Two readers have already commented on my paper about Minimalism in the PDF on the Portfolio page. Here are some excerpts from that paper.
What is Minimalism?
The emergence of minimalist instruction in the 1990's will be seen historically as a major milestone in the development of technical communication. 'Minimalism' is a catchy label. It is used in a variety of other fields: architecture, interior design, literature, music and linguistics. Minimalist instruction in technical communication has a specific meaning that is not readily inferred from knowledge of other fields.
The primary focus of minimalist instruction is in training manuals and training course material for computer applications and software packages. There is general debate about the degree to which these guidelines can, or should, be used for other document types. A thorough understanding of minimalism principles is a precursor to examining issues of theory and application.
Principles
Choose an Action-oriented Approach. People trying to learn a skill are eager to act, to do something meaningful. To learn to do it may be psychologically necessary to act. Minimalist Instruction is always action oriented.
Anchor the Tool in the task Domain. An application is a tool to achieve an objective for which the application is designed. Non-minimalist instructions are often written as if the tool were the user's objective. Instruction tasks are selected from the core tasks of the application domain.
Support Error Recognition and Recovery. Learners spend 25-50% of time making and recovering from errors. Reducing mistakes and aiding detection diagnosis and recovery will reduce frustration. Mistake categories are Semantic, Syntactic and Slip. Usability testing identifies where users encounter errors. Provision of error information takes a special place in Minimalist Instruction; more is better. User mistakes help the learning process.
Support Reading to Do, Study, and Locate. Readers do not systematically process Minimalist Instruction from start to end. Sometimes they read to study, sometimes read to locate, but mostly they read to do. A small group will read the manual from cover to cover. Others start at the beginning but abandon it for random browsing. Another group uses the manual as a last resort when stuck. Avoid giving the manual a massive appearance; minimise the content.
Conclusions
Minimalist instruction is important to all technical communicators for two reasons:
Firstly, as a practical and pragmatic tool for planning, designing and developing manuals and training materials. Even in cases where the project is for a reference manual, minimalist heuristics need to be considered because learning and doing are inherently intertwined.
Secondly, minimalist instruction confronts the major theoretical concerns of technical communication. Writers who are aware of the minimalist principles and heuristics will automatically take a user focussed, action oriented approach, to document development. They must confront usability testing to achieve a quality product. They must be aware of the rhetorical goals of the text and sub-text.
