Jargon

A friend recently shared this infographic about how the Internet works on Google Reader. Go read it first. What struck me about it is how full of unexplained jargon it is, despite the fact that the creator was clearly trying to make something anyone can understand. Just as bad as jargon, the graphic also employs a lot of conceptual jargon: that is, ideas which, without further elaboration, probably seem nonsensical to an outsider.

In addition to criticism, I will give my suggestions about what could have been said.

let's try to strip a little of the mystery from this great web

Okay, this is not jargon, but it's still a poor choice of words. It may unintentionally further the average person's conflation of "the Internet" and "the world wide web," something which a graphic trying to explain the Internet should want to avoid.

language

Most people have never encountered the concept of a formal language. While formal and human languages share many characteristics, only formal languages are fundamentally useful for inter-computer communication. To use the word "language" without explaining briefly what makes computer languages different is not a good idea. People may end up thinking that the computers are calling each other up on the phone and speaking English. This wouldn't be hard to correct: just say that a computer language tends to have "simple grammatical rules which are rigidly followed."

protocol suite

The graphic wastes space using and explaining this term, in reference to TCP/IP, when it could have simply said "the Internet relies on two protocols: TCP and IP." The concept of a "protocol suite" is irrelevant to understanding the Internet.

addresses and names

Here the graphic is using two different analogies simultaneously to explain IP addresses. It would have been better to choose one, with more space devoted to explaining the analogy, since neither one is perfect. In fact, a better analogy than either of these is to say that an IP address is like a phone number. DNS is then simply a phone book. The main difference which must be explained is that when a computer's IP address changes, it's not a big deal, because all the phone books update automatically.

dynamic and static addresses

This is not truly a black-and-white distinction, nor is it especially important for an understanding of the Internet. It would be better to simply say that some computers' phone numbers change more often than others.

server

This term is used without explanation. If it is going to be used, it would probably be best to explain the client-server model in a bit more detail, before the diagram. You might think this is hard, but it isn't. Just mention that "client" and "server" are two roles a computer can play at any moment. Typically, your computer is a "client," which means it is asking for information, and a "server" somewhere else is providing that information back to you.

that diagram with the arrows

This diagram is very confusing. There's no way to understand from the diagram what order things happen in. You can't easily follow a particular piece of data as it flows through the system. It would have been better (and more informative) to separate the DNS query into another diagram (or simply remove it), since the DNS query is a separate request using a separate connection. Then, the remaining diagram could have truly been done in a data-flow style.

ones and zeroes

Chances are anyone who has enough interest in computers to make it this far down the infographic has already heard this cliché explanation, but it's not that helpful. How does a person with no technical knowledge even fathom the idea that all information can be turned into ones and zeroes? An example here of that translation would be immensely helpful toward creating understanding. A good (and exciting) example would be to show how a small image can be imagined in pixels, with RGB color values, which can each be represented in binary.

host, megabit, URL

These terms are all used, without explanation, in the bottom portion of the graphic, which is mostly devoted to explaining how huge the Internet is. Besides that, all that explanation of the hugeness is pretty much unrelated to how the Internet works. It would have been better as a separate graphic.

I would have created a graphic incorporating all my suggestions, but I am not much of a designer. If you want to, feel free, but please let me suggest edits to the text before you put it online.