A JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC WRITING VOLUME 5

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A Fish in the Hand
is Worth Two on the
Net: Don’t Make Me
Think...different
by Piper Seldon
I’m speechless. Surfing the web, I stumble on a
gem, a shining crazy jewel in a sea of common sense
websites: Global Village, Institute for Appropriate
Technology (“Your Portal”). My rhetorical “spideysenses”
begin to tingle. Appropriate Technology?
What is appropriate technology? Where am I? I look
at the URL and still don’t have a clear answer. I want
to know more, but I can’t move my eyes away from
the black and white picture on the far left. It is an
odd, English-looking man in a bowler hat, white shirt,
tie, and suit coat. He is holding a fish.
I am a deer stunned in the headlights, far from the
happy realm of Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think!
What on Earth have I stumbled upon? Could this be,
perhaps, the best worst website I’ve ever seen? I’d
like to explore these questions and more. What makes
a good website? Why do we care? Why is website
design important? Let’s explore. Grab your fish;
we’re going for a swim.
To start, Krug gives us a golden rule for using
the internet with his First Law of Usability: “Don’t
make me think!” (Krug 10). He explains further: “It
means that as far as is humanly possible, when I look
1
at a web page it should be self evident. Obvious. Selfexplanatory”
(Krug 11). I apply Krug’s First Law of
Usability to Global Village, Institute for Appropriate
Technology and am completely lost. My eyes haven’t
even left the first page. Okay, I know that the
company is based out of Tennessee. I have one piece
of information and build from there.
Basic stuff. I want to know what this company
does. Global Village, Institute for Appropriate
Technology is a non-profit organization (“Your
Portal”). They’ve been around since the 70s. Check.
I’m seeing flower children, tie-dye shirts, and the
Grateful Dead. Maybe this explains the man with
the fish. But the name throws me off: Institute for
Appropriate Technology. These folks apparently
research new ways of doing things, new technologies
that are earth-friendly, ethical, and good for all
mankind. A nicely typed introduction paragraph
in the center of the page tells me so. But the manholding-fish
picture is directly to the left of the
introduction, so I wonder about the connection. Is
there one? “Think different” makes me think too
hard, and we know from Krug’s book that overthinking
is what we don’t want for common sense
web usability.
Websites should be organized, clean, informative,
and easy to navigate; we don’t want to waste precious
time. English 485: Writing For the World Wide Web
is the class I’m taking at the University of Hawai’i
at Hilo (ENG485, Richardson). I feel like I’ve paid
attention in class, kept up on the reading, done some
research and come at last to the Promised Land:
finding Global Village, Institute for Appropriate
Technology on the Internet was pure serendipity. The
caption above the man’s head says, “Think different”
(“Your Portal”). And I am, thanks to this class. The
discoveries that I have made in analyzing this one
website have crystallized my understanding of
Krug’s text, Don’t Make Me Think, and clarified the
discussions we’ve had in class.
I am convinced that careful attention must be paid
to every aspect of a website’s design. It is important
that the user finds the information he or she is looking
for without having to waste time wondering where
to go, how to get there, and what he or she might
find. Krug says, “It doesn’t matter how many times
I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless,
unambiguous choice” (Krug 41). It may sound like a
contradiction--careful attention and mindless clicking