Re: minimalist documentation?

[Elna Tymes <etymes -at- LTS -dot- COM>]

Hillary Jones wrote:
>
> I've been reading some about minimalist documentation. Has anyone put
> that into practice or have success/failure stories about it?

Probably the best examples of minimalist documentation are some of the
Macintosh user guides.  Some Hewlett Packard manuals show flashes of
similar inspiration.  However technical people at most companies wind up
making enough of a case for documenting every feature and every option
that most manuals wind up as door-stoppers.

>  How do you think it
> would work if that were all the documentation you provided for a
> software program? Should it be used in conjunction with a thorough
> reference manual?

We've tried it that way, on occasion.  The users loved it, but the
project developers eventually managed to do away with the simple user
guide + reference manual + online help in favor of a bigger single
reference document + online help.
>
> By the way, my source for info about this is John Carroll's "The
> Nurnberg Funnel." Are there any other sources out there about minimalist
> doc? Is Carroll's book outdated?

Carroll's book is NOT outdated.  It's the basis for a whole lot of other
literature, mostly papers, describing how to use minimalism.  One
company doing great work with this concept is Stephanie Rosenbaum's
TecEd, with offices in Ann Arbor and Palo Alto.  (Stephanie has received
some high honors from STC for her work in this area and others.)

Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems

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