0000000000872949
AUTHOR
Tiia Suomivuori
Applying Minimalism in the Real World: Results From a Workshop
Minimalism is a user-centered, contextual and goal-oriented approach to technical communication originally developed by John M. Carroll (1990). In minimalism, the aim is to produce user documentation that focuses on the user’s needs, helps the user recover from error situations, and strengthens the user’s skills in working with the system (Carroll & van der Meij 1995: 245). The challenge with minimalism has been its practical application: although user-centeredness – the core of minimalism – is the key issue in technical communication, the abstract nature of the approach and its focus on software documentation has made it difficult to apply in industry settings (Virtaluoto, Suojanen & Isohe…
Minimalism for the Win : User-Centered Design for Guidance in Industrial Maintenance
Background: We conducted an exploratory study to test the delivery of technical instructions built on the principles of minimalism. The aim was to investigate how we could support target users’ skill levels in a context-sensitive manner. Literature review: Related work examines minimalism, user needs and profiling, and industrial maintenance and technician experience. Research questions: 1. How can the semantic structure of DITA XML be utilized in delivering technical information to users based on their skill levels? 2. How would a layered system of information support the principles of minimalism? Methodology: We created material and tested the concept in user studies with maintenance pers…