I was thinking about my last blog post overnight.  It is clear that technologists can sometimes use different terminology to non-technologists to describe what they are doing.  

I was using my mind mapping tool yesterday and I noticed that I had accidentally attached a file instead of linking to in on my fileserver.

I just want to do one thing here, ‘add more information.’  As you can see there are actually 3 (maybe 4) ways to do this in the menu above and it can be confusing which option to choose.

Techs would know, there seems to be two different actions here
1) Store the data somewhere else and
2) Store the data as part of the same file.

So how do you think that people who are non-familiar with way data is stored would cope with these options?

Check this site out:

Do you think that the type of slow paced traveller who needs careful instruction on how to use the forum would have trouble working out the difference between the 5 or more different mechanisms described here to ‘put’ something on the site?

Well, actually, they don’t care! They just want to add information!

When you are training your people in more complex web content management systems it is worthwhile mentioning ‘why’ the particular functions are like they are. When I realised why, it certainly helped me to remember what I have to do next time!