How do you navigate through new territory? That is a good question.
I remember a long family trip when I was about ten. I loved maps and discovering new places. I asked to be the navigator and my father trusted me with the maps that AAA had marked with a highlighter. I sat in the back seat and made verbal notes about the towns we were passing through. This was before the time many interstate highways were completed, and the main roads still passed through towns rather than around them.
One time my Dad asked how far it was to next town. Looking up from the map, I held up a thumb and forefinger an inch apart and said, "this much." He laughed, and so did I when I realized he was asking for the miles to go. For a moment, we had a different frame of reference; he wanted the translation, not the literal detail from the map. He needed something he could use.
When you are navigating, that is an important pause to take, to understand the frame of reference of your audience. For technology people, this is especially true, for you will ever be translating. |