The Story Isn’t in the Code, It’s in How You Show It
- Michael Paulyn
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
You spend hours building the product and explaining every workflow, every toggle, every tool that was carefully designed, and as you walk someone through it, you notice their attention drifting because the changes are described in a way that exists only inside the system and doesn’t land in their day-to-day experience, which makes the work feel heavy even when it is technically flawless.

Explaining Without Orientation
The explanation starts with the system itself and the improvements you made, but the listener has to figure out how it applies to their own context while keeping up with the pace of your description, and the more details you layer on, the more mental work they need to do just to stay oriented, which gradually pulls focus away from understanding the product.
Even though each feature is clear to you, it isn’t registered as useful immediately because the listener is translating internally, trying to determine whether it matters, and as that effort grows, small signs of disengagement appear quietly, like longer pauses, slight shifts in posture, or distracted glances that go unnoticed but mark the attention slipping.
Complexity Feels Heavier
Every additional improvement requires the listener to map it into their own day while simultaneously tracking everything else you have presented, and the cognitive load accumulates faster than anyone mentions, which means the product remains present and fully functional but the experience of it doesn’t register because the explanation has not established a reference frame that the listener can follow.
Orientation is what makes comprehension possible. Showing how something fits into the listener’s existing workflow first allows each subsequent feature to arrive naturally as part of a coherent experience, and without that initial step, the improvements are technically correct but invisible because the mental work of translating them exceeds what the listener can or wants to do in the moment.
How Attention Shifts
You notice subtle signals that attention is moving elsewhere. The listener may nod, glance at a screen, or take a breath differently, none of which are verbal complaints but they indicate that engagement is slipping while the explanation continues. The product is unchanged. The features are intact. The perception of them, however, fades as the listener’s energy is spent translating instead of understanding.
When the first moments of explanation provide a visible change that the listener can place in their own day, the rest of the system becomes easier to follow and integrate. Without that placement, every new toggle, button, or workflow element requires extra effort to interpret, and the cumulative effect is a quiet disengagement that happens without any explicit acknowledgment, leaving all improvements technically intact but functionally invisible.
Ready to Make Your Tech Clear So People Actually Get It?
When people do not understand your product, they quickly stop paying attention. Every week you wait, it becomes harder for your idea to grow and stay ahead. If you want your tech to make sense fast, I can help guide that process, so let’s chat today and get things moving.





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