Recommendations you can check.
by Steve Krug
Who uses, recommends or left Don't Make Me Think, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.
5 people
The single best book on usability I've ever read. The title says "web usability" but don't be fooled by its faux specificity. Steve Krug covers every important usability concept in this book, and covers it well.
His long-running "Recommended Reading for Developers" list, last updated September 2025.
2004-02-02·blog.codinghorror.com ↗
The original usability book by Steve Krug is the best starter for anyone looking to learn the basics of the subject. Nothing I've read helps crystallize as well the idea of your complicated user flow actually being a mess.
His continuously-updated books page, where every book he reads gets a 1-10 rating and a "Why Read it" note; the book links carry his Amazon affiliate tag. The page carries no publication date for individual entries — its own metadata gives article:published_time 2012-12-16 and article:modified_time 2020-10-28, and books were added across that whole span. (undated page)
2020-10-28·jasonevanish.com ↗
Steve Krug has written a follow up to his usability classic Don't Make Me Think.
A short post flagging Steve Krug's new usability book.
2010-01-25·joelonsoftware.com ↗
Don’t Make Me Think (beginner)
Answering Dane Albaugh's question: 'What books on design would you recommend to engineers looking to learn some basic fundamentals?'
2026-10-04·x.com ↗
This lighthearted book about user interface design is fun to read, and chock full of lessons for PMs.
From “Best Books for Product Managers [2026]”, his standing list, introduced as “the 44 books I’d consider essential to any PM’s bookshelf”. Every book links through amzn.to and a Bookshop.org affiliate id (/a/83161/).
2026-01-07·bringthedonuts.com ↗
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.