Don’t treat your clients or colleagues like idiots
I’ve seen it happen in the past – something even I’m guilty of having done myself…treating clients and colleagues like they won’t understand what you have to say.
You’ll be surprised to learn that people can handle a lot more than what the tech-heads think. Hopefully, with a few of these pointers you can learn to work with your customers to achieve a perfect result without a big list of changes at the end!
Customers are not inferior
Just because they don’t understand the in’s and out’s of developing doesn’t mean they can’t understand (at least, with a bit of guidance).
If you take the time to guide and educate them, then you may find the whole process is a lot easier in the long run – your customers will be able to see where you are coming from and you can work to their goals without having to spend weeks refining the end product just because “it didn’t work the way they thought it would.”
Be patient
Simply saying “it won’t work because the server load is too high” isn’t good enough. It takes patience to explain why something can’t be done a certain way and you need to explain it all – if they don’t know what a server is, explain it to them. If they don’t know what memory, etc all are – you need to let them know. Explain it to as greater lengths as you can.
If they still don’t understand, they will most likely just give you a nod and accept that it has to be done your way – simply because you have tried to make the effort to explain as opposed to saying “because I said so.”
Try to avoid Jargon
Most clients will understand what a Hard Drive or Memory is, but make sure they do before you start using terminology like this – maybe throw in a subtle “do you know what that is?” when you say it – but try to avoid sounding patronising.
Make sure they understand
Quite often I’ve had clients or colleagues just nod and pretend they understand just because they don’t like to come across as lacking knowledge. Keep questioning them like with the above “do you know what that is?” and make sure they entirely understand what you are telling them. They won’t feel stupid if you ask them, unless of course you say it after every sentence 
Talk to them in person
Don’t e-mail or IM them to explain something, it just won’t work. Meet up with them in person to discuss functionality in more detail, preferrably with the work in question at hand to help visualise your points.
Text just doesn’t work…it doesn’t allow for the fine details and usually results in a lot of assumptions.
So talk to your clients and colleagues, explain things to them fully and you’ll find that in the long run it will save time!