Jargon is generally language that applies to a particular trade, profession or group of people. Within organisations jargon can be like secret shorthand, with many variations, including abbreviations, made-up words and acronyms. Who has ever been on a Genesis project or had to go to a meeting in the CQ building?
The intranet can suffer and benefit from this collective organisational shorthand. Good intranet teams need to ensure any jargon used on top level pages such as home page and landing pages is appropriate.
For example, ‘Richard’s blog’ might be highly appropriate when it is owned by the CEO, often referred to and covered during induction training. On the other hand, ‘OSKA’ might be used as the name of the online training system based on the software used, and have no real relevance at all to staff.
The key factor in assessing any jargon-like terms that appear on the intranet is to determine the level of understanding of the terms by all staff. Do not assume that everyone knows what it all means.
How to jargon test
Depending on the size and diversity of the organisation, there are many ways to jargon test the intranet. One of the most effective ways is to review possible jargon words with new starters. This can be as simple as a joint discussion while reviewing the intranet online.
A more sophisticated option is to identify and list possible jargon words and then ask staff to share their understandings of the words. It is very important to ensure that staff do not feel like they are being tested, and they understand they are helping you with testing the intranet. One of the difficulties with this approach can be that words in the list might have different meanings in different contexts.
[November article by Catherine Grenfell, read the full article]