It does not try to eliminate any chance of the user making a mistake, but regards an error as a teachable moment that content can exploit.
Like Robert E. Horn's work on information mapping, John Carroll's principles of Minimalism were based in part on cognitive studies and learning research at Harvard and Columbia University, by Jerome Bruner, Jerome Kagan, B.F. Skinner, George A. Miller, and others.
Carroll argues that training materials should present short task-oriented chunks, not lengthy, monolithic documentation that tries to explain everything in a long narrative.
Minimalism is a large part of JoAnn Hackos' workshops and books on information development using structured writing and the DITA XML standard.
Adopting a minimalist method may appear, in the short-term, to cost more, as writers must cut up and rephrase content into single free-standing chunks.