The gap between computer jargons

By Alistair Dabbs
December 20, 2004
Somewhere between the twin evils of jargonising and patronising lies a promised land where ordinary users care what you tell them because at last they understand you.

What's the difference between a hi-tech digital gadget and a technical author? One is complicated and requires a manual to understand, while the other can be bought at The Bay. Joking aside, the gulf between the language of computing and that of computer users remains as vast as it ever was.

This was most evident, as my colleague Roger Howorth pointed out last week, at Apple's hyped-up European launch of its iTunes Music Library earlier in June. Although I had my fingers stuffed firmly in my ears during Alicia Keyes' 15 minutes of insane hooting at the event, I did pick up a lot of digital-savvy vibes about the Apple iPod from the consumer press attendees. Yet to be more comprehensive than Roger, an iPod is not just a combined music player and data storage device, but also a synched address book, calendar, alarm clock, text reader and handheld games console.

That's quite a complicated piece of kit to be selling to consumers, but Apple manages to pull it off pretty well. So how come it's so hard to get users to accept much simpler computing challenges at work, such as using the duplexing unit on a laser printer or understanding the difference between the Reply and Reply To All buttons in email?

It comes down to the way in which technical concepts are communicated. However, one person's jargon is apparently another person's plain English. I was recently sent a review copy of 'Adobe Creative Suite for Dummies', supposedly written for total beginners. Yet as early as page 12, the book casually states you can "Save Illustrator files as secure PDF files with 128-bit encryption". While you and I know what this sentence means, I suspect that it may cause total beginners to run screaming into the night.

Technical people simply do not realise when they speak in jargon. Often when I am researching for a case study, my interviewees will be systems managers who are wholly incapable of describing their newly installed system in words. They can tell me what a system does but not what it is. I ask "What did you buy?" and they will respond "It preserves a wider bandwidth connection between nominated clients and the external provision of blah blah blah..." Usually I end up resorting to my last-ditch questions for extracting basic information from technical people: "What colour is it?" and "How dissimilar is it to, say, fish paste?"

Of course, you can go to the other extreme by patronising your audience. Last week, the Pilgrim Trust Preservation Award (for the preservation of digital material) was won by the Digital Archives at Kew. The head of archiving, David Ryan, described his system as being "like a giant fridge... keeping [data] fresh by preventing digital decay". It's a charming analogy but not an entirely useful one: yet again, the description tells me theoretically what the system is for but not what it is. The analogy doesn't work either, at least not judging by the various states of decay in my fridge.

Ultimately, users can learn jargon but they are fundamentally disinterested in product features and operating instructions. They respond better to benefits. So whether that's saving paper with a duplexer, saving face with the Reply button or simply posing as a trendy mugging target by carrying an iPod, tell users what they can gain. Then they'll listen.

About the author: Alistair is a freelance journalist based out of the UK. His web site is available at Dabbtsnet.com.


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