Minimalism with Miffy
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I presented this session for the first time at STC India Annual Conference, 2013. I presented it again in April 2014 as part of the Pune Learning Sessions conducted by STC India. Dick Bruna, the creator of Miffy, practiced minimalism without labeling it so. I use these slides for a highly interactive session, where participants understand the beauty of minimalism through artworks of Miffy. After the session, the participants don't feel daunted by minimalism. They befriend it as a creative approach that makes their content friendlier. The session also emphasizes how the brain works differently when practicing minimalism.
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Minimalism with Miffy
- 1. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. Minimalism with Miffy Mugdha Kulkarni
- 2. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 2 Objectives • Understanding and appreciating Minimalism with the help of Miffy • Learning how to practice it • Motivating ourselves
- 3. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 3 In the last year… How many pages of content?
- 4. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 4 In the last year… How much time on writing?
- 5. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 5 In the last year… How much was the reuse?
- 6. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 6 According to you… What is minimalism?
- 7. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 7 Is it? How do you practice it?
- 8. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 8 So then… What were/are the challenges?
- 9. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 9 Benefits • Simple content • Usable content • No overload of information • Easy to find information For Users:
- 10. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 10 Benefits and Definition • Manageable doc sets • Reusable content • Helps structured writing For Us: Strategy for absolutely essential task-oriented information
- 11. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 11 Let’s meet Miffy!
- 12. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 12 Let’s meet Miffy!
- 13. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 13 Let’s meet Miffy!
- 14. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 14 Let’s meet Miffy!
- 15. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 15 Everyone Else!
- 16. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 16 • Clean lines • Minimal details • Small differentiators • Five colors • Three shades • Consistent format • Simple story Why Miffy for Minimalism?
- 17. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 17 Why Minimalism? I scrolled… and scrolled… and scrolled… and… Do I… Need to… Work out?? Uhh.. A heap! I read all that.. Now forgot where to begin… Extensive.. But exhausting!
- 18. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 18 The Nurnberg Funnel The paradox of sense making Concepts in Minimalism Strategy for absolutely essential task-oriented information Can we follow minimalism in traditional authoring?
- 19. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 19 An Example Exercise
- 20. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 20 Learning the Differences Systems Approach Minimalistic Approach Emphasizes on completeness Helps users explore (sometimes, abrupt) Features and functionality User’s tasks End-to-end information (can be linear) Scenarios and use cases (modular) Requires careful reading Assumes less reading Helps users avoid errors Errors are teachable moments Users are organized and Users are spontaneous and eager to learn from the docs busy learning on their own
- 21. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 21 Principles of Minimalism Bring it on! • Take a scenario-basedor task-orientedapproach • Contributeto the software UIfrom a user’sperspective • Help users understand and recover from errors • Deliver modulardocuments that encourage users to study further
- 22. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 22 Evolving as a Minimalist Writer Completeness Accuracy Minimalism
- 23. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 23 Train the Brain! • Focus more on user’s tasks, not on product features • Structure the document based on a task list • Write to the user(distinguish between expert and naïve readers in paragraph constructions) • Initially include one round for minimalistic review in the review cycle • Later, include the recurring mistakes as self review items • Reduce the items with practice Practicemakes Permanent Minimalism is not just about BREVITY!
- 24. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 24 Evolving as a Minimalist Team • Collaborate with the stakeholders; share your vision • Come up with task lists and common customer scenarios • Define the minimalistic doc set, establish guidelines • Evaluate the existing and select the right authoring and publishing software • Define the roles and responsibilities within the TechPubs team, especially an information architectand an editor • Set best practices • Keep practicing consciously
- 25. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 25 Challenges
- 26. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 26 The Biggest Challenge Minimalism is an afterthought! Minimalism is unnatural! Are you ending up with abrupt, confusing, or incomplete user documentation?
- 27. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 27 Beware Anything in excess is dangerous. That’s Miffy eating a cake!
- 28. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 28 Dick Bruna Creator of Miffy
- 29. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 29 Questions? Allthevisualsandworkssitedinthispresentationsarethepropertyoftheirrespectiveowners.
- 30. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 30 “Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by action.” Lucius Annaeus Seneca For comments and queries – mkulkarn@tibco.com Thank You!Images credit : Miffy.org and Google images
- 31. © Copyright 2000-2013 TIBCO Software Inc. 31 How Miffy Came to Life? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezy22CYVo3M • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuzn2LMz-lA • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V52ZBZb1Rsc
Editor's Notes
- Welcome to the session! This session is not a theoretical session, where the speaker speaks and the audience listens. Let’s make it interactive to foster self-learning. I am sure most of you are aware of minimalism, and some of you must also be trying to practice it. So are we all set to participate in this little journey with our cute little Miffy?
- Most of us are already aware of minimalism. We all talk about it. We all advocate it. Let’s stop and take a look at our workspace. How do we go about it?
- What does Minimalism mean to you? Is it about writing less content? Is it about writing short sentences or paragraphs? Please explain minimalism in your words. (Make notes on a white board about people’s impression about minimalism.)
- Here are the real benefits of minimalism. To users as well as to writers. My definition of Minimalism is this – It’s a strategy for absolutely essential task-oriented information. Before we go further in understanding minimalism, let’s meet Miffy. In the next few slides, I want you to observe the visuals and tell me why I must have chosen Miffy as the ambassador of Minimalism?
- Here are the real benefits of minimalism. To users as well as to writers. My definition of Minimalism is this – It’s a strategy for absolutely essential task-oriented information. Before we go further in understanding minimalism, let’s meet Miffy. In the next few slides, I want you to observe the visuals and tell me why I must have chosen Miffy as the ambassador of Minimalism?
- One day, a letter came for miff Inviting her to stay It was a letter from her friend And Miffy said, “Hurray!”
- Never in all her life had Miff Been asked out on her own Her mother took her to the bus But she got in alone!
- Miffy was thinking as she sat When will the journey end? She looked outside and at the stop She saw her little friend.
- “Miffy, Hello,” her friend called out “We saw you sitting there!” And then her mother smiled and said, “How nice to see you here!”
- Here are the other regular characters in Miffy stories. What do we see in them all? Observe every little detail and tell it to all of us.
- White space or more background encourages kids to imagine the unsaid parts of the story. Minimalism also encourages users to explore the software on their own. Small differentiators make it easier to use stencils. Reusability of content! Colors and shades – less elements make it easier to manage the content. Today’s adults are also like children. Their attention span is decreasing day by day. If you keep it simple, users may fall in love with your software.
- So what are the problems with the traditional way of documentation? What are the concerns that we want minimalism to address?
- When I first started learning about minimalism, I was mistaking it for brevity. It’s a natural thing to happen. When I learned a few terms, such as the Nurnberg funnel, or the paradox of sense making, my brain was almost shocked and completely shaken. After reading about the usability studies that Dr. Carroll (a social scientist) and his colleagues conducted, and relating it to my everyday world, my understanding of minimalism started emerging. And then I reached a conclusion – Minimalism is a completely different style of writing and instructing. It is a paradigm shift. So how do the deliverables differ? Let’s see an example.
- How will we estimate the documentation pertaining to this screen? One way of delivering Minimalistic content would be to add tool tips and write a brief help that instead of covering descriptions for each field only summarizes how to do the main task. The expert users may not even need the help page. They might look at the tooltips and make an effective use of the software. The naïve users, however, might want to look at the help to complete the task at hand. PDF is probably for more curious and studious minds. With the emergence of online docs, the use of PDF is already fading away.
- What we learned from this example, is that minimalistic documentation does not necessarily mean less content. It means lesser processing of the content for the users. If users are able to find the absolutely right information at the right place immediately, we have surely delivered minimalistic documentation. This table summarizes the attributes of the traditional systems approach and of the minimalist approach.
- John M Carroll and many others have written principles of Minimalism. This is my version of the same principles, the way I understand them. If I try to follow these principles in my everyday writing, I have already started evolving as a minimalist writer.
- If you want to practice minimalism at an individual level, you must have a good grip on these four factors – User and Usage Pattern, Authoring Environment, Delivery Format, and Technical Depth. Also, if minimalism is your personal objective, and not the company’s goal, don’t make it your primary focus. Your primary focus has to remain on completeness and accuracy. Minimalism has to be your secondary or tertiary focus as you see in this graphic.
- Practice may not always make it perfect. But it always makes it permanent. You need to be wary of bad practice. Example – You can do this vs Do this. Not every time “do this” is going to be the right option. Minimalism is often treated as a synonym to brevity. It is not. At sentence-level and paragraph-level, brevity definitely helps achieve minimalism. But it doesn’t ensure minimalistic content.
- Minimalism is a collaborative approach. It forces us to see the software and docs as a whole, and not as separate deliverables. We are thinking more of the user experience now, far beyond the legal promise of delivering docs with every release.
- Before you go back to your work environment all excited about minimalism, remember the challenges you need to overcome.
- Very difficult till you get used to it. Why? Minimalism is not a natural process. Do you see minimalism in nature? Rather, you see abundance. That’s why, one may say that minimalism is a synthetic process, and that’s why more suited for technical writing, and not content writing or fiction. Where tone and voice are necessary. The natural way for a technical writer will be to look at the software and start documenting it. With minimalism, you need to focus more on users, and that’s why your writing does not remain natural for a first few days. Minimalism in that sense is an afterthought and it is unnatural for writers. However for users, it’s the most obvious way of receiving information.
- Miffy ate the cake, so you can’t see it. And after finishing the cake, there was nothing to do here. So Miffy left! :)