minimalism
to the maxJang F.M. Graat
JANG Communication Amsterdam
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who’s talking ?• Jang F.M. Graat
• Physics, Psychology, Philosophy
• 25+ years in Tech Comm
• Adobe Fm, Rh, Dw, Ps, Ai, ESTK, oXygen, Flare, etc.
• DITA, XSLT, CSS, HTML, SVG, JS, PHP, SQL, etc.
• Minimalist
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minimalismbasic principles
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reading is never the goal
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action-oriented
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give the users only the information they need
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support error recovery
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the problem
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what do the users already know ?
various user levels
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which personas ?
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education, experience, ...
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only the user knows what s/he doesn't know
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progressive disclosureputting the users in control
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users know when to ask for more info
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interactive media
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links change the context
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wild goose chase
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disclosable content
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progressive disclosure
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UA meets UX meets UG
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Wikipedia: !
"Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique often
used in human computer interaction to help maintain the focus of a user's
attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload.
This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data
required for the task at hand."
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basic techniques
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using web technology
expanding text
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drop-down content
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layered content
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some guidelines
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styling and wording create expectations
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for more information click here. !more information !more information: + security settings + firewall options + privacy protection !
import/export options
focus of user's attention
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consistency in styling and location of elements
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always supply a way back
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things to avoid
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stating the obvious
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too many options
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dynamic menus
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unhelpful advice
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progressive disclosurehow to implement it (manually)
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minimal information that is always shown
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RoboHelp allows drop-down text
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inserting and editing hidden information
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text is marked as hotspot
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the same process can be nested
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drop-down content may include images
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the end result in a browser: only minimal info is visible
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the user can click on triggers to reveal drop-down content
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progressive disclosure
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this method takes time
progressive disclosurelet's automate the process
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* the described automation will be available as a plug-in
for the DITA Open Toolkit
structure + XSLT = magic
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XPath : semantic search
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XSLT : makeover
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task
title
shortdesc
prolog
taskbody
context
steps
step
cmd
info
substeps
stepresult
step
cmd
substeps
step
cmd
info
substeps
a DITA task red: mandatory green: optional
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DITA task in the editor
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standard HTML output
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XSL allows automatic
transformation
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CSS makes specified elements
initially hidden
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JavaScript links triggers to their target content
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result of the XSLT
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output in a browser
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clicking a + symbols opens the <substeps>
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other symbols open <info> and <result>
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moving mouse over title reveals <shortdesc>
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+ symbol top right opens <context>
questions ?www.jang.nl
[email protected]
4everJang
blogs.jang.nl
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