Are users always in a learning mode as minimalism tells us?

What does minimalism say about user behavior

Let me give you my interpretation on how minimalism characterizes a user before attempting to discuss what I believe is a missing piece in the minimalistic puzzle.

Discovery learning is a key element in the theoretical foundation of the minimalist design philosophy. Minimalism assumes that learners should be active and working on real or realistic tasks as they learn, since real and realistic tasks are highly motivating. In other words: Users’ best learn about products use by doing real tasks rather than reading about non-real tasks.

Minimalism says that users are active and try a product out before turning their attention to documentation. They approach a new system with an existing mental model of the task and the way it is done. Problems occur when the user mental model is in conflict with the mental model the system designer had when the product was designed.

Carroll talked about the paradox of sense-making: Users are too busy learning by trying things out, thinking things trough, trying to relate what they already know to what is going on and recover from errors, to step out from the real world and learn from instructions which most often is in conflict with the mental model of the user. Carroll also talked about the production and assimilation paradox, but it is out of the scope to talk about them here.

Carroll et al claims in the book “Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel” that effective discovery learning must be carefully supported: Which is what minimalistic instruction is all about. A minimalist instruction, as for example a guided exploration card, must support users in acquiring enough knowledge to form appropriate goals, pursue relevant activities and draw correct conclusions.

“Invitations for exploration” is a minimalist technique to ensure that users have the prerequisite knowledge to benefit from exploration, will want to explore and will have a fair chance of success. An “Invitation to explore” section may preferable be placed after a real task instruction. As a consequence, minimalist instruction is heavily learner oriented.

What does minimalism say about user information need and search behavior?

Minimalism seems to assume that users always, when they have a problem in product use, want support as guided exploration or troubleshooting when learning through discovery. When users turn to the manual they always look for task oriented information.

Users never need or ask for conceptual information alone. If so, how does minimalism say it happens?

My interpretation of minimalism says that users are aware of that they need support – that is why they turn to the manual – but they are somewhat passive and do not reflect or question what type of information they need. When users turn to the manual, they all want to be supported in their learning by discovery process? It is a “one-type-of-information” need and search. Always. Since users always becomes learners when they cannot make sense on their own.

Minimalism does not seem to acknowledge that the information-seeking and search process is an extremely complex state of affairs. Well, principle four in minimalism says that you as a technical communicator should “Support reading to do, study and locate” (which JoAnn Hackos lately change to “Ensure that users can find the information they need”). But again, does users always and only want guided support as they are in a learning mode when having trouble?

So in one sense, minimalism has simplified the world by saying: Users first try to explore and discover the product. When not being able to make sense about what is happening, they then turn to the manual and look up the corresponding guided support and troubleshooting page, which includes error recognition and recovery information as well as invitations for exploration. The search process is assumed to be simple and trivial.

Since all users behave like this, you should implement minimalistic design approach in your technical documentation design process. Then do not forget to change the titles in your table of contents to reveal the user task in their words, and you are done.

Minimalism does not say a word about different types of information need. Do users always want one type of information: Task oriented guided support? Well, I can tell you from my own research that user need a variety of different types of information in a countless amount of different search situation. And yes, they sometimes read the manual before product use.

What is the user information behavior, really?

First of all, I am not saying that minimalism is a wrong path to pursue. Minimalism has provided a lot of important knowledge to the technical communication community. I am truly grateful to all the effort that minimalistic people in the community has put in during the last 30 years. But, the design approach needs to be questioned, disseminated and looked at from different angles to move the technical communication field forward.

My research looks at users of technical products from the angle of information-seeking, which is studied in the information science research field. I am using a theory, among many, called activity theory to understand human seeking behavior. So what does this research tell us?

The following two paragraphs are a bit of an academic description. According to activity theory, human beings decide to engage in human activity as a motive to solve a human need. When deciding to start an activity, humans formulate a conscious goal which is an image of a future desired result.

A need and motive to engage in an information-seeking activity, before use or during the use of a technical device/tool, can most certainly be traced back to a perception of uncertainty which is due to an anomalous state of knowledge that may occur in the work task in which the device/tool is used. There are probably various types of needs and motives that triggers and shapes how the goal in an information-seeking activity is formed and accepted.

In other words, users are indeed active and goal oriented as minimalism tells us. They try to follow, when possible, a path of least effort. Users probably rely heavily on the mental model they construct out of meaningful interactions in the real world.

The important aspect here is that users are active not only when trying to use the product to reach real outcomes. They are also active when searching. When deciding to start an information-seeking activity, humans formulate a conscious information-seeking goal which is an image of a future desired type of information. They form a question, and decide to actively engage in finding the answer to the question. They know what they want. They look for it. They judge and reflect.

How do we design end user assistance to accommodate the information-seeking behavior?

First of all, there is a great variety of types of questions users ask. They can ask “what part number does this product have?” or “What does the noise the product is doing mean?” or “What data am I supposed to enter in this field?”

Such users do not want an instruction telling them to explore and discover. And here is the catch: Many users do not want to learn as they just want to get the work done fast to then leave the product. Certain users in certain situations do not want to learn, memorize or remember.

Activity theory says that needs and motive are essential components to energize a human to engage in an activity. Some users have a need to learn everything to be able to show off in front of their colleagues to prove they are capable of doing tasks without errors. They want to fit in a social context.

Some users have a need to make a living just putting in as little amount of effort as possible, and are thus not motivated to learn anything. They do not bother if the product is used in a wrong manner. The needs and motives of a user has great impact on how the information-seeking goal is formed which in turn also has impact on how the found information is read, used and processed.

My message is that technical documentation cannot only be designed as big topics – every page is page one topics if you like – containing only task oriented instructions to guide and support discovery and learning. That is to make the world too simple. Many technical communicators know this by heart and that is maybe why minimalism has not taken off as one would expect.

As a complement, consider to pursue a bottom-down approach, which means to predict user questions and write isolated answers to each question. You will discover that there are high level questions and low level questions.

Answers to low level questions such as “What is the product weight” may be bundled into a merged answer. Answers to high level task oriented questions may very well be crafted as a guided exploration card according to minimalism. Use metadata to classify answers from a multi facet classification perspective.

Well, this is what SeSAM (Search Situation based Architecture and Methodology) is all about. Contact Jonatan.lundin@excosoft.se if you are interested in knowing more about SeSAM and the Excosoft findability workshop series.