#27212
A persistent rule of thumb in the programming trade is the 80/20 rule: '80 percent of the useful work is performed by 20 percent of the code.' As with gas mileage, your performance statistics may vary, and given the mensurational vagaries of body parts such as thumbs (unless you take the French pouce as an exact nonmetric inch), you may prefer a 90/10 partition of labor. With some of the bloated code-generating meta-frameworks floating around, cynics have suggested a 99/1 rule—if you can locate that frantic 1 percent. Whatever the ratio, the concept has proved useful in performance tuning.
Kelly-Bootle, Stan. Queue (2006). Articles>Language>History>Minimalism
#19052
From Gobbledygook to Plain English: How a Large State Agency Took on the Bureaucratic Form Letter 
In an effort to reduce phone calls and improve customer service, the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries(L&I), in July 2001, launched 'Plain Talk' – a year-long project to rewrite 100 bureaucratic form letters into plain English. Hundreds of thousands of form letters are used each year by L&I to process claims, to issue workplace safety and health citations, and to handle many other workplace issues. As the Plain Talk project manager, I decided to focus on the department’s highest-frequency form letters and now work with 12 programs to rewrite them into clear and simple language. The effort is backed by a strong message from the governor and agency director, high-quality training, ongoing mentoring, and “reality check” usability testing. The project is due to be completed by the end of June 2002.
Botka, Dana Howard. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Language>Writing>Minimalism
#25847
Links to resources about the Minimalist Model applied to documentation and training.
Ryder, Martin. University of Colorado at Denver (1995). Articles>Language>Rhetoric>Minimalism
#34123
Unfortunately, there seems to be no such thing as simplicity-checking software - even remotely like the description above. Audience Dialogue tried to persuade a few software developers to make their fortunes by writing this software, but with no success so far. In the meantime, there are a few widely available tools to use.
Audience Dialogue (2007). Articles>Language>Minimalism>International
#34510
Making Content Understandable: Inherent Usability in Plain Language 
Using an example from his personal life, Haller shows how government writing should be simplified to ensure that a reader can understand government documents. He also discusses the importance of passing the Brayley Bill, the plain language bill.
Haller, Thom. Intercom (2009). Articles>Language>Usability>Minimalism
