
Ask HN: How to give a “Web 101”-type presentation to non-technical people? - romellem
Me and my colleagues have been asked to give a &quot;Web 101&quot; &#x2F; &quot;Demystifying the Web&quot; presentation to a field of non-technical people.<p>These are folks who generally work in marketing or advertising, and want to build up their knowledge base so they can better understand technology topics when working with various agencies.<p>What topics would you cover if you were giving this presentation? What are some things that are OK to skim because it may get too technical and isn&#x27;t relevant to their area of expertise? Any key points to <i>avoid</i>?<p>We are thinking we don&#x27;t want to get into any specific programming fundamentals (variables, functions, loops), or libraries (React, MongoDB, Git), and try and stay as general as possible while still plugging in any gaps they may have.<p>One strategy we had was the use one of those &quot;polling&quot; apps where people can anonymously text a question they&#x27;ve had but have been too afraid to ask about, and we can try and answer those questions.<p>Besides trying to answer people&#x27;s specific questions, some general ideas that we had include:<p>* History of Computers, the Internet, and HTML<p>* Building Blocks: HTML, CSS, JS (Content, Style, and Functionality)<p>* The Browser<p>* Web 2.0 and the rise of user-generated content<p>* Web 3.0? (Ubiquitous Connectivity, &quot;The Cloud,&quot; &quot;The Intelligent Web&quot;)<p>* Emerging Technologies (AI&#x2F;ML&#x2F;NLP, AR&#x2F;VR&#x2F;MR&#x2F;&quot;XR&quot;)<p>* Nitty gritty (high level, but these may be too specific): SPA, PWA, CMS, PaaS<p>Has anyone here had to do something like this before? Any material you&#x27;d recommend to draw inspiration from?
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new_guy
I find one thing I'm always having to explain, is caching.

Why content doesn't always update straight away. What is it? Why do I need to
clear it? etc.

I had one guy brick his computer last week trying to 'clear his cache', still
no idea what he actually did. But it's a topic that'd probably be useful,
maybe also authentication and state management.

Also, the fact that browsers aren't always 100% compatible with sites and why
etc. It's obvious to us but to non-technical people they think the browser is
'the internet' and that's it!

------
ziddoap
I do regular presentations, although mainly security related, for the non-
technical staff at my workplace. I have a few comments, stemming from personal
opinion and anecdote, that you should feel free to take or leave.

My comments are hopefully on-topic, but I'm not positive on the exact scope of
your presentation nor the technical literacy of the people you are presenting
to. A web 101, to me, is rudimentary stuff. From your general ideas however,
it seems like this is a bit higher level than a Web 101. I'm not sure if your
ideas are just ambitious, or if this is a bit more than a 101.

\------

If this is Web 101, and not Programming 101, I would advise skipping over any
sort of programming whatsoever. Even though it can be presented in a logical
and understandable fashion, if someone has trouble understanding the basics of
web, I do not believe they are going to enjoy even surface level programming.
Perhaps just an extremely brief overview (and/or definitions) would suffice.
"X is a programming language, usually used for Y, and it helps accomplish Z".
A marketer (generally) doesn't need to know what a function is doing or how it
does it, they want to know how it helps them.

Although a brief history of computers might be good to introduce the
presentation, I wouldn't spend much time on it. I have found that most people
I have presented to really aren't interested in the history or development of
computers or the internet. They want to know what's happening _now_.

Emerging technologies would be good, but I would avoid getting too specific. I
would recommend focusing on what the technologies will allow them to do,
rather than focus on how the technology does it. "We've all heard the
buzzwords AI, ML, etc. As they advance, and as costs come down, here are some
things we could leverage the technology for...". Emphasizing what the
technology will do for your marketers and advertisers will have them much more
excited than trying to explain what is happening mathematically or
programmatically.

I find the key with giving a technical presentation to a non-technical
audience is to not cover too many topics, even if they are just overviews.
Rather, a slightly more in-depth and much more focused presentation has always
yielded me better results. My first presentations tried to cover everything
from passwords, to phishing, to viruses, etc. They were not very successful.

What specifically is the goal for your presentation? If you have to choose one
thing for your audience to walk away with, what would it be? Center your
presentation around that, and perhaps touch on some tangential topics.

\------

Personally, given the goal of "demystify the web" only, and assuming a
completely non-technical audience, I would structure my presentation like
this:

Extremely brief history of computers, using a story instead of technical. As
my presentations are usually security related, I like to start with the 1903
telephone hack, where a gentleman named Nevil Maskelyne interrupted a public
presentation of a "secure" telephone line, by sending insulting Morse Code
messages during the presentation [1]. It usually gets some laughs, is
relatable, and segways nicely into how things have evolved since.

Next I would focus on an overview of browsers and websites. Something fairly
short, but lays the groundwork for the meat of the presentation.

Since your audience is mainly marketing / advertising, the bulk of my
presentation would be focused on the (slightly) more technical side of those
fields. If they are familiar with SEO, you could discuss what is happening on
the back end. Perhaps talk about web scraping, indexing, linking, analytics
and tracking, etc. Anything that might help them do their job better.

That might lead into how AI/ML and all the other buzzwords might help them
with SEO, or writing copy, etc. Again, not focusing on what AI is, but how AI
might _help them_.

Just my 2c, I'm sure whatever you come up with will still be a great help!

[1][https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228440-700-dot-
dash...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228440-700-dot-dash-diss-
the-gentleman-hackers-1903-lulz/)

Edit: Some afterthoughts. A quote comes to mind, but I cannot find the exact
one. It's along the lines of "Using a simple, but _somewhat_ wrong analogy is
much better than a technically accurate, but confusing one". Secondly, I would
advise having your main goal be to teach them something that they _can use_ in
their day to day. Something that affects them, personally. You want them to be
invested in what you have to say, and the best way to accomplish that is to
show them what your presentation can do for them during their day to day.

