The latest version of the book Don’t Make Me Think was 2014. It's 2023 today. I would like to know if there is anything mentioned in the book that has changed over the last decade?
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1I’m voting to close this question because is not a UX issue– DanielilloApr 22 at 9:02
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why is that? The book is clearly about UX– OokerApr 22 at 10:18
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2I'm inclined to leave this open as the book is an important book in UX and the answer will be generally relevant to most people interested in UX.– JohnGB ♦Apr 22 at 10:47
1 Answer
It is not black and white.
if there is anything mentioned in the book that has changed over the last decade
Even in 2014 a big part of this book was much outdated. For instance, there is a screenshot of election campaign from 1999. The author searches for "Windows 98" and wants to distinguish it from "Windows 95". There are many outdated screenshots from years around 2000. Many statements are not wrong itself. But they are not relevant, because the most of the modern sites don't do that (any more).
But there are statements that I find valid also now days, like this one:
The point is, we face choices all the time on the Web and making the choices mindless is one of the main things that make a site easy to use.
The author criticizes "happy talk":
A lot of happy talk is the kind of self-congratulatory promotional writing
He says that most users
want to get right to the beef. You can—and should—eliminate as much happy talk as possible.
This part is very relevant today, may be now days there are even more sites having this problem.
The ideas about navigation, like the importance of the search functionality, are even more true that it was at that time.
Reading this book needs efforts to filter out what is outdated and what is still relevant.