, considered how a customer actually uses the Internet? The environment that competes for their attention and with your web site while they use the Internet? And exactly what they want to accomplish while using your web site compared with what your web site actually asks people to do?
During the customer experience people will access your company with the Internet, making the conversion from prospect to customer. Ultimately, you want them to become energized advocates for your company based on sharing the pleasing customer experiences they have had with other people. The experience people have interacting with your company in the Internet is a critical part of the customer experience. In some cases it has the large share of all possible interactions.
It’s going to be easier for you to acquire new customers and increase the percentage of customer advocates if you take Krug’s advice – “Don’t Make Me Think.”
I look forward to meeting you here next month sharing more of the best practices of customer experience with you in pursuit of having a business that is better, different and more valuable! Until then, if you get a chance to read Krug’s book, let me know what you think.
Reference Links:
Steve Krug’s book
Jeof’s web site and e-mail address
http://www.delmarresearch.com/
[email protected]
Jeofrey Bean keynote speaker highlights (3 minute video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znpNuczexiA
Jeofrey Bean’s Amazon author page
http://www.amazon.com/Jeofrey-Bean/e/B006K2L0XI/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1
