Re: Researching decline Minimalist instruction for dissertation and need help...

[Susan W. Gallagher <sgallagher5 -at- cox -dot- net>]

> 
> From: HELEN CLAIRE COOK <cookh -at- coventry -dot- ac -dot- uk>
> I am ...
> researching the topic of minimalist instruction and specifically it?s
> decline in popularity in the last decade or so.
> 
> I haven?t been able to find very much published more recently than the
> late 1990?s and was wondering if anyone can help me by answering a few
> short questions...?

Helen,

There hasn't been a lot written on minimalism in the last 
few years, that doesn't mean that the technique has declined 
in popularity.

Remember that minimalism as defined by Carroll is an
instructional design technique, more suited to tutorials and
classroom instruction than to user manuals. That said, there
are many artifacts of minimalism that you see in the majority
of software manuals written today.

For example, one of the tenets of minimalism is to document
only the simplest and most straight-forward way to perform
a task and to allow the student (reader) to discover alternative
methods on their own. So, each time you see a user manual 
that tells you only the menu approach to perform a task, 
rather than stuffing the menu, hotkey, and toolbar button
approach into a single procedural step, you are seeing
minimalism documentation techniques in use.

So, to answer your questions...
> 
> 1) Has anyone ever used minimalist instruction?

Absolutely. I began following Carroll's work in the late 
1980s and have used the instructional design technique with
great success. I have also incorporated elements of the 
technique into the user manuals I've written over the years.
> 
> 2)Is anyone actually working and writing using the minimalist model theories?

Yes, particularly in API documentation, minimalism is an
effective instructional model and I use it all the time, 
both for developer guides and tutorial material.
> 
> 4)Do you feel that minimalist instruction would or could be approriate for
> the documents you work with?

It was designed specifically for the types of documents I
work on and is not only appropriate, but essential.

HTH!
-Sue Gallagher



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