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Communication · a life skill

Simple Audience Awareness

say it at their level

Once you know how to do something, you stop seeing the steps. “Just share it with edit access” is one move to you and five to someone who has never done it. Audience awareness starts there: before you explain, find out where the other person is standing, then start from the first thing they'll actually do.

  • Easy
  • Medium impact
  • Learn it: 1 week
  • 3 rungs, one instruction
the same instruction, three rungs
One instruction written at three levels, from an expert's shorthand at the top to every move at the bottom A ladder with three rungs. Top, how an expert says it: “Just share it with edit access.” Middle, for someone who has done it before: “Open the file, press Share and give them edit access.” Bottom, for someone new: “Open the file. In the top right, press Share. Type their email, set the box to Editor, then press Send.” How an expert says it “Just share it with edit access.” Someone who's done it “Open the file, press Share and give them edit access.” Someone new to it “Open the file. In the top right, press Share. Type their email, set the box to Editor, then press Send.” Find their rung, then start from their first move.

An illustration. The finding behind it: experts' instructions come out more abstract (Hinds, Patterson & Pfeffer, 2001).

The habit

Try it now.

  1. Ask what they've done before

    “Have you done one of these before?” One question tells you which rung to start on.

  2. Start with their first move

    Not the goal, the first thing their hands do: “Open the file.”

  3. Swap a word they may not know

    “Edit access” becomes “so they can change it”. If they'll need the word later, keep it and put the meaning beside it.

  4. Point at what they'll see

    The top right, the blue button, the box that says Editor. Things they can find beat things they have to understand.

  5. Watch, then step down again

    A pause, a frown, “sorry, where?”: go one rung lower, not louder.

    Ask, first move, point, watch.

Example: a relative asks how to video call you. “Just call me on video” is the top rung. “Open Contacts, tap my name, then tap the camera under it” is the bottom one, and the one that works the first time.

Step it down

Put your instruction on the ladder.

Write an instruction the way you'd normally say it, and pick who it's for. The page checks each sentence for a first move and something they can see, flags a few insider words, and shows which rung you're on against the one they need.

Start from an example

Who it's for

Where your instruction sits on the ladder The goal, in shorthand Some steps Every move you them

    The page knows only a handful of insider words, so read it back as them too. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.

    The research behind it

    The expert's version helped later, not now.

    Pamela Hinds, Jeffrey Patterson and Jeffrey Pfeffer ran 2 studies around a circuit-wiring task. In the first, they compared instructions written for novices by experts and by people who had only just learned the task. The experts' instructions were more abstract and advanced, with fewer concrete statements.

    In the second, novices learned from one or the other. Those taught by the beginners did better on the task itself and reported fewer problems. Those taught by the experts did better on a different task in the same area: the abstract ideas travelled further.

    So the expert's shorthand isn't wrong, it's early. Someone new needs the concrete moves first. The idea that ties them together lands once they've done it once.

    Which novices did better. On the task they were taught, those taught by beginners. On a different task in the same area, those taught by experts. Who did better taught by an expert a beginner The same task better A related task better Drawn from the study's summary, without figures.
    Hinds, Patterson & Pfeffer, “Bothered by abstraction: the effect of expertise on knowledge transfer and subsequent novice performance”, Journal of Applied Psychology, 2001.

    The idea

    Why it works.

    Practice folds many small moves into one. That's what makes you quick, and it's also why your explanation sounds complete to you: your memory fills in every gap. The other person has nothing to fill them with, so the gaps are where they get lost.

    Stepping down a rung isn't talking down. It's saying out loud the moves you now make without noticing, in the order their hands will make them. Then, once they've done it, give them the one idea that ties the moves together, and they'll manage the next task on their own.

    When it goes wrong

    Habits that help.

    • Simpler steps, same tone. Make the words concrete, not your voice slower or louder.
    • Drop “just” and “simply”. They tell someone who's stuck that it should be easy.
    • Don't over-explain to an expert. The goal and any catch is usually enough. Save the clicks for someone new.
    • Let them drive. Their hands on the task while you talk shows you the rung far better than a nod does.

    Go deeper

    Keep going.

    Keep this going in the app.

    HourLife turns these ideas into a daily system — goals, habits, focus, and reflection in one private place.

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