You may understand a subject inside out and still struggle to explain it to someone outside your field. Scientists, engineers and technical professionals face this problem in client meetings, board presentations, project updates and research talks. The issue is rarely a lack of expertise. It’s that your audience needs a different route into the subject.
The goal isn’t to make your work sound simplistic. It’s to keep the meaning accurate while making the important points easy to follow. Here’s a practical method you can use before your next presentation.
1. Start with the decision your audience needs to make
Before creating slides, ask yourself: Who will listen, what do they already know and what should they be able to do afterwards?
A specialist colleague may want to examine a method. A manager may need to understand cost, risk and timescale. A client may be concerned with reliability or the effect on their team. The underlying science or engineering hasn’t changed, but your starting point should.
For example, imagine you’re presenting a software performance improvement. A technical team might need the algorithm, test conditions and error bars. A client may initially need to know that a typical operation now takes six seconds rather than ten, what that means for their work and what you tested to verify it.
2. Lead with the main message, not the methodology
Experts often explain things in the order they discovered them: background, experimental setup, procedure, results, limitations and finally a conclusion. That order can work for a specialist seminar, but it isn’t always the best opening for non-experts.
Try a simple three-part opening:
- The point: “We’ve found a way to reduce the time needed for this process.”
- Why it matters: “That could let the team serve more customers without adding equipment.”
- What we’ll cover: “I’ll show what changed, the evidence and the remaining limitations.”
You can still provide rigorous technical detail later. The difference is that listeners now have a reason to care about it.
3. Replace jargon with meaning — but keep accuracy
Technical terminology is useful among specialists because it compresses complex ideas. Outside that group, it can create a barrier. Don’t automatically delete every technical term; translate it the first time you use it and then use it consistently if the audience needs to learn it.
Before and after: two technical explanations
Before: “The classifier achieved 91% sensitivity on the evaluation dataset.”
After: “In this test, the system identified about 91 out of every 100 cases that truly met the condition. That measure is called sensitivity. It doesn’t tell us on its own how many false alarms there were.”
The second version makes the number understandable without pretending that sensitivity measures overall accuracy.
Before: “We observed a reduction in the activation energy of the catalysed pathway.”
After: “The catalyst provides a reaction pathway with a lower energy barrier. Under comparable conditions, that can make the reaction happen faster.”
Both examples stay technically meaningful while explaining why the result matters.
4. Use an analogy, then say where it stops working
Analogies are useful because they connect an unfamiliar idea to something people already understand. A common example is comparing electric current to water flowing through a pipe. It can help introduce the idea of flow, but it does not describe every feature of electrical circuits.
A simple way to keep analogies honest is to say: “Think of it like… The similarity is… The important difference is…” That last sentence prevents a helpful illustration from becoming a misleading explanation.
5. Choose numbers that tell a story
A table full of precise measurements might be essential for technical review, but not every number belongs in your opening slide. Select the figure that supports your main claim, show the reference point and explain what the change means.
Instead of: “Latency decreased by 40%.”
Try: “A task that used to take 10 seconds now takes 6 seconds in our test. That is a 40% reduction in waiting time.”
Always name the test conditions and caveats when they matter. An apparently impressive percentage without a baseline can mislead.
6. Make your slides do less, not more
A slide should help your audience understand your spoken explanation—not force them to read a miniature report while listening to you. Before presenting a chart, tell people what question it answers. Highlight the one comparison you want them to notice. Give listeners a moment to look before you speak again.
- Put the takeaway in the slide title: “Response time fell after the update” is more informative than “Results”.
- Show one important relationship at a time; move the secondary tables to an appendix.
- Label axes, units and comparison groups clearly.
- Use visuals to explain a mechanism, relationship or change—not merely to decorate the page.
7. Prepare a short explanation and a deeper one
A useful preparation exercise is to explain the same idea at two levels:
- 30 seconds: Explain the problem, the key finding and why it matters in everyday language.
- Three minutes: Add the key evidence, one helpful example and the most important limitation.
If you can do both, you can adapt when someone interrupts, when the meeting runs short or when a colleague asks for additional detail. You aren’t dumbing down the science; you’re choosing the level of information the moment requires.
8. Test whether people understood — not just whether they nodded
Before an important presentation, practise with someone intelligent who doesn’t work in your specialty. Rather than asking “Was that clear?”, ask three better questions:
- “What do you think the main point was?”
- “Why might this matter to the people making the decision?”
- “Where did I lose you, or what word did you need me to explain?”
If they remember the technical vocabulary but not your message, rethink your structure. If they can explain the main point accurately in their own words, your communication is doing its job.
A practical example: turning a technical update into a clear message
Imagine you’re updating non-technical colleagues about a laboratory process:
Technical opening: “We’ve optimised the sample preparation workflow by modifying the extraction stage and improving instrument throughput.”
Audience-first opening: “Our team can now prepare more samples in the same working day. We changed one stage in the process and tested whether the results remained reliable. I’ll show you what improved and what still needs monitoring.”
The second opening tells the audience what changed, why it matters and what evidence to expect. The technical explanation can follow once they understand the purpose.
A quick checklist before your next technical presentation
- I know who my audience is and why the subject matters to them.
- I can state my main takeaway in one plain-language sentence.
- I explain acronyms and technical terms when they’re needed.
- My analogies make the right comparison and acknowledge limitations.
- My numbers have clear units, baselines and context.
- My slides support the message instead of duplicating the script.
- I’ve rehearsed both a brief summary and a more detailed explanation.
Frequently asked questions
How do you simplify technical information without losing accuracy?
Keep the central claim, evidence and limitations intact. Replace unnecessary jargon, add a familiar example and move optional detail into a follow-up or appendix. Accuracy comes from being precise about what the evidence shows, not from using the maximum number of technical terms.
What if a non-technical audience asks a question I can’t answer?
Acknowledge the question, distinguish what you know from what you still need to check, and offer a specific follow-up. A credible “I don’t know yet, but here’s how I’ll verify it” is better than a confident guess.
Should technical presentations include equations?
Only when the audience needs them to understand or assess your point. When a formula is important, explain what its variables represent and what its result means before analysing the mathematics.
Want your expertise to come across more clearly?
Tailored Guidance offers presentation and communication coaching for scientists, engineers and STEM professionals. Sessions can focus on a specific technical presentation, a project update, meeting confidence or the wider skill of explaining complex ideas to different audiences.
Book a free consultation and tell me about the technical ideas you need people to understand.
Further reading: The World Health Organization’s guidance on plain language offers additional techniques for making specialist information understandable.