How to Communicate Effectively with Non-Technical Audiences

How to Communicate Effectively With Non-Technical Audiences

Generally speaking, most professional occupations will require some form of communications, where one will need to reach out to specific audiences. To communicate effectively, it is basically a social skill that needs to be developed and understood. Without using proper communication skills when dealing with specific audiences, misunderstandings or incorrect interpretation of information will occur, leading to failure in reaching out to the intended audience. The article, "Communicating with Non-Technical Audiences: How Much Do They Know?" written by Bernadette Longo, inquires about the amount of background knowledge an audience would know about a subject during technical communication while considering societal views. To reflect off the article mentioned, methods to attain effective communication with non-technical audiences will be discussed in this essay. Effective communication with non-technical audiences should require an audience analysis, finding an appeal for the audience, and developing a shared meaning.

Initially, to form a basis for effective communication, an analysis of determining who the intended non-technical audience is needs to be specified. When analyzing an audience, it is useful to determine the type of audience that is to be dealt with. Different audience types can be differentiated into categories of higher to lower levels of understanding in a specific subject area. For instance, in a computer firm, the audience type can be categorized by executives, software developers, experts, and users. The executives play a role in the company's overall success, and make decisions in sales and marketing the products, while having little technical knowledge. Software developers have a different role in the company, and deal with certain technical knowledge within the company. On the other hand, experts have a great amount of technical knowledge, and deals specifically with the design and development of the products. However, users have the least technical knowledge and interest, and simply work with the product, and do not play a significant role in the design and development of the product. Due to the fact that there are varying types of audiences to consider, it is important to first recognize the audience type before reaching out to them. In addition to the audience types mentioned, it is important to consider factors that include delivery, experience, needs, preferred document type, training. More factors that help determine the type of communication to be delivered includes the audiences' age, culture, language, level of education, needs and interests, and skills. Additionally, it is required to define the intended audience. To define an audience, the size of the audience and their needs should be considered. It is also important to understand what the audience is looking to gain, what