Rocket Surgery Made Easy
by Steve Krug · first published 2009
79% recommend21% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short, entertaining guide to do-it-yourself usability testing: how to run cheap sessions, structure questions, and fix the worst problems. Suits founders, developers, and newcomers to UX with no research budget.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…station. Just get a copy of Silverback App ( http://silverbackapp.com/ ) and start usability testing! Following on from that, if you'd like to make the most of your usability tests I'd recommend getting "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" by Steve Krug which will run you through the general process: http://www.sensible.com/rocketsurgery/index.html
on “Ask HN: Good usability service?” ↗…primary navigation menu items above it. That could get frustrating in everyday use. Have you done any structured usability or task completion testing with real users yet? Check out Steve Krug's book "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" for some ideas there. You could also gain a lot of inexpensive insight using services like feedbackarmy.com, userfly.com or loop11.com. Hope that helps.
on “Ask HN: Need your feedback on application functionality/usability & UI” ↗…improve their product - usability testing would be it. Even above customer interviewing. Nothing beats watching your customers try and fail to use your product. Here's three books to get you started: * Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-it-yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems, Steve Krug - Does exactly what it says on the tin. Short sharp guide to getting you started. * Handbook of Usability Testing: Howto…
on “We lost a customer. This is how we found out” ↗To learn usability testing you'll probably want to jump straight to "Rocket Surgery Made Easy", by the same author of "Don't make me think" Steve Krug is a former colleague and brilliant guy, but at this stage learning how to test and hear from your users in practice is time 10x better spent…
on “Show HN: Turn demos into deals (automatic highlight-reel after every SaaS demo)” ↗For those interested in the topic, I highly recommend this book by Steve Krug http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-Yourself/dp/0... This app looks like it would work well with Krug's recommendations.
on “Silverback: Guerilla usability testing” ↗I found it possible to absorb more knowledge (wisdom?) about UX by performing user tests than by any other method of studying the subject. Grab a copy of "Rocket Surgery made Easy" by Steve Krug, a copy of Silverback for Mac, and start doing some user tests. In time, you will start to see the same patterns coming up over and over again, and this information will begin to unwittingly…
on “Ask HN: Where to look to learn UX/Design” ↗…using your website trying to solve this problem. Many times. Fix the most glaring problems. This is the best book to learn usability testing, and the only one I would recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy--Yourself/dp/...
on “Ask HN: Where to start with User Experience Design?” ↗…marketing project. There is an interesting crossover between usability and product marketing when it comes to homepages and messaging. If you haven't already, I highly recommend Steve Krug's new book "Rocket surgery made easy", which is focused on guerilla usability testing. Usability testing is classically about identifying problems/improvements to a UI, but you can quite easily use the same techniques to test your homepage…
on “Showoff” ↗Step One: Read Steve Krug's Rocket Surgery Made Easy[1] Step Two: There is no step two [1]: http://www.sensible.com/rocketsurgery/index.html
on “Ask HN: How does a developer get started with usability testing?” ↗This sort of approach is a classic way of doing cheap usability testing. If you've not done this sort of work before I'd recommend getting hold of the (short and entertaining) "Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-it-yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems" by Steve Krug. It'll give you a bunch of useful tips on how to get the best out of our time.
on “I wish I’d thought of that. Operation Starbucks” ↗Rocket Surgery Made Easy http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-Do-It-Yoursel...
on “International Space Station Infected With USB Stick Malware” ↗If you want to start doing usability testing I'd recommend getting a copy of Steve Krug's Rocket Surgery Made Easy (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocket-Surgery-Made-Easy-yourself/dp...). It will probably take you less than an hour to read and will stop you making the basic mistakes I see folk new to usability testing make.
on “Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing” ↗Some other recommendations: Don’t Make me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug https://builtformars.com/ UX case studies https://www.nngroup.com/ UX analyses and articles Coursera has some UX courses you can audit for free
on “Ask HN: How to learn design and UI/UX” ↗I suspect that phrase may be a oblique reference to the absolutely lovely UI testing book "Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems" by Steve Krug.
on “In loving memory of square checkbox” ↗Steve Krug's other book, Rocket Surgery Made Easy, got me into usability tests with real users, and how to get it in place in a corporate environment. It's shocking to watch real users use software.
on “Bug Blindness” ↗