Mark Greenfield

I came across this great video on Seth Godin’s blog. To get the full effect, take a look at the video before reading the remainder of this post. The video lasts 1:09.

One of my favorite ideas from the book Don’t Make me Think is tunnel vision. From Chapter Two, the first Fact of Life is that we don’t read web pages, we scan them. We are in a hurry. Web users are like sharks who need to keep moving or they will die. We don’t look at an entire web page, we focus on the task at hand or our personal interests. Everything else is white noise. For those of you who haven’t read the book, here is a link to Don’t Make Me Think - Chapter Two, including an illustration of what designers build and what users see.

So think twice about all the extra bells and whistles you add to your designs. IMHO, the simpler the better.

As I travel giving presentations, I consistently hear positive feedback about my book recommendations. People are always anxious to see what I’ve been reading and how it relates to higher education web development. So I’ve decided to open a bookstore utilizing Amazon’s astore affiliate program.

Here are some things you should know about the store:

• The URL for the bookstore is http://astore.amazon.com/markagreenfie-20
• I will only list books that I have read and recommend.  Most of what I read these days takes the “50,000 foot view” of the impact and future of the web.  You won’t find books on the day-to-day creation of web sites.  There are plenty of other resources out there for these.
• For sending customers to Amazon, I will recieve a modest referral fee (approximately 4%). Any revenue I generate from the bookstore will be reinvested into my web site and presentations.
• Purchasing a book from my bookstore replicates the experience from buying directly from Amazon. The books are the same price, the security is the same,  the process is the same, etc.
• If you purchase anything it is completely anonymous. I will have no details of who you are or anything about your amazon account
• If you end up purchasing other items from Amazon after starting out at my bookstore, I may get a referral fee for those as well.

For future reference, I have created a link at the top margin in the left column of my site. There is a link to the bookstore along with an image of my latest featured book. I also plan on making book reviews a regular feature of my site.