ARTICLE | DITA and minimalism

Minimalism from a technical writing and training perspective was first investigated and proposed in the late 1970s by John Carroll and colleagues at the IBM Watson Research Center. It has since evolved and been extended by a variety of stakeholders.

The link between DITA and minimalism (the IBM connection notwithstanding) is not exactly carved in stone but the two complement each other like macaroni and cheese. The macaroni (DITA) provides the infrastructure and model that you need to support the cheese sauce (the minimalist content).

JoAnn Hackos’ Four Principles of Minimalism are helpful and useful. They are:

Principle One: Focus on an action-oriented approach
Principle Two: Ensure you understand the users’ world
Principle Three: Recognize the importance of troubleshooting information
Principle Four: Ensure that users can find the information they need

However, I would change things up a bit and stress some different points. Minimalism, when applied to technical writing, should result in content that is:

Based on knowledge of the users
Usable
Minimal
Appropriate
Findable

Based on Knowledge of the Users

Understanding your users is the underlying requisite for applying all other facets of minimalism. Without knowing how they are using the product, how they are accessing the content, and what their daily goals are with your product (and a thousand other factors), you aren’t going to be able to correctly apply the other facets of minimalism.

Usable

Write task-oriented topics that are focused on business goals rather than product functionality.

This means you need to understand your users well enough to understand those goals, including what backgrounds they have, what other tools they have at their disposal, their educational background, and a host of other information. User personas can be a powerful tool here.

The action-oriented approach is important but more specifically, you should be writing procedural information (tasks). One absolutely vital piece of any task is a detailed, goal-based context for the task. Done well, this context is an essential component of the learning process. The context the “why” that helps users situate themselves—so it must be written for and about their goals when using your product. They use that context to take their understanding of your product to the next level. The task’s focus should always be on the user. This focus is often neglected, although usually through either ignorance or time constraints, but the steps of a particular task are almost immaterial when compared to the context.

Minimal

Powerful, usable content is clear and simple. In this sense, minimalism means removing words that add no value; words or phrases that are long, ambiguous, convoluted; and content that is simply not required.

Short simple sentences are easier to read and provide a basis for better translation. Topics that have only essential information are more easily parsed and will be read with more attention. If you limit yourself to essential words, then every word will be valuable to end users.

This facet of minimalism can often be done as part of an editing pass, either by you, a peer reviewer, or an editor—or better yet, all three. Remember that fewer, clearer words is more work, not less.

Appropriate

The careful selection and placement of every word you write should always be on your mind, from the planning stages through to the editing stages of your content. For content to be appropriate, it has to be the right information in the right place, support error recovery, and be formatted correctly.

Provide the right information in the right place to support users in their goals.

A pre-requisite to a task that is placed between steps four and five is a good example of content being in an inappropriate location. Always move a pre-requisite up before the context (in its valid DITA location) for consistency and because no one wants to get part-way through a task only to realize that should have done something important before even beginning. Similarly, if you need to prevent a common error from occurring between one step and another, then put it right there instead of in a separate location or topic. Best practices, mentioned in the right place, can save your users the hassle of having to troubleshoot later on.

Write detailed error recovery using DITA 1.3’s new troubleshooting topic and elements.

Many users will turn to the documentation only when they have run into a problem and need to look for a solution, so you are most definitely trying to write exactly what they are looking for. Troubleshooting, if it is concise and can’t be separated out from the context of its related task, should be kept inline using any of the three new troubleshooting-related elements (task troubleshooting, step troubleshooting, or the troubleshooting note type). When there’s too much information or the troubleshooting topic really should stand on its own (and be searched for as a discrete object) it should be written using the new troubleshooting topic. For any troubleshooting information (whether it’s a topic or inline), your goal is to provide error recovery by identifying a condition, a cause, and a remedy. The new troubleshooting topic also allows you to provide multiple cause and remedy pairs for a single condition to cover more complex cases.

Provide supporting information in the right format.

Although much of your minimalistic content will be in task topics (and thus formatted as ordered lists), your supporting information should use unordered lists, graphics, and tables depending on the type of information being conveyed. When users will need to scan and look up specific details quickly, you’ll use a table. Graphics will be most helpful when trying to convey an underlying or specific structure or flow. Unordered lists are important for listing parallel items that need to be noted

Findable

All of this targeted, minimalist, formatted, supportive content is going to be completely wasted if it’s not also all easily findable.

There are two levels to findability. At the detailed level, it means using short, targeted topics that are the appropriate type (task, concept, reference, troubleshooting, and glossary).

At the macroscopic level, findability means robust search mechanisms including faceted search, role-based content, and filtering. Whether your content strategy calls for building something custom, leveraging something in house, or buying a tool (that can take DITA source content and publish responsive Web-based content with these findability features built right in) is up to your requirements, budget, and timelines.

Summary

One of the most valuable changes you can make to your DITA content is applying minimalism to that content, both before and after your DITA conversion. Take the opportunity when learning DITA to learn how to apply minimalism to your content. It will not only improve your content and make your users far happier (leading to customer satisfaction improvements that will positively affect the entire company), it will also allow you to further define and refine your entire content strategy.