The Invisible Browser
If you are reading this you are almost certainly involved with in internet is some kind of professional way, or have some kind of technical interest. You will know what a browser is.
But, in our capacity as experts, we must be careful not to use words that our market doesn’t understand. If we do this we will foster confusion at least, and lose our sale at most.
Your market doesn’t think like you, doesn’t use the same language as you, doesn’t have the same goals as you
And the terms that are not understood by the general public are not be the obvious ones. The vox pop research by Google shown here in the video show that the browser – something we techies all know, love and switch about – is, well, invisible to many people – 92% in fact. I’ve see this in usability labs, I’ve seen this with my family and friends.
The browser is the wood that can’t be seen for the trees of the internet.
The fact is that your market doesn’t think like you, doesn’t use the same language as you, doesn’t have the same goals as you. Sometimes you might think you are like your market, but you are not.
This is a great article. It is so easy to use technical ‘jargon’ in this ‘web-age’. Even ‘simple’ words like browser can be easily misunderstood.
Whenever I write copy for the web or printed articles, I always ask myself…”would my mother understand this”? If the answer is no, it is likely a large proportion of your audience will also not understand!
Always consider your user!