Translation, Reframing & Audience Shift

Purpose

Adapt content for different audiences while preserving core accuracy—changing tone, depth, emphasis, and framing to match audience expertise, goals, and context.

When to Use

Invoke this skill when:

• Same information needs to reach audiences with different expertise (technical → business, expert → novice)
• Content tone/formality needs changing (formal report → casual email, academic → conversational)
• Strategic content needs tactical translation (vision → action items, why → how)
• Internal content goes external (company docs → customer-facing, jargon → plain language)
• Long-form needs compression without losing key points (detailed → summary, comprehensive → highlights)
• Medium changes (written → spoken, document → presentation, email → social media)
• Cross-cultural or demographic shifts (US → international, industry → industry, generation → generation)
• Emphasis needs shifting (highlight different aspects for different stakeholders)

Don't use when:

• Content is already appropriate for target audience (no translation needed)
• Creating entirely new content (not adapting existing)
• Simple copy-editing (grammar, spelling) without audience shift
• Translating between human languages (use language translation, not this skill)

What Is It?

Translation/reframing adapts content between audiences by preserving semantic accuracy (what is true) while changing presentation (how it's communicated). Four fidelity types:

1. Semantic fidelity (MUST preserve): Core facts, relationships, constraints, implications remain accurate 2. Tonal fidelity (adapt): Formality, emotion, register change to match audience expectations 3. Emphasis fidelity (adapt): What's highlighted vs. backgrounded shifts based on audience priorities 4. Medium fidelity (adapt): Structure, length, format change for different channels/contexts

Example: Technical incident postmortem → Customer status update

Original (Engineers): "Root cause: race condition in distributed lock manager under high concurrency (>5000 req/s). Null pointer dereference when lock timeout occurred before callback registration. Fix: added CAS operation with retry logic, deployed canary to 5% traffic, monitored for 2 hours before full rollout."

Translated (Customers): "What happened: Service slowdown on Jan 15, 2-3pm affecting checkout for some users. Root cause: Timing issue in our system under high traffic. Status: Fixed, monitored, and fully deployed. Prevention: Added safeguards to prevent similar timing issues."

What changed: Technical detail reduced, jargon removed, impact/status emphasized, customer concerns prioritized (what happened, is it fixed, will it happen again). What preserved: Timing, affected functionality, root cause category, resolution status.

Workflow

Copy this checklist and track your progress:

Translation & Reframing Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Analyze source and target audiences
- [ ] Step 2: Identify translation type and constraints
- [ ] Step 3: Apply translation strategy
- [ ] Step 4: Validate fidelity and appropriateness
- [ ] Step 5: Refine and deliver

Step 1: Analyze source and target audiences

Characterize both audiences using Audience Analysis framework (expertise, goals, context, constraints). Identify gap between source and target.

Step 2: Identify translation type and constraints

Classify as: technical↔business, strategic↔tactical, expert↔novice, formal↔informal, long↔short, internal↔external, or cross-cultural. See Common Translation Types for patterns.

Step 3: Apply translation strategy

For simple cases → Use resources/template.md for structured translation. For complex cases (multiple audiences, high stakes, nuanced reframing) → Study resources/methodology.md for advanced techniques.

Step 4: Validate fidelity and appropriateness

Self-assess using resources/evaluators/rubric_translation_reframing_audience_shift.json. Check: semantic accuracy preserved? tone appropriate? emphasis aligned with audience priorities? See Validation section.

Step 5: Refine and deliver

Create translation-reframing-audience-shift.md with source, target audience, translated content, and translation rationale. See Delivery Format.

---

Audience Analysis

Before translating, characterize source and target:

1. Expertise Level

• Expert: Domain fluent, comfortable with jargon, wants depth and nuance
• Intermediate: Familiar with basics, needs some context, appreciates balance
• Novice: No background assumed, needs analogies and plain language, wants practical takeaways

2. Primary Goals

• Decision-makers: Want options, trade-offs, recommendations, risks, timelines
• Implementers: Want specifics, how-to, constraints, success criteria
• Learners: Want understanding, context, mental models, examples
• Stakeholders: Want impact, status, next steps, how it affects them

3. Context & Constraints

• Time: Busy executives (1-page), deep dives (comprehensive), quick updates (bullets)
• Medium: Email (skimmable), presentation (visual + verbal), document (reference)
• Familiarity: Internal (shared context) vs. external (assume nothing)
• Sensitivity: Public (carefully worded) vs. private (candid)

4. Cultural/Demographic

• Language: Native vs. non-native speakers (idiomatic vs. literal)
• Generation: Communication norms (emoji use, formality expectations)
• Industry: Tech vs. traditional (pacing, references, assumptions)
• Geography: US vs. international (date formats, measurement units, cultural references)

Mapping exercise: Source audience is [expertise/goals/context] → Target audience is [expertise/goals/context] → Gap requires [translation strategy].

---

Common Translation Types

Technical ↔ Business

Technical → Business:

• Remove: Implementation details, jargon, code, algorithms
• Add: Business value, customer impact, cost/benefit, competitive advantage
• Shift emphasis: How it works → Why it matters, Metrics → Outcomes
• Example: "Reduced p95 latency from 450ms to 120ms via query optimization" → "Pages load 3x faster, improving customer satisfaction and conversion"

Business → Technical:

• Remove: Marketing language, vague goals, buzzwords
• Add: Requirements, constraints, acceptance criteria, technical implications
• Shift emphasis: Vision → Implementation details, Outcomes → Metrics
• Example: "Delight customers with seamless experience" → "Reduce checkout flow to 2 steps, target 95% completion rate, maintain PCI compliance"

Strategic ↔ Tactical

Strategic → Tactical:

• Remove: High-level vision, market trends, abstract goals
• Add: Specific actions, timelines, owners, dependencies, success metrics
• Shift emphasis: Why → What and how, 3-year vision → This quarter's plan
• Example: "Become data-driven organization" → "Q1: Instrument 10 key user flows. Q2: Train PMs on analytics. Q3: Establish weekly metrics review."

Tactical → Strategic:

• Remove: Granular tasks, individual tickets, daily activities
• Add: Themes, rationale, business alignment, cumulative impact
• Shift emphasis: Individual work → Portfolio narrative, Tasks → Outcomes
• Example: "Fixed 47 bugs, added 12 features, refactored auth" → "Improved product stability and security foundation to support enterprise customers"

Expert ↔ Novice

Expert → Novice:

• Remove: Jargon, assumptions of prior knowledge, complex terminology
• Add: Analogies, definitions, examples, "why this matters"
• Shift emphasis: Nuance → Core concepts, Edge cases → Happy path
• Example (Medical): "Idiopathic hypertension, prescribe ACE inhibitor, monitor renal function" → "High blood pressure without clear cause. Medication helps blood vessels relax. Regular kidney checks needed."

Novice → Expert:

• Remove: Over-explanations, analogies, hand-holding
• Add: Precision, technical terms, caveats, edge cases
• Shift emphasis: Simplified model → Accurate complexity
• Example: "Make the button easier to click" → "Increase touch target to 44×44pt per iOS HIG, add 8pt padding, ensure 3:1 contrast ratio"

Formal ↔ Informal

Formal → Informal:

• Tone: Third person → First person, Passive → Active, Complex → Simple
• Structure: Rigid sections → Conversational flow, Citations → Casual mentions
• Language: "Furthermore, it is evident" → "Also, you can see"
• Example: "The organization has determined that remote work arrangements shall be permitted" → "We're allowing remote work"

Informal → Formal:

• Tone: Contractions → Full words ("we're" → "we are"), Casual → Professional
• Structure: Loose → Structured sections with clear headers
• Language: "Stuff's broken" → "System experiencing degradation"
• Example: "Just shipped this cool feature!" → "Released enhanced functionality for improved user experience"

Long-form ↔ Summary

Long → Summary:

• Structure: Inverted pyramid (most important first), bullet points, highlight key decisions/actions
• Remove: Supporting details, full context, exhaustive examples
• Preserve: Core findings, recommendations, next steps, critical caveats
• Ratios: 50 pages → 1 page (50:1), 1 hour → 5 min (12:1), Comprehensive → Highlights

Summary → Long-form:

• Add: Context, methodology, supporting evidence, alternative perspectives
• Structure: Introduction → Body → Conclusion, Multiple sections with subheadings
• Preserve: Original key points as outline, Expand each with detail

---

Validation

Before finalizing, check:

Semantic Fidelity (CRITICAL):

• Core facts accurate? (No distortions or omissions that change meaning)
• Relationships preserved? (Cause-effect, dependencies, constraints intact)
• Caveats included? (Limitations, uncertainties, edge cases mentioned when relevant)
• Implications correct? (What this means for audience is accurate)
• Verifiable? (Expert in source domain would confirm translation is accurate)

Audience Appropriateness:

• Expertise match? (Not too technical or too dumbed-down for target)
• Jargon level right? (Explained when needed, used when understood)
• Goals addressed? (Decision-makers get options, implementers get how-to, learners get why)
• Tone appropriate? (Formality, emotion, register match audience expectations)
• Length appropriate? (Respects audience time constraints)

Emphasis Alignment:

• Priorities match audience? (Highlight what they care about)
• Details at right level? (Enough for understanding, not overwhelming)
• Actionability? (If audience needs to act, next steps are clear)
• Framing effective? (Positive/negative/neutral matches context and goal)

Medium & Format:

• Structure fits medium? (Email = skimmable, presentation = visual, document = reference)
• Formatting helps comprehension? (Headers, bullets, bold for key points)
• Accessibility? (Clear for non-native speakers if needed, links/references provided)

Cultural/Demographic:

• Idioms/references work? (Avoided US-centric idioms if international audience)
• Examples relatable? (Audience can connect to scenarios)
• Assumptions explicit? (Don't rely on shared context that target lacks)

Minimum Standard: Use rubric (resources/evaluators/rubric_translation_reframing_audience_shift.json). Average score ≥ 3.5/5 before delivering.

---

Delivery Format

Create translation-reframing-audience-shift.md with:

1. Source Analysis

• Original audience: [Expertise, goals, context]
• Original content: [Brief excerpt or summary]
• Original tone/emphasis: [What was highlighted, how it was framed]

2. Target Analysis

• Target audience: [Expertise, goals, context]
• Translation type: [Technical→Business, Strategic→Tactical, etc.]
• Key constraints: [Length, medium, sensitivity]

3. Translated Content

• [Full translated version]
• [Formatted for target medium—bullets for emails, sections for docs, etc.]

4. Translation Rationale

• What changed: [Jargon removed, emphasis shifted to X, details reduced, analogies added]
• What preserved: [Core facts, key implications, critical caveats]
• Why: [Audience expertise gap, time constraints, medium requirements, cultural adaptation]

5. Validation Notes

• Semantic fidelity: ✓ Core facts accurate
• Audience match: ✓ Tone and depth appropriate for [target]
• Emphasis: ✓ Highlights [audience priorities]
• Limitations: [Any unavoidable compromises, e.g., "Some nuance lost for brevity"]

---

Common Translation Patterns

"So What?" Test (Technical → Business): Every technical detail answers "so what?" - "Migrated to Kubernetes" → "Auto-scale during traffic spikes, 30% cost reduction" | "OAuth 2.0" → "Enterprise SSO, removes adoption barrier"

"How?" Test (Strategic → Tactical): Every goal answers "how?" - "Improve satisfaction" → "Response <2hr, add help center, NPS survey" | "AI-first company" → "Train PMs (Q1), hire 3 ML engineers (Q2), pilot feature (Q3)"

Analogy Bridge (Expert → Novice): Familiar → Unfamiliar - "Git branching" = essay draft versions | "Microservices" = food trucks not one restaurant | "API rate limiting" = nightclub capacity

Inverted Pyramid (Long → Summary): Most important first - Lede (1-2 sentences) → Key details (2-3 bullets) → Supporting (optional depth)

Code-Switching (Cross-Cultural): Replace cultural references - "Home run" (US) → "Big success" (neutral) | "Fire hose" idiom → "Overwhelming info" (literal) | MM/DD/YYYY → YYYY-MM-DD (ISO)

---

Quick Reference

Resources:

• resources/template.md - Structured translation workflow
• resources/methodology.md - Advanced techniques for complex/nuanced translation
• resources/evaluators/rubric_translation_reframing_audience_shift.json - Quality criteria

Key Principles:

• Preserve semantic accuracy - Facts, relationships, implications must remain true
• Adapt presentation - Tone, depth, emphasis change for audience
• Match audience needs - Expertise level, goals, context, constraints
• Test with "would expert confirm?" - Source domain expert validates translation accuracy
• Test with "can target act on it?" - Target audience can understand and use it

Red Flags:

• Semantic drift (facts become inaccurate through simplification)
• Talking down (condescending tone to novices)
• Jargon mismatch (too technical or too vague for audience)
• Missing "so what?" (technical details without business impact)
• Missing "how?" (strategic vision without tactical translation)
• Lost nuance (critical caveats omitted for brevity)
• Cultural assumptions (idioms, references that exclude target)
• Wrong emphasis (highlighting what you find interesting vs. what audience needs)