Don't Make Casting Think: What a Usability Classic Teaches About Actor Websites

A casting assistant clicks the link in your profile. You have a few seconds. They want your headshot, your reel and a way to reach your rep. If they have to hunt for any of those, they will probably move on to the next actor.

One of the best guides to getting this right is not about acting at all. It is Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think, a classic book on website usability.

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Krug's First Law

Krug's first chapter is titled "Don't make me think!", which he calls "Krug's First Law of Usability." (Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think, 2nd ed., ch. 1)

Every moment a visitor spends figuring out where to click is a moment they are not looking at you. On an actor website, the whole job is to get someone from "who is this?" to "I want to see them read" as fast as possible.

Casting scans, it doesn't read

Krug's second chapter explains how people actually use websites: "Scanning, satisficing, and muddling through." (ch. 2)

In plain terms:

• Scanning: people glance at a page looking for the one thing they came for.
• Satisficing: they click the first option that looks good enough.
• Muddling through: they never learn how your site is organized. They find one path and use it.

A busy casting office is the most extreme version of this. They are not browsing your site for fun. They want three or four specific things, fast.

What that means for your site

Put the essentials on the first screen. Your name, a current headshot, and one clear link or button each for your reel, your resume and your representation. No scrolling required to find them. Make the reel play in one click. Not a gallery of twelve clips with no labels. One reel, clearly labeled, that starts when clicked. Keep contact obvious. Agent and manager details, or a clear way to reach you, visible without opening a menu. Cut words. Krug practised this himself: when he updated the book for its second edition, he kept it the same length by cutting harder. Your bio can do the same. A few sentences about who you are and what you play beats a long life story. Label things the way casting thinks. "Reel," "Resume," "Contact." Not clever names that make someone guess.

Test it cheaply

Krug's ninth chapter is titled "Usability testing on 10 cents a day," with the promise that testing, "done simply enough," solves most problems. (ch. 9)

You can test your site in ten minutes:

1. Hand your phone to a friend who has never seen your site.
2. Give them one task: "Find my reel," or "Find my agent's email."
3. Watch without helping. Note every pause, wrong tap or question.
4. Fix the biggest snag, then repeat with someone else.

Most actors check their site on a laptop. Test on a phone too, since that is often how links get opened.

The bottom line

Your website does not need to be fancy. It needs to be fast to use. Every second you save a casting office is a second they spend looking at your work.

And once your site gets you the audition, the reading still has to land. That is where regular practice, with a scene partner like ActorLab's, does its part.

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Quoted chapter titles and phrases are from Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd edition (New Riders, 2006), chapters 1, 2 and 9.