Visual Communication That Works! (PDF)

“Power corrupts.

PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.”

Edward Tufte

Sunday, March 6, 2011 1
Youʼre brave to come out to a PowerPoint presentation of a Sunday morning! Iʼm sure youʼve heard of “Death by PowerPoint.” There are millions of victims of “cognitive asphyxiation,” a
disease that strikes without warning, is debilitating, and is contagious. More often than not, the very victims of the disease perpetrate it on others—as soon as they can. This is what Edward
Tufte says about PowerPoint. . . .[read]. Tufte is probably the leading expert on the visual display of quantitative information—incidentally, the title of his famous book on the subject. Edward
Tufte despises PowerPoint.

“Rather than supplementing a presentation
[PowerPoint] has become a substitute for it.”

Edward Tufte

Hereʼs another quote from him [read]. . . Now why is that? There are two reasons. First, people are hard-pressed for time or theyʼve procrastinated or theyʼre simply lazy. And PowerPoint
aids and abets that way of working. It provides templates, decorations, and clip art. It does the work for you so you donʼt have to think. And the second reason is many people donʼt
understand what a presentation is for. So Tufte is right.

REPORT

Document

Slideument

Many people think that if they use presentational software, like PowerPoint or Keynote, to create a report, theyʼve created a presentation. But they havenʼt! A document in PowerPoint is a
slideument. As Nancy Duarte says. “Reports should be distributed; presentations should be presented.”

report

Informational Factual Hierarchical

CONVEYS INFORMATION

So whatʼs in a report? Reports are informational, factual, and hierarchical. They are for conveying information. They are exhaustive, precise, and take time to examine. They are for text-
heavy material and for that they do the job very well.

Words

Numbers Images

But the three elements weʼve got to work with are words, numbers, and images. Thatʼs all. And here we have this marvelous medium of presentation software that makes possible the visual
play of all three elements—and we load it up with bullet points and line after line of text!

We learn better from words
and pictures together
than from words or pictures
alone.
But research shows that we learn better from words and pictures together than from either words or pictures alone. Visual and verbal data are processed in
different parts of the brain—so they donʼt compete with each other. [Cook, M. P. “Visual Representations in Science Education: The Inﬂuence of Prior Knowledge
and Cognitive Load Theory on Instructional Design Principles.” Science Education, 90(6) 1073-1091, 2006.].

We are hardwired
for understanding
images.
Garr Reynolds

Our visual systems and our brains instinctively and instantly process and act upon images. . .

The image gives rise to thought.

Paul Ricoeur

For visual learners the image gives rise to the thought. For others, those with a more verbal learning style. . .

from thought to image. . . .

—the creative spark might jump from thought to image.

from idea to story. . .

However we learn, the goal is to move from idea to story. . .

story

Dramatic Emotive Experience

And what is a story? A story is dramatic, with rising and falling action. Itʼs emotive, evocative, and it creates an experience. But many people are afraid to use the power of story when they
build their presentations. It takes time and energy and reﬂection. So they hit the default button and load the slides with bullet points.

presentation

report story

The good news is that presentations fall somewhere between a report and a story. It takes the best from each and creates a new form.

Presentation

Simplifies Engages Motivates

It alternates between facts and storytelling. It simplifies, clarifies, interprets, and illuminates. It engages the audience and motivates it to take action. So the question is not ʻHave you stopped
killing people with PowerPoint yet?” but rather, “Why not use its power to really tell your story?” And thatʼs what weʼre going to do today.

What’s your
story?

So. . . . whatʼs your story?

In the hands of an
honest and humble mentor
a presentation
can become a story
that changes people
and their worlds.

This is the secret I want to share with you today. . . [read]. The alternative is that we maintain the status quo and continue killing people with PowerPoint.

Imagining the story

Building your presentation

Designing your slides

So letʼs begin by looking at. . . Imagining the story, which involves ﬁnding your message, building your presentation (researching, outlining, and structuring), and
designing your slides (composing words, numbers, and images on the slide).

Visual Communication

the message
the structure
the form

Another way to say this is that all visual communication has three elements: the message, the structure, and the form.

“The tragedy of the
world is that those
who are imaginative
have but slight
experience,
and those who are
experienced have
feeble imaginations. . . .
The task of a university
is to weld together
imagination and
experience.”
Alfred North Whitehead

Imagining the story. How important is that? Here is a quote from Alfred North Whitehead, a 20th century British philosopher, mathematician, and educator [read]. . . This is what you and I are
called to do as educators. I come from a tradition and a culture in which we did not get a job but rather received a “call.” My grandfather was called to be a teacher and a college dean out on
the prairies of Alberta. It was a vocation, from Latin, vocare, to call. First used in the 1500s as a spiritual calling. I like that. Even in todayʼs scrabbling job market we can still have a calling—
and we can answer it. Thatʼs what you folks do day in and day out—answer the call to make learning accessible for all. And that takes courage and imagination. How do you get that across
to people?

“Education with inert ideas
is not only useless. . . .

it is harmful.”
Alfred North Whitehead

For Whitehead, ideas were the particles of energy that moved and shaped the world. Inert ideas were those which were merely received into the mind without being used or tested or put in
new situations. So here we have a wonderful opportunity to raise ideas, throw them into new contexts, and communicate with passion, reason, and character.

Children are great at this! They have rich, vibrant, uninhibited imaginations. Theyʼre not afraid to experiment. They donʼt try to edit themselves. They say whatʼs on their minds. This is my
stepdaughter, Eden, with her mother, Joy, my wife.

Sheʼs constantly on the move, a natural-born runner. . .

She was trying to remember the word for the day before today and she couldnʼt quite get it. But this is what she came up with. . .

Lasterday

It makes perfect sense, doesnʼt it? Simple, direct, itʼs a combination of two familiar words placed in a new conﬁguration. Children arenʼt afraid to just have a go at the new thing. Somewhere
along the arc of education we lose that—or it gets pounded out of us. But we can ﬁnd it again! How do we do that?

Cast your net wide for ideas. Keep a notebook for jotting down great things people say or that you read. Then sit down and begin researching. Work from your
central idea. Develop the steps toward your goal. Get coffee.

“Most ideas you can do
pretty darn well
with a stick in the sand.”
Alan Kay
Work the idea down to its simplest, clearest form.

Stay analog rather than digital. Use a notepad for brainstorming and then use Post-It Notes. Its quicker and more versatile than trying to work in PowerPoint. And
itʼs more tactile—you can touch your ideas and move them around.

Post-It notes are bright, theyʼre small, and they can be moved easily. Keep it simple. If you canʼt get one idea on a note itʼs probably too complicated. Find a wall
and slap them up. . .

Then begin to work in KeyNote or PowerPoint. Follow your outline and draw together the words and images.

AIDA
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

A structure that persuasive speakers often use is this: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Grab their attention, focus the interest, create a desire for change, and provide a way to act on
the desire.

Apathy Interest

Chaos Clarity

Passivity Action

We try to move the audience from apathy to interest, from chaos to clarity, from passivity to action. And this is where the arc of the story can move people.

Beginning Middle End

All good stories — and presentations — have a beginning, a middle, and an end.


situation complication resolution

A simple way to describe the structure of a story is situation, complication, and resolution. (Duarte, Resonate, 29)



what is what could be the reward

We describe the way things are, the way they could be, and the reward at the end of the journey (Duarte, Resonate, 29). Thatʼs the basic structure. But there are two critical points that we
also need to introduce.



what is g ap what could be the reward

Call to Call to
Adventure Action

The ﬁrst is the gap between the way things are and the way they could be. Thatʼs the ﬁrst turning point, the call to adventure, as Nancy Duarte calls it. And the second turning point comes
after weʼve answered the objections, worked them through their resistance to change, showed the reasons to change, and arrive at the call to action.

ACTION

This is the threshold weʼre asking our audience to cross at this second turning point. We ask them to take action. Why should they do this?

ce orld
h em flu en e w
T In Th

What are the benefits to them, to the people they influence, and to the world? Does it meet their basic needs? Does it provide a feeling of security? Maybe it gives them a good return on
their investment of time and energy in your message. Perhaps it will strengthen their relationships with others. Identify the reward! Years ago. . .[Summer of 72 in Coventry]

“More important to culture

than social fabric is

the necessity of imagination.”
James Hillman


Imagining the story



Having found our story and discovered our message we begin to organize it and give it a structure. As we found with stories, there is a natural ﬂow and
organization to stories that everyone recognizes, even if they canʼt always explain it.

We look for patterns in a presentation, something that will let us know weʼre headed to a destination.

We look for a path, a way, as we listen and compare and evaluate.

Thatʼs why when we discover the heart of our story, the essential idea we want to get across, itʼs important to take the time to organize the ﬂow.

Topical
So think back to Public Speaking class when your teacher gave you some common patterns to use when organizing your presentation. The most common used in presentations is the topical
approach, where you cluster similar themes under a common umbrella.

These structures have a ﬂow that works well in a story format. The Chronological sequence works in a time progression, either forward or backward.

Sequential

A sequential approach works best for a process or a step-by-step sequence. . .

Spatial

The Spatial arrangement clusters elements together as they relate in physical space. . .

Climatic

Then thereʼs the climatic, which arranges elements in order of importance, usually, from least to greatest

Problem-solution
Compare-contrast
Cause-effect
Advantage-disadvantage

Persuasive presentations often use these four which have contrast built into them.

Imagining the story



Once youʼve generated your ideas, ﬁltered out the best ones, focused the message, and organized the structure, its time to turn your words into pictures and
design your slides.

Simplicity
Empty Space
Contrast

Iʼm going to give you three design principles that will work for any presentation. Simplicity. . . the use of empty space. . . and contrast—of all different kinds. But ﬁrst some facts about
perception!

Fact #1

We do not attend to everything we see

Our perception is selective. We donʼt see everything we look at. I see a sign when I drive up to Stevenson University near Baltimore. . . . On my way to work I pass by a Motel 6 with a big
LED sign with 49 on it. . . . .I thought it was the temperature until one day when I knew it was 26 degrees it ﬁnally registered with me: it wasnʼt the temperature, it was the price! My brain saw
the numbers and my mind ﬁlled in the rest. Sometimes we donʼt see what is there but what we want to see.

Fact #2

We see what we expect to see

Our eyes are drawn to familiar patterns and shapes. And once we register that familiar shape our brains say, Right! Got that. . . On to the next thing. So we may miss a lot of detail because
weʼre just not looking for it. Iʼll show you what I mean. . .

A rose is a rose is a rose. . . isnʼt it? Do you see anything else here? If you look carefully thereʼs an image of a dolphin worked into the whorl of the rose.

Fact #3

Our working memory is extremely limited

Not only do we not remember what we donʼt attend to, but in order to see something we have to look at it directly because we have only a limited number of receptors in our retinas. So what
this means is that what we put up on the screen must be identiﬁable. It must aid our very limited working memory or itʼs no good to us.

W YS I W YG

Remember this? What you see is what you get? It referred to the graphical user interface (GUI) that made interacting with a computer screen visually intuitive.

GY W I SY W

What would happen if we ﬂipped it around? Not that way?

W YS I W YG

Not that way either!

W YG I W YS

Thatʼs better! What you get is what you see. . . So whatever we can do to help our audiences really see and understand will make our messages stick.

Simplify

So the ﬁrst design principle I want to share with you is to simplify.

Weʼre in a visual culture that constantly showers us with images. Cutting through the clutter helps to reduce our attention deﬁcit, raise our interest, and step up our comprehension.

High Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

less noise = more signal

One way to create simplicity is through the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). The goal is to have the highest signal-to-noise ratio possible. The stronger the signal the
weaker the noise; the less noise the clearer the signal. Noise is anything that detracts or distorts the signal. So cut the non-essentials from the background.

2007 Obesity Rates by Country

Australia Japan Thailand Germany United States

33

15

21

41

0 15 30 45 52 60
Percentages

Hereʼs a chart with all the bells and whistles—full 3-D images, a grid of numbers, shadows, reﬂections, a fancy piece of work. And confusing. Lots of noise, not
much signal. And this is the default option. This is what Tufte is talking about: increasing the clutter without adding to our understanding.


52% United States

41% Germany
21% Thailand
15% Japan
33% Australia
0 15 30 45 60
Weʼve simpliﬁed it by using 2-D bars, dropping the grid, highlighting the title and bringing out the numbers. A lot more signal, a lot less noise. . . But thereʼs still
something confusing about this slide. What is it? Thereʼs no discernible order. It doesnʼt descend from greater to lesser nor is it alphabetical by country. We try to
ﬁnd a pattern that makes sense and we canʼt. And that introduces subtle noise into the slide.


United States 52%

Germany 41%

Thailand 33%

Australia 21%

15% Japan
0 15 30 45 60
Here is more clarity, more signal, less noise. We want to highlight Japanʼs low rate of obesity: why not descend from greater to lesser and bring the low rate to our
attention by using color and shading to distinguish between the best and the others? High signal, lower noise. . .

Lowest Obesity Rate, 2007

15 % Japan

Finally, if we want to emphasize Japanʼs advantage, we can highlight just the number and make that the transition into HOW and WHY Japan has such low obesity rates.

Numbers that simply numb. Thereʼs nothing here to draw our attention, everything is of equal value and thus nothing is of value. Edward Tufte says that a table like this has everything we
need—but it doesnʼt work in a slide presentation. Heʼs absolutely right! Tables are for examining, comparing, drawing inferences, taking the time we need. Up on a slide we canʼt do any of
that. So. . . .

52%

At the very least we can pop the number we want out of the background. The table becomes a visual backdrop for the number that weʼre focusing on.

52% of new ofﬁce buildings
in Washington, DC are empty.

That’s 85 ‘see-throughs’
Hereʼs an even better way. We create a visual that uses contrasts of size, shading, and color.

$100 million
in leases/rentals
lost annually. . .

And as we do so we create a story by lifting the essentials out of the clutter, reducing the noise and raising the signal. Our ﬁrst general principle in action — simplify.

empty space
creates meaning

Our second general principle is the use of empty space, also called negative space or white space. The urge to ﬁll all the space on a slide with information may be
overwhelming—but resist! Empty space in a design is not “nothing.” Itʼs a “something” that gives your slides elegance and power. Think of it as your conscious
canvas for the imagination. The main problem with PowerPoint is that the default templates make it easy to produce death-dealing slides. Donʼt use them! Just
begin with a blank slide. All weʼve got, after all, are words, numbers, and images. Three elements arranged creatively on a blank canvas.

49,415
stress-related
hospitalizations:
Australia, 2001-2002


94%
of Americans
won’t buy a car
from a bankrupt
automaker.

An example of the use of white space and contrast through color. This fact is taken from Harperʼs Index, Harpers Magazine. February, 2009, 13.

Shaker furniture

“It was made
by someone
capable of
believing that
an angel might
come and sit on
it.”


reboot yourself


Simplicity

Empty Space

So with two general principles in mind—simplicity and the use of empty space, letʼs turn to our last one—contrast.

Contrast

Drawing contrasts is one of the most effective design principles we can use. We notice contrasts even when we miss details or see patterns that arenʼt there.

Arranging
the Elements
CONTRAST
Alignment
Flow
Proximity
Hierarchy

These are the major elements in slide composition and design. Weʼre focusing on contrast today. Contrast simply means difference. And we notice differences,
even the smallest ones. Contrast is one of the most powerful design elements because almost anything can be contrasted with something else.

Contrast
Size
Shape
Shade
Color
Proximity

So . . . here are some of the ways we can draw contrast in our slides.

Contrast
Size
Shape
Shade
Color
Proximity


Design . . . . is an act of communication
. . . . a deep understanding of the person

with whom the designer is
communicating.

Garr Reynolds

And another using color, size, and shade.

Design
is about humans creating great works
that help or improve the lives
of other humans.

Garr Reynolds

Hereʼs an example of contrast using size and shade.

When you build your next presentation imagine yourself moving from a wide shot of all your ideas. . . .

and then in for the closeup as you ﬁnd your big idea. . .

Or you can move from the
forest. . .

to the
tree. . . .

to the leaf.

In the hands of an
honest and humble mentor
a presentation
can become a story
that changes people
and their worlds.

This the Big Idea I want you to carry with you today [read]. This is your canvas! What will you paint today? Thank you very much. . .

Entelech y P ro d u cti o n s (2 0 11)


References
Duarte, Nancy (2008). Slide:ology:The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations.
Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly.
Duarte, Nancy (2010). Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences.
Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Few, Stephen (2004). Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten.
Oakland, CA: Analytics Press.
Reynolds, Garr (2008). PresentationZen. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.
Reynolds, Garr (2010). PresentationZen Design. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.
Reynolds, Garr (2011). The Naked Presenter: Delivering Powerful Presentations With or Without
Slides. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.
Tufte, Edward (2001). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.2nd ed.
Cheshire, CT: The Graphics Press.
Tufte, Edward (2003). “PowerPoint is Evil” Wired Magazine, September 2009.
Whitehead, Alfred North (1929). The Aims of Education. New York: The Free Press.


Visual Communication That Works! (PDF)

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (19)

Ähnlich wie Visual Communication That Works! (PDF)

Ähnlich wie Visual Communication That Works! (PDF) (20)

Mehr von Barry Casey

Mehr von Barry Casey (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Visual Communication That Works! (PDF)