Speaking Geek and Other Bloopers

2007-07-06 22:26 | ,

As I have announced in the previous posting, Johnson (2003) has identified a couple of mistakes that publishers of Web sites frequently make, as they may not be aware of the communicative dilemma of Web texts. Some very basic ideas are given in this article in order to sensitise the readers of my blog to make up their minds about something so trivial – but with an enormous impact on successful communication.

According to the author, blooper #42 refers to what is known as ‘speaking geek’, which means that Web developers often use programmer’s jargon in their content. They do so, because they probably do not realize it is jargon, or because they expect the users to learn the jargon (see Johnson 2003). A visitor who enters a Web site and cannot identify with the things said in the texts and with the possible role that he could adopt would not feel addressed by any of these texts. An example would be naming the visitors of a Web site ‘user’, which is suitable for a factual discussion of methodical or technical topics, as in Christian Vogt’s blog on Web standards and Textpattern, whereas in many other cases the words ‘customer’, ‘member’, or ‘reader’ may rather be appropriate in the discourse with the visitor. In Johnson (2003), calling a Web site visitor ‘user’ is even considered a blooper itself (blooper #43). In the same line of argumentation, Johnson’s blooper #44 refers to using any insider jargon. (There are sixty bloopers of different kinds described in Johnson’s book – and reading is worthwhile.)

On the whole, in order to avoid ‘speaking geek’, Johnson (2003) recommends e.g. to get to know the user better, and to base the site’s vocabulary on that of its intended users, as well as not to use the vocabulary of experts in a site’s business. Orienting a Web project’s vocabulary for relevant texts on the intended role of the visitor can help making the context of the communication intelligible. In case of a Web shop, dedicating a message to potential ‘customers’ can contribute to immediately form a context that the visitors can adopt.

However, avoiding such bloopers is just one way of clarifying the context for the intended discourse. By now, I mainly wanted to emphasise the importance of a message in the Web content that is perceivable almost at first sight in order to respect the many possible contexts that users may have. I will come up with comparable approaches in the following postings.

Published by Christian Kuhn

Comments

No comments.

Post a comment

Commenting is closed for this article.


Add to Technorati Favorites

Favourite Web writing resources

Recommended surfing