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<\/p>\nSolution Summary cards are the name I have given to simple 1-page documents we provide to developers to get up-to-speed on a particular solution.<\/p>\n
The primary use-case for these cards is to provide better on-boarding for new team members.<\/p>\n
An additional benefit is that crafting these short summaries forces people to review how your teams are working and you will often start seeing areas which would benefit from standardization or simplification. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
An example of one these cards, in this case for a simple Data Warehouse implementation, can be seen below:<\/p>\n
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These cards are not intended to replace full technical guides, but to just capture the essential information that you would often need at a glance and\u00a0prevent scrolling back and forth through larger documents.<\/p>\n
Cognitive load<\/em>\u00a0relates to the amount of information your brain can use to figure stuff out. \u00a0Since your working memory<\/em> has a very limited capacity, we should avoid overloading it with unnecessary information.<\/p>\n How working memory<\/em> fits into the overall cognitive process can be seen in this Information Processing Model<\/em>.<\/p>\n Developers want to focus on solving real-problems, for real-people, in the real-world.\u00a0 All the \u2018other stuff\u2019 we contend with is just a distraction.<\/p>\n Having to fill up the brain\u2019s mental model with unnecessary information will drain the energy and productivity of your teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, we are able to use our cognitive faculties more efficiently if we know we can quickly reference (instead of memorizing) the following information<\/p>\n Even without these cards, after a while, people will learn all the server details, processes and nuances – but it comes at a cost in the form of a lot of wasted effort.<\/p>\n This is not a revolutionary new idea, however, I wanted to share an example of what I do in case it inspires others.<\/p>\n For this work, understanding cognitive load helped me to find the balance between detail and usability.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are 3 types of cognitive load and the ultimate goal of these \u2018cards\u2019 is to reduce extraneous load<\/em>.<\/p>\n If you would like to know more, I found the following two resources informative:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/InfoProcessModel.png\")
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