“[Hemingway] has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
—William Faulkner

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
—Ernest Hemingway

 

What was one of the hardest lessons I learnt? Being clever is not clever. Problems can be very complex and require a lot of analysis. You don’t have to find solutions for problems that don’t exist. When you take instruction and understand what is happening, you are helping the client, the answer could be simpler.

Explaining a problem, an improvement, new ways of working etc can be done in plain English. After you have left a site your legacy is the benefit and the proof you have kept there.
Working with clients should be a process of listen, discuss, listen, confirm and do. Life is made complicated by people with complicated outlooks. Everyone involved has to understand how to work with what you propose so it has to be designed at that level.

This involves listening to everyone in the process and getting their input. Once you have that then you can see the whole picture and not just the one suggested at first.