Less is less.(i column like i cm)

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's rallying cry of minimalism in modern architecture was "less is more."

Less is not a bad thing. In fact, for those creating the reusable multilingual user-oriented content of today's websites and structuring the writing of today's corporate documents, the cry should be "less is less." Minimalism is fundamental to content usability. When it is successful, minimalism means less to read and less time spent by the user to get your message and act on your goals.

Whether your content is aimed at selling something or teaching something, minimalism is about getting the job done better by using the latest research in cognitive psychology and theories of instructional and interaction design.

Minimalism as a method for creating more usable content grew out of a study at IBM in the 1980s led by John Carroll. During that decade, IBM had been pursuing the idea that all of the company's documentation should be task-oriented. People read to do, not to learn. John Dewey's pragmatic action method of education in the 1920s had focused on learning by doing.

IBM found, as has been known by some for centuries, that learning is easier when content is broken up into small action-oriented chunks. Similar research had been done in the early 1960s at Hughes Aircraft (the STOP system), the U.S. Navy (QRC method), and, most well-known and still in wide use today, Information Mapping's extensive research into structured writing. All three of these stressed small chunks of modular text with accompanying graphic illustrations.

Small is really beautiful when it comes to web content. Potential customers surfing the web have no patience. They are only one click away from leaving your site. When content is concise and action oriented, they might click and buy instead of clicking goodbye.

So give them less. (To get inside the mind of the less is less user, read Steve Krug's great book on usability, Don't Make Me Think!)