Part Three: The details · Screens
Makers write and lay out screens as if they will be read. People glance, pick out a word, and act.
The person who writes a screen reads every word of it, several times. They assume everyone else will too. So the important instruction goes in the second sentence of a paragraph, after a friendly opening, and the button sits beneath it.
Nobody reads that paragraph. People arrive in the middle of doing something else. Their eyes jump to headings, bold words and buttons, and they press the first thing that seems close enough.
That is a sensible way to treat a screen. The trouble comes when the one thing they needed was buried in prose. They miss the deadline or the fee, and then they are told it was "clearly stated."
Much of what fills the space is filler: "Welcome to your dashboard! Here you can manage all your settings." It says nothing and trains people to skip text altogether. Cutting it makes the words that remain more likely to be seen.
Three moves do most of the work. Put the word people are looking for first, in headings, labels and links: "Refunds: how to ask for one," and not "How to go about asking for a refund." Break anything longer than three lines into a list or short paragraphs. And where people do have to read, keep lines to about 45 to 75 characters.
A payroll screen opens with a paragraph that ends, "please note that changes made after the 20th will apply to the following month." Each month a few managers change a salary on the 22nd and are surprised.
Welcome to Payroll! Here you can review and update salary details for everyone on your team. Please note that changes made after the 20th will apply to the following month.
ContinueJune payroll
Changes after June 20 apply to July.
Edit salariesTherefore:
Write screens for a glance. Cut the welcome and the filler, and put the word people are looking for at the start of every heading, label and link.
In practice. Take one screen and follow Steve Krug's rule: "Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left." Read what remains to someone who has never seen it, and put back only what they needed.
Goes with. Scanning depends on LOUD, QUIET, SILENT (63) to mark what matters. The words that survive should be PLAIN WORDS (79), and a fact with a consequence belongs where SAY WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (81) puts it.
Source: Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think (2000).