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Subject:Re: WinHelp 95 help approach From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 25 Jan 1996 17:20:19 -0800
At 1:49 PM 1/24/96, Nancy Hayes wrote:
>In article <m0te2Qh-00032rC -at- iquest -dot- net>, Tim Altom <taltom -at- iquest -dot- net> wrote:
>[snip most of Tim's article]
>>Anybody got input on when the minimalist approach should be minimized?
>Anything that is used for training. I had a friend who knew all the
>short cuts (back in the good old days when you programmed using edlin in
>DOS) but he always showed people the "long cuts" because he felt that
>they needed to understand what they were actually doing before the short
>cut made sense.
>[snip]
Whoa. Waitaminit. Hang on. Holdit. Pweeeeeeeeet!
Minimalism began as an instructional design technique! It has only
been *adapted* to help files and user manuals. And as an instructional
design technique, it works remarkably well. It does, after all,
specify that you...
Get the user involved in performing meaningful tasks immediately.
Present a single approach to performing operations (i.e., the *long*
way) -- let the user discover other approaches (i.e., shortcuts)
through exploration.
So, now, tell me again why this perfectly good instructional
design technique shouldn't be used for training?
-Sue Gallagher
sgallagher -at- expersoft -dot- com
