Sometimes after years of working with technology or business terms, certain ideas and concepts seem so obvious that we forget that not everyone understands them.
We need to be careful when we use jargon and technical terminology.
A non-technical audience is anyone who doesn’t have the same deep-level knowledge about your area of expertise as you have. This could include clients, managers or members of other teams.
A general rule of thumb is to try to avoid the use of jargon. Use terms and language that they know and understand.
If you need to use a technical term then ask if they’re familiar with it and if some people are not then explain it to them, simply and clearly…
To make sure that a non-technical audience will understand your presentation there is one tried and tested method -The Mammy Test.
If you gave the presentation to your mother, would she understand?
image: JD Hancock (Flickr)