Mind your jargon

The more we know about a subject, the harder it is to explain

ONE reason we founded Common as a collective was to allow us to approach problems wearing the hats of many disciplines. Our team represents at least a dozen fields, from behavioural science and psychology to market research and service design. There are many advantages to this, but also — as we’ve discovered — a few hazards, the most prominent of which is terminology.

Often in meetings we come up against a word or phrase from someone else’s discipline that we don’t understand, or that means different things to different people; or we unthinkingly use a word that our colleagues find bewildering. We didn’t anticipate this issue at the beginning, but it’s hardly surprising. Disciplines are linguistically territorial, defined by their arcane vocabularies.

For example, I was constantly derailed by the use of the word ‘design’ — as a journalist I instinctively took it to mean graphic design, which it rarely does in the context of social problem-solving. For my part, I often refer to a news or feature article as a ‘story’, at which point most of my colleagues assume I’m referring to a work of fiction (in some cases, I grant you, they’re one and the same).

There are far worse examples, such as this sentence from a university vice-chancellor’s staff email about organisational effectiveness, which won Times Higher Education’s jargon award in 2012:

We can reframe the way we define it, so that it’s not viewed as simply foregrounding cost savings, but instead a much more complex interplay of influences and drivers that facilitate opportunities for enhancing the ways in which we manage movement.

No doubt that phrase felt good to write, but it brings to mind the observation, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, that the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

Jargon is a communication killer because it imposes a barrier to entry, excluding those who lack the relevant knowledge. Many academic papers seem designed to keep the uninitiated away. This may not be intentional: the curse of knowledge ensures that the more you know about a subject, the harder you find it to explain.

George Orwell believed that unclear language was dangerous, not so much for how it disrupts communication as for how it corrupts thought. Too often we fall back on familiar words and phrases which, because we use them unthinkingly, have an anaesthetising effect on our brains. They are a ‘continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one’s elbow’, he warned. ‘The worse thing one can do with words is surrender to them.’

In the spirit of Orwell and Shaw, and in service to everyone who has felt anaesthetised by the incomprehensible, we’ve started our own jargon-busting glossary, a collection of commonly-used words and phrases along with their simple definitions. We hope this might increase clarity and inclusiveness in our own meetings, and perhaps in yours too. Here’s our first batch; we’ll be adding more over the coming months. If you have some examples of your own, please send them our way.

Service design

Service design is the practice of improving or creating services. A service is anything that helps people do something, such as medical treatment, a transport network, the supply of electricity or water or an app or website.

Quantitative research

A research method that uses objective measures, such as the collection of numerical data and statistical analysis, to study human behaviour and other phenomena. The aim is to find patterns in the data that can be generalised to a larger population, and to test theories about the cause of a phenomenon.

Qualitative research

A research method that uses observational techniques such as unstructured interviews, questionnaires, diary accounts, focus groups and direct observation to gain insights into people’s behaviours or opinions, or to understand a problem. Any hypotheses that arise from qualitative research would usually be tested using quantitative methods.

Prototype

A draft or simulation of a new product or design that is used to test its appearance or functionality. For example, a prototype of a website would allow you to test what happens when you interact with the various elements on a page before making it live. Prototype is also used as a verb: to try something out in a fast and relatively cheap way.

People-centred

When designing a service, tool or intervention, a people-centred approach ensures that the experiences and opinions of both the people who will be using it and the people who will be providing it are taken into account. It helps a designer take the perspective of those they are trying to help, to understand and empathise with what they need and want.