Steve Krug Quote

Faced with the prospect of following a convention, there’s a great temptation for designers to try reinventing the wheel instead, largely because they feel (not incorrectly) that they’ve been hired to do something new and different, not the same old thing. Not to mention the fact that praise from peers, awards, and high-profile job offers are rarely based on criteria like best use of conventions. Occasionally, time spent reinventing the wheel results in a revolutionary new rolling device. But usually it just amounts to time spent reinventing the wheel.

Steve Krug

Faced with the prospect of following a convention, there’s a great temptation for designers to try reinventing the wheel instead, largely because they feel (not incorrectly) that they’ve been hired to do something new and different, not the same old thing. Not to mention the fact that praise from peers, awards, and high-profile job offers are rarely based on criteria like best use of conventions. Occasionally, time spent reinventing the wheel results in a revolutionary new rolling device. But usually it just amounts to time spent reinventing the wheel.

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About Steve Krug

Steve Krug (*1950) is a UX (User Experience) professional based in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He is best known for his book Don't Make Me Think about human-computer interaction and web usability, which is in its third edition with over 600,000 copies in print. He also heads a one-man consulting firm called Advanced Common Sense. Krug offers in-house workshops where he teaches do-it-yourself usability testing and provides targeted advice to clients on web usability strategies. Krug published Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems in 2009.