Krug Quotes & Sayings

I'm more of a perfectionist. I need to be sure everything is exactly where I would want it. — Spencer Krug

I have a real problem when people say, "Well I walked by and you should have seen what was on the computer screen." Well, don't look, sweetie. It's none of your business. Avert your eyes. — Judith Krug

I don't think there are as many usability issues as there are tactical or strategic decisions related to whether incorporating social networking into your site is going to help or hurt. — Steve Krug

Making every page or screen self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: it just makes everything seem better. — Steve Krug

I don't read liner notes and stuff, and I don't read articles very often. — Spencer Krug

I've recorded a lot of vocals so far and I think they're kinda still in my own world, but I do have that urge sometimes. You want to push yourself to do other things. — Spencer Krug

Happy talk must die — Steve Krug

I don't have a dayjob or anything. And then, winter's [makes it] hard to do anything. — Spencer Krug

The main thing it usually ends up doing is revealing that the things they were arguing about weren't all that important. People often test to decide which color drapes are best, only to learn that they forgot to put windows in the room. — Steve Krug

I usually call these endless discussions "religious debates," because they have a lot in common with most discussions of religion and politics: They consist largely of people expressing strongly held personal beliefs about things that can't be proven - supposedly in the interest of agreeing on the best way to do something important — Steve Krug

Why did these men fight? The answer is simple. We were ordinary people molded into Marines. The same can be said of those who served in the army. We all had the proper upbringings of common folk, when you have a task to do, you work hard, give it your best and get the job done. We came from different backgrounds; however, we became a team, moving and fighting as if we had known each other all of our lives. All of us have bonded for life and still keep in touch by phone, letters, and visits. If anyone of the second squad needs help you can be sure the rest of the squad would be there. All of those I have kept in touch with have been successful in the life endeavors they chose.
"Not one of them is bitter about giving up two years of their life to 'Serve Their Country'"
-George E. Krug — James Brady

Paduk and all the rest wrote on steadily, but Krug's failure was complete, a baffling and hideous disaster, for he had been busy becoming an elderly man instead of learning the simple but now unobtainable passages which they, mere boys, had memorized. — Vladimir Nabokov

If it's a good record or a good recording, then word of mouth will build for that reason, not before the fact, not before anyone's heard it, not because of MySpace or the label. — Spencer Krug

I get very concerned when we start hearing people who want to convert this country into a safe place for children. I am adult. I want available what I need to see. — Judith Krug

He had liked her enormously, and he loved Krug with the same passion that a big sleek long-flewed hound feels for the high-booted hunter who reeks of the marsh as he leans towards the red fire. Krug could take aim at a flock of the most popular and sublime human thoughts and bring down a wild goose any time. But he could not kill death. — Vladimir Nabokov

A librarian is not a legal process. There is not librarian in the country unless she or he is a lawyer who is in the position to determine what he or she is looking at is indeed child pornography. — Judith Krug

It is all here. You make the choice. — Judith Krug

I could also distinguish the glint of a special puddle (the one Krug had somehow perceived through the layer of his own life), an oblong puddle invariably acquiring the same form after every shower because of the constant spatulate shape of a depression in the ground. Possibly something of the kind may be said to occur in regard to the imprint we leave in the intimate texture of space. Twang. A good night for nothing. — Vladimir Nabokov

Designers love subtle cues, because subtlety is one of the traits of sophisticated design. But Web users are
generally in such a hurry that they routinely miss subtle cues. — Steve Krug

There's almost always a plausible rationale - and a good, if misguided, intention - behind every usability flaw. Another — Steve Krug

The problem is, the rewards and the costs of adding more things to the Home page aren't shared equally. The section that's being promoted gets a huge gain in traffic, while the overall loss in effectiveness of the Home page as it gets more cluttered is shared by all sections. — Steve Krug

When fixing problems, always do the least you can. — Steve Krug

If there's one thing you learn by working on a lot of different Web sites, it's that almost any design idea
no matter how appallingly bad
can be made usable in the right circumstances, with enough effort. — Steve Krug

The more you watch users carefully and listen to them articulate their intentions, motivations, and thought processes, the more you realize that their individual reactions to Web pages are based on so many variables that attempts to describe users in terms of one-dimensional likes and dislikes are futile and counter-productive. Good design, on the other hand, takes this complexity into account. — Steve Krug

CLARITY TRUMPS CONSISTENCY If you can make something significantly clearer by making it slightly inconsistent, choose in favor of clarity. — Steve Krug

Blocking material leads to censorship. That goes for pornography and bestiality, too. If you don't like it, don't look at it ... Every time I hear someone say, I want to protect the children, I want to pull my hair out. — Judith Krug

If you can't make something self-evident, you at least need to make it self-explanatory. — Steve Krug

Balthazar has a great New York vibe with the accent of a Parisian brasserie. I usually have the corned beef hash with a fried egg on top and wash it all down with Krug Champagne. — Daniel Boulud

The general reactions were that the video was either not going to load, or be painfully slow to load, or would require a plug-in users didn't have. YouTube changed that, because it just works. — Steve Krug

Libraries serve the information needs of all of the people in the community - not just the loudest, not just the most powerful, not even just the majority. Libraries serve everyone. — Judith Krug

It doesn't matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice. — Steve Krug

When you go to a site, you usually run into usability problems pretty quickly. They're not hidden. They're not complicated. They're not baffling. They were in the design or crept into the design. — Steve Krug

I do. I feel wonderful. Are you sure it's Carol Mardus?" "Yes. Certainly. It shouldn't have taken me so long." "Who and what is she?" "She got Dick started. She was a reader at Distaff, and she got Manny Upton to take Dick's stories. Then later he made her fiction editor. She is now." "Fiction editor of Distaff?" "Yes." "She wasn't on your list." "No, I didn't think of her. I've only seen her two or three times." "C-A-R-O-L? M-A-R-D-I-S?" "U-S." "Married?" "No. As far as I know. She was married to Willis Krug, and divorced. — Rex Stout

I record to my heart's content whatever I feel like. — Spencer Krug

We know that there are children out there whose parents do not take the kind of interest in their upbringing and in their existence that we would wish, but I don't think censorship is ever the solution to any problem, be it societal or be it the kind of information or ideas that you have access to. — Judith Krug

Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left. — Steve Krug

Your objective should always be to eliminate instructions entirely by making everything self-explanatory, or as close to it as possible. When instructions are absolutely necessary, cut them back to a bare minimum. — Steve Krug

You should have access to ideas and information regardless of your age. If anyone is going to limit or guide a young person, it should be the parent or guardian and only the parent or guardian. — Judith Krug

Don't make me think — Steve Krug

And not just the right thing; it's profoundly the right thing to do, because the one argument for accessibility that doesn't get made nearly often enough is how extraordinarily better it makes some people's lives. How many opportunities do we have to dramatically improve people's lives just by doing our job a little better? — Steve Krug

And what agony, thought Krug the thinker, to love so madly a little creature, formed in some mysterious fashion (even more mysterious to us than it had been to the very first thinkers in their pale olive gloves) by the fusion of two mysteries, or rather two sets of a trillion of mysteries each; formed by a fusion which is, at the same time, a matter of choice and a matter of chance and a matter of pure enchantment; thus formed and then permitted to accumulate trillions of its own mysteries; the whole suffused with consciousness, which is the only real thing in the world and the greatest mystery of all. — Vladimir Nabokov

A person of average (or even below average) ability and experience can figure out how to use the thing to accomplish something without it being more trouble than it's worth. Take — Steve Krug

If you're going to implement video, do it as well as YouTube does it or don't do it at all. — Steve Krug

Your primary role should be to share what you know, not to tell people how things should be done. — Steve Krug

Your guess [about the future of technology] is as good as mine. The only thing I'm sure of is (a) most of the predictions I hear are almost certainly wrong, and (b) the things that will turn out to be important will come as a surprise, even though in hindsight they'll seem perfectly obvious. — Steve Krug

The problem is there are no simple "right" answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need - carefully thought out, well executed, and tested. — Steve Krug

You actually can be too rich or too thin — Steve Krug

I like the idea of quietly putting music out there and seeing what it does for itself, to let it take it's own life and see if people respond to it, simply because of what it is. — Spencer Krug

Demonstrate ROI. In this approach, you gather and analyze data to prove that a usability change you've made resulted in cost savings or additional revenue ("Changing the label on this button increased sales by 0.25%"). There's an excellent book about it: Cost-justifying Usability: An Update for the Internet Age, edited by Randolph Bias and Deborah Mayhew. — Steve Krug

In reality, though, most of the time we don't choose the best option - we choose the first reasonable option, a strategy known as satisficing. — Steve Krug

Nothing important should ever be more than two clicks away. — Steve Krug

Unfortunately his urge to write had suddenly petered out and he did not know what to do with himself. He was not sleepy having slept after dinner. The brandy only added to the nuisance. He was a big heavy man of the hairy sort with a somewhat Beethovenlike face. He had lost his wife in November. He had taught philosophy. He was exceedingly virile. His name was Adam Krug. — Vladimir Nabokov

I like things to be a little bit absurd. But I don't really like playing covers. — Spencer Krug

If you want a great site, you've got to test. After you've worked on a site for even a few weeks, you can't see it freshly anymore. You know too much. The only way to find out if it really works is to test it. — Steve Krug

Sincerity: that's the hard part. If you can fake that, the rest is easy. — Steve Krug

The fact that the people who built the site didn't care enough to make things obvious - and easy - can erode our confidence in the site and the organization behind it. — Steve Krug

Material that might be illegal is such a minuscule part of what is available that we have to remember and I mean not only librarians but everybody has to remember not to let it overshadow the incredible wealth of information that is available in this medium. — Judith Krug

Keep it simple, so you'll keep doing it. — Steve Krug

When we're creating sites, we act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading all of our carefully crafted text, figuring out how we've organized things, and weighing their options before deciding which link to click. What — Steve Krug

As a rule, conventions only become conventions if they work. — Steve Krug

Toni Morrison is challenged regularly because she is a black author who writes about the real world. She speaks with so much knowledge about black issues she can't be accused of creating these (issues). People find these issues threatening. — Judith Krug

I'm trying not to delve into my world of abstraction and self-indulgence. But I haven't. When I sit down and I try not to [be abstract], it comes out really forced and awkward. — Spencer Krug

(Back is the most-used button in Web browsers.) — Steve Krug

Sometimes time spent reinventing the wheel results in a revolutionary new rolling device. But sometimes it just amounts to time spent reinventing the wheel. — Steve Krug

MySpace is such a weird world to me. I don't have a MySpace account. The stuff that's up there, I didn't set any of it up. Fans set it up. — Spencer Krug