How do we explain technical products in plain language?

Question an expert about the subject. Prepare the questions someone encountering the product for the first time would ask, including why they should care enough to learn more. The Frameworks recommends doing homework, writing a question list and using the interview to explore the subject beyond its terminology.

Follow the prepared questions, but leave room to investigate a nuance that makes the expert particularly enthusiastic. Understanding what matters to a specialist can help you find an explanation that matters to the audience. The Frameworks argues that accessible communication requires deeper subject knowledge, not a superficial removal of difficult words.

A 2025 Content Marketing Institute survey of technology marketers, mostly in North America and predominantly in B2B businesses, found that 77% said fewer than 15% of employees with specialised knowledge contributed to thought leadership. Seek out knowledgeable colleagues rather than relying only on existing marketing language.

Isolate the product's most meaningful benefit. Ask specialists for a short, simple description that reveals why the product matters to its audience, rather than an account of everything it does.

In a product naming workshop, The Frameworks asked engineers to explain radio frequency power components used in cancer treatment machines as though speaking to a child. The engineers had to describe each product in no more than two sentences, without words of more than three syllables. They then highlighted evocative words and active verbs.

The exercise helped The Frameworks identify the single most compelling and distinctive thing about each product. Simplified descriptions of audience value and competitive difference became a naming theme, producing linked product names grounded in their integral value. Use the same short-description exercise to uncover the central benefit your explanation needs to communicate.

Write around the difference the product makes. Build the explanation around how the product improves the audience's current way of doing things, rather than asking technical terminology to carry the message.

The Frameworks recommends identifying what you are trying to say and focusing on human impact. Ask how the product improves an existing activity, differs from competing offers or changes people's lives. The meaningful answer might be cost saving, more time or a better user experience.

Make that answer the centre of the copy, using plain, simple language and details the audience cares about. The Frameworks argues that even experts can become bored by overly complex terms. Technical complexity should not obscure the practical reason someone would want the product.