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>From: Susan W. Gallagher
>What you've shown in your examples, I think of as "jumps". References to
other sections of the book, or to other topics in the online file, that
cause the reader to access a totally different section are not transitions.
Jumps are abrupt; transitions are smooth.
>What I refer to when I say "transitions" are the smooth segues from one
thought to another that you find in a well crafted essay or report -- one
that is linear in nature.
>For example, in a linear book, a chapter or section may end by posing a
problem. The section that follows presents a possible solution. The reader
is prepared for what comes next; the book flows; the text is linear. In
online help, the topic ends. Period. There is no transition. There's only a
jump.
It is important to decide whether to write in a linear or isolated-module
style. However, this decision is distinct from choice of media -- paper or
online. The first step in listing our options is a 2x2 matrix of
linear/modular and print/online:
o Highly linear presentation, on paper
o Highly linear presentation, online
o Highly modular presentation, on paper
o Highly modular presentation, online
Technical writing theorists and workers have uncritically assumed that
[linear on paper] and [modular online] are the only two possibilities. But
[modular on paper] and [linear online] are actually not just possibilities,
but are common and respectable. STOP promotes [modular on paper] and about
*half* of the Web is in the form of much enjoyed and much-used linear online
presentation, which we could call the article or whitepaper format.
Hypertext theory is half-baked until it brings together all four
combinations and compares them. Of these four quadrants, the least
understood yet one of the most popular on the Web is linear online.
Consider Ken Wilber's caution that we should not take one realm of knowledge
and try to blow it that approach to cover all realms. Instead, use a
multiplicity of approaches.
So I am not promoting linear online as an ideal technique to replace the
other 3 style/media combinations. Rather, consider linear online as a
powerful tool that has been missing from the toolset.
When you integrate [linear, online] with the other three combinations, you
end up with what I'm calling "linear, moderate hypertext", which is
especially characterized by gentle chunking, or gentle partial delineation
of adjacent modules, as opposed to absolute isolation of modules, which
tends to collapse into a schizophrenic heap of cards that practically lacks
any comprehensible structure.
For general technical docs, I do not favor highly linear or highly modular
presentation, but rather, moderate linear hypertext (whether online or on
paper with page cross-references). Combine the best of linear with the best
of modular, and be ready to deliver on paper or online.
This moderate, hedge-your-bets approach is a such, reliable, familiar,
time-tested, economical, natural, no-nonsense approach. Look at the best
computer books in the bookstore, and you will see alot of this moderately
modular, moderately linear approach. It is sober, moderate, and
conservative, and it works well, without requiring special methodologies
beyond a little of this, and a little of that.
Paper and online were artificially presented as radically different things
only by introducing an artificially wide gap between linear and modular
presentations, then associating over-extremist linear style with paper, and
over-extremist modular style with online.
I recently had to convert over-extremist linear docs to an overextremist
modular hypertext online system. A pox on both your houses; let's just
write in a reasonably softly-chunked classical approach as found in the Word
2.0 printed and online docs.
About "minimalist docs" -- again, the classical flexible model I'm trying to
define is the best because it can pick and choose, subsume and integrate the
best from the other models. In the beginning of the Word 2.0 printed manual
is a high-level introduction to using the environment. That section was
minimalist documentation, within a complete and detailed user manual.
Any new technique is better implemented within a moderate classic framework
or layout, rather than committing again the huge mistake of online theory --
thinking that a single new trick (the hypertext jump, the completely
isolated screen) is good enough to replace and make obsolete all that came
before it (all the formats created for printed manuals, such as hierarchical
table of contents).
The best way to accept minimalist technique is too add a minimalist section
to a conventional detailed document. Incorporate the new trick into the old
bag of tricks; don't throw away or disparage or undersell the old
techniques.
We should study and experiment with the extremes of linearity and
modularity; however, the best solutions are likely to combine moderate
linearity with moderate modularity. I'm interested in morphing from a STOP
layout partway toward the linear style, both online and on paper. Note that
reference material is better suited to a somewhat more modular presentation
than conceptual material, which is better suited to a somewhat more linear
presentation.
I sure agree with the STOP advocates, that we've got to move beyond the
uncritical assumption that there are only two combinations: [linear, on
paper] and [modular, online]. The approach that is most likely to be
valuable would be some sort of linear/modular hybrid, delivered on some kind
of flexible paper/online integrated system (such as the ability to print
with page-number cross references and page-numbered hierarchical TOC, from
an online hypertext doc).
Ken Wilber (a transpersonal psychologist and integral-studies theorist)
would consider this "integral documentation", meaning that it fully
integrates fully distinct approaches, as opposed to elevating a single
isolated approach above the others and trying to stretch it to cover areas
for which it is ill-suited.
A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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