How do you communicate with stakeholders who don't have the same kind of technical understanding?

In my last role, I worked on fixing a bug that was causing some users to lose draft changes, and our support teammate asked when it would be fixed. I started by explaining the root cause, but I could tell that wasn't what they needed, so I switched to explaining what users were experiencing, what the safe workaround was, and why we needed a little more time to test the fix properly. I also asked how they planned to message customers, and that helped me realize I needed to be more specific about who was affected and who wasn't. After that, they used that explanation in their customer responses, and we avoided a lot of confusion and duplicate follow-up questions. That experience taught me that communicating well isn't just making something simpler, it's making it useful for the person on the other side.

In my last internship, I helped update a customer-facing dashboard, and I had to work closely with a product manager and a support lead who cared more about the customer impact than the implementation details. When I needed to explain an issue, I avoided leading with code or terms like "data refresh" and instead described what the user would see, how many people were affected, and whether there was any risk to their workflow. I also found it helpful to use a quick screenshot or a simple example, because that made it easier for them to react and ask the right follow-up questions. If I wasn't sure I was being clear, I would ask them to repeat back the main point in their own words so I could catch any confusion early. That approach worked well for me because it kept everyone aligned without making the conversation feel too technical or too vague.