Lousy vs. good manuals? Perils of minimalism.

["Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

One thing I'd like to point out is that as technical communcators,
we've often been in the position of missing the forest by focusing on
the trees. (Pardon the metaphor... you can take a boy out of the
forest, but you can't take the forest out of the boy! <g>)

In fact, we should never be focusing on procedural information
_except where_ that focus directly supports the larger context, which
is getting something done with the software (call it "goal
orientation"). That is, a neophyte sitting and staring with
trepidation at Word97's opening screen doesn't want to know how to
use the file menu to open normal.dot: they want to know how to create
a letter, a manual, a novel... or whatever. Neither do they want to
know how to select File->Print: they want to know how to get a
printed copy of their masterpiece. Focusing on the use of the file
menu entirely misses the point, and it's an excellent example of why
minimalist documentation so often fails: nobody remembered the needs
of the reader and provides the context that meets those needs. Oh
yeah... and the writer misunderstood what minimalism really means.

Minimalism has _never_ meant "provide as little information as you
can" or "fit it on a single floppy disk, whatever the quality of the
result". The correct definition, at least from the standpoint of our
readers, is "to provide the necessary information, in only as much
detail as required by the reader, at the moment that information is
required". The O'Reilly, "for dummies", and other series of books
succeed for one simple reason: they haven't forgotten this fact. The
"for dummies" series succeeds for neophytes for a very good reason:
they take an unintimidating tone, and provide lots of context (often
amusing or reassuring). Ever seen a user manual that does that?
They're rare. The O'Reilly series takes a very different tack: they
aim at professionals by poking fun at the same things we love to poke
fun at, then providing workarounds for the problems only an expert
user really encounters and needs to deal with. Different audiences,
different degrees of minimalism.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

"Patience comes to those who wait."--Anon.


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