Don’t make me read. (William Hudson)

I think we’re all familiar with Steve Krug’s, “Don’t make me think.” I think a necessary corollary to that, though, is this gem. 

It’s kinda funny … I actually thought I had come up with this on my own. A quick search of the Interwebs, though, showed me that a lot of people liked to share this one (and maybe even thought they had come up with it themselves as well).

As far as I could ascertain, though, it seemed like Horton might have been the first. And he has indeed been around for quite awhile. 

I’ve probably got a half a dozen posts on here that treat on this very topic. I won’t repeat those here. To be honest, I’m mainly including think this quote because it sums them all up so well.

It also, though, brings up an interesting thing about Horton (and me as well). Though he was one of the founding fathers when it came to usability and usability-centered design, he quickly moved to instructional design, especially e-learning. I was also formerly an instructional designer, read his books way back when, and still remember him fondly.

And what that really goes to show is that reading is a not-so-popular activity in many situations. In training, though, this is particularly the case, and instructional designers have come up with many ways to address this. This is, in fact, behind what are called “multiple modalities.” And that’s just a fancy way of saying some people like to read (like in a textbook), some like to listen (say, in a classroom), others to view it (e,g,, in a video), and some to actually try it themselves.

And that is something that I’d like to see more of in online content in general, whether on a public site or an authenticated one. But that idea is something that instructional design anticipated as well.

It actually ties back to an idea called “Employee Performance Support Solutions.” Introduced back in the early 90s by Gloria Gery, it simply posits that anything that can support the user – text, video, exercises, sand boxes, knowledge management systems, Slack channels, whatever – should be right there, at the user’s fingertips. 

So, what means is that making content usable is a lot more than just simply editing text for length, or scannability, or hiding less important info behind links, or using a pyramid structure … What it really means is thinking about the user, and fulfilling their needs wherever they are, and whoever they might be. One thing it’s definitely not about is any kind of silos.

Horton actually moved from text altogether, switching from e-learning to making a living as a photographer