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Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems |  | Author: Steve Krug
Publisher: New Riders Press
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $18.99
as of 7/30/2010 05:23 CDT details
You Save: $16.01 (46%)
New (45) Used (18) from $18.99
Seller: new_books_today
Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 8402
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 168
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.4
ISBN: 0321657292
Dewey Decimal Number: 006.7019
EAN: 9780321657299
ASIN: 0321657292
Publication Date: December 18, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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 an 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".)
In this new book, 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 adds demonstration videos to the proven mix of clear writing, before-and-after examples, witty illustrations, and practical advice that made Don't Make Me Think so popular.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
 Buy This Engaging and Practical Guide to Usability Testing July 26, 2010
Nicole Burton (Riverdale Park, MD USA)
Rocket Surgery Made Easy is a fantastic how-to guide for doing the most important tasks in usability testing: finding and fixing usability problems. Steve Krug's writing is engaging and clear, and he provides everything you need to perform this important work. Inspired by Steve, we've instituted a First Fridays monthly usability testing session at the U.S. General Services Administration.
Buy this Book for Everyone on Your Team! July 25, 2010
Douglas E. Gibson
Steve Krug has once again created a brilliant little book that can help you keep your Web site or application development on track and headed toward success. Don't just read it yourself, get a copy for everyone on your team! The book is so concise, compelling, and fun that everyone can find time to read and learn from it. Krug's book lives up to the simplicity it preaches. Want a complex 400+ page tome on making things simpler? ... look to the other authors in this field.
Developers, designers, testers: Read this book! June 25, 2010
Jeffrey A. Johnson (San Francisco, CA USA)
I'll keep it brief (as Steve does) and simply say: If you are reading these reviews then you are in the target audience of this book, and should read it. Even if you've been conducting usability tests for decades, read it. Even if you don't expect to run usability tests, read it. You will learn something.
Another Great Book on Usability by Steve Krug June 3, 2010
Frank Stepanski (PA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The basis of the book is that it offers how-to advice on actually running user testing sessions. Krug is well aware that many designers and developers cannot afford the expansive, expensive and time-consuming approach to user testing that requires hiring rooms with two way mirrors and video equipment to observe and record user actions as they test a website under controlled conditions, so he has devised a budget approach based around the catchphrase of "A morning a month, that's all we ask". Catchy phrases are an identifiable part of the Krug approach.
Krug points out - and emphasises - that anyone can do this. But the fact is that many web designers do not give themselves over to critical thinking, and even when encouraged to do so, may not be sure how to analyse, document and translate their thoughts into design changes
Rocket Surgery Made Easy proves that Steve Krug is still in his element and advocates that any form of testing is still better than zero testing and very do-able.
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
Its an 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.
I admire Steve Krug's style of writing and especially his ability to condense the most important and valuable into some very nicely written chapters. This book contains the wisdom of an expert who easily reaches the beginner as well as the advanced usability tester, and his advice is very encouraging. Instead of listing a lot of theoretical stuff on sophisticated scientific testing, he focusses on making usability testing easy to understand and to put into practice and takes a much more pragmatic approach
Website usability testing always seemed to be too complicated and expensive for most small business owners - Steve Krug comes to the rescue once again with his new book "Rocket Science Made Easy" - it's an easy to read, how-to on running your own usability tests.
This book is well designed, the author's tone is warm and friendly, and he throws in a few great footnotes to entertain you as well. Highly recommended.
Great Sequel to Don't Make Me Think May 18, 2010
Regnard Raquedan
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Steve Krug's Rocket Surgery Made Easy is the sequel to his web usability classic Don't Make Me Think and here he takes usability closer to the general public.
Similar in approach and tone to its predecessor, the book is light, humorous, and is aware of the perception that web usability and usability testing is complex like "rocket surgery." Krug cuts the academic discourse and goes to the meat of the book, do-it-yourself usability testing, directly.
The book can be read and re-read easily because of its length (168 pages), but the tips and contents are very practical and quite useful. If you ask me, the book is not for people who want an in-depth discussions on comprehensive usability testing-- it's for folks who want to implement usability testing in their company's extra rooms. While the book does recommend hiring experts, I guess the author just wants to eliminate the barriers for usability testing.
Rocket Surgery Made Easy proves that Steve Krug is still in his element and advocates that any form of testing is still better than zero testing and very do-able. This book is best appreciated by readers who need to do usability testing now and fast.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 23
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