New media, newer media

Interesting post by Seth a few days ago, his last line stuck out:

I saw a two-year old kid (in diapers, in a stroller), using an iPod Touch today. Not just looking at it, but browsing menus and interacting. This is a revolution, guys.

Whatever business you’re in, this applies to you. There may even be an inverse relationship between the strength of your disbelief or denial and the relevance to your job, business, industry.

We have met the enemy, and it is first-draft design

Excellent commentary by Nancy Duarte on the recent NYT article. (A more readable version of the original alarming graphic is also available.)

A few things about the graphic:

1) This is an example of a diagram that was probably developed by analysts to help them understand something. Think brainstorming. The presentation mistake here (aside from the general bullet bullet bullet approach) was trying to use the same diagram to explain things to people who were most likely not part of the original discussion. Of course it stinks for that purpose. To build on Nancy’s commentary on our first-draft culture, it’s easy to imagine the excited consultants transposing this diagram from a whiteboard into PP, then – confusing the effort that went into drawing it with its value – it subsequently showing up in every PP deck that discussed the topic for the next year. What appears to be missing was the second (or third) iteration: translating the understanding into a diagram that explains the important points.

2) As a consultant, and not knowing the full story, I am disappointed and embarrassed that this diagram ever made it out of the working group and onto the screen of a client. On the surface this seems like a pretty serious delivery failure. In my own experience I have often seen (and created) some pretty confusing diagrams and models in the course of trying to understand a complex problem or system. But those things usually end their life on a white board or as a scan, they rarely survive in their original form as a deliverable because they were never intended to be such. The final deliverable often bears no resemblance to the original because after we think we understand an issue, the focus changes to explaining it. And those questions are different (see Dan Roam), so the results are usually different. I have referred to this as iterative design but for it to work, you have to actually do the next iteration.

So the moral of the story is: do the second iteration, your audience will thank you.

Are presentations a new type of media?

Think about it. Presentations are evolving into something that looks a lot like its own type of media experience. Neither speech nor document, they increasingly draw on multiple media skills:

• Public speaking
• Storytelling
• Event planning 
• Theater
• Visual communication, 2D design
• Document design
• Web or online design 
• Typography
• Photography
• Audio
• Video
• Animation

Thirty years ago, a speech was a speech. If you wanted to add additional elements (35mm slides, video, handouts, a survey beforehand, etc.), then you needed additional time and resources to get it done. It just wasn’t feasible for many ordinary people or organizations to create TED-like presentations with the skills and tools at their disposal.

(Yes, I know, you still needed the technical and creative skills, but you also needed access to the tools, and those tools all came with some non-trivial cost: either time, money, or both.)

Today the tools are ubiquitous. Not just Powerpoint, but almost everything necessary to create a great presentation (read: event) is widely available. And yet most presentations are so bad (bad to listen to, bad to watch, bad to look at).

It’s easy to blame Powerpoint, but maybe another explanation is because, as a new media form, presentations are still young. Early photography tried to copy painting (not so well), early movies copied theater (not so well), early television copied radio shows (really not well) – so maybe one reason that so many presentations stink is because the form is still trying to figure itself out.

Not an excuse to do a bad job, but if you do a great job, maybe you’re a pioneer in a brand new type of media experience.

The Kalashnikov as good design (and good story-telling)

A great post by Dave Gray, not only making the case for the AK-47 as a great example of good design (designed for the real world), but also explaining how talking about an assault rifle probably makes for a better presentation than some less-dramatic example.

Mr. Tufte goes to Washington

From the BusinessWeek Innovation and Design blog:

President Obama Appoints Edward Tufte – Big Victory for Data Visualization And Transparent Government

For those unfamiliar with Mr. Tufte, he has written a few seminal books on presenting information and is one of the strongest advocates for clarity and purpose in all sorts of information and presentation design. He also teaches an excellent one-day course on presenting data (highly recommended).

His appointment to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel is a good thing for more transparency and usefulness in government.

Congratulations Edward.

Hello, I'm back

Sorry for the long absence. Just saw another fairly edgy band close Letterman, and it got me thinking. Even though Dave presents himself as a middle-of-the-road midwest guy, his actions (as least as far as music is concerned) usually support up-and-coming bands. And it occasionally surprises people, even long-time fans like me. I found myself just now thinking “wow, that's different.” 

So... how can you jiggle your audiences expectations? Given your audience, are there things you can do that (like Dave) not only shake people’s expectations about you, but also give them insight into your values?

Ubiquitous hyphens and dashes

In my work, I come across a particular subset of Powerpoint authors: otherwise smart people who start adding hyphens and dashes all over the place. Their slides become odd-looking typographic mazes with weird spacing and way-to-many little horizontal gashes. It’s as if they’ve forgotten about other perfectly good punctuation like commas, colons, and parenthesis.

I’m sure this is not intentional - it may just seem like the right character to use - especially when you’re composing your 10th bullet point - and you’re on a roll - and the content just keeps coming - and you don’t want to stop or you’ll loose your train of thought - so a hyphen is quick and easy.

But…

It doesn’t really serve you or your content well. Dashes visually break the flow of a phrase, and that is often counter to the intention of the writer or presenter. Editing can help. Here are some alternatives to dash overload:

• Use a colon instead. If you have a headline that states a fact followed by some consequence or effect, use a colon (e.g., Energy Inefficiency: Over 57% Energy Wasted in U.S.)
• Use a period. Separate the item from its description in a bullet list with a period, such as this list. Using boldface for just the item also helps with legibility.
• Parenthesis. If an phrase is parenthetical (i.e., supplementary to your main idea), put that phrase in parenthesis. In a headline, consider removing the phrase altogether, such as moving it to the body of the slide.

Of course the nature of slide shows means things are different than formal writing, but that doesn’t mean that an anything-goes approach really helps you communicate better.

Happy new year, present well

Hoping this post finds you well, and that you are looking forward to a new year.

For many of us in the modern working world, who are blessed with:

• Love of our family and friends
• Good health
• Freedom of expression and religion
• Lack of want or fear
  
• Steady employment
• Health insurance
• [insert the thing you’re thankful for here]

... the winter holidays bring some time off, and a chance to reflect on the past and consider the future. And so I ask you to reflect on the most important presentation that you made in 2009, and consider what you might change if you had a similar opportunity in 2010. What thing or things would you love to change, if you could? Would you:

• Research more?
• Prepare and practice more?
• Use less slides? Or more slides?
• Use more pictures and less words?
• Use real objects instead of pictures?
• Take the whole thing more and less seriously?
• Turn off the projector?
  
• Ask for help?

Whatever it may be, I hope 2010 brings better things for you and your loved ones.

Thanksgiving surprise from the Heath brothers

It’s been a while, sorry for the absence. I got a great surprise in my inbox a few days ago from Chip and Dan Heath:

Hi Jeffrey, congrats, you are going to be receiving a free advance copy of our next book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. We “drew” your name randomly (and you were fighting the odds, by the way – fewer than 1 in 3 people who signed up will get the book, due to limited quantities).

Expect to see it in 2-3 weeks – and certainly before the Christmas holidays. Just wanted to let you know it’s on the way!

We hope you enjoy it, and thanks for staying interested in our work.

Happy Thanksgiving,
Chip & Dan

I’m not some totally wired netizen or important reviewer, just a designer working to improve the way people and companies present themselves, so this really did come as a surprise. And so when I do get it, and read it, I’ll be sure to blog on any thoughts or related ideas. In the meantime I’d just like to say thanks to Chip and Dan.

On the experience. I’m not naive. I assume Chip and Dan didn’t personally select every name, and it may be that I was just on the right side of the 1 in 3 odds, but the experience still matters to me. And isn’t that the point? Think about that the next time you are taking your latest idea (or presentation) to someone – what will the experience feel like to them?

• Will it seem like you listened to their concerns, their needs, their POV, and responded with something that acknowledged and spoke directly to those issues?
• Or will it seem like you took your methodology, your approach, your terminology and added their logo?
  

Little things go a long way in effecting experience. The Heath brothers could have sent out a less personal email, it could have come from the publisher instead of them, they could have just sent the book with no email – but then my experience would have been different.

More legibility = less boldface

If you have single slides with lots of words on them (such as a paragraph), don’t use bold type. Or all capital letters. Or worse, combine them (bold all capitals). It makes your text very difficult to read.

Here’s why:

Roman (or normal or regular) type is designed to be read and is at the core of all text faces.* Bold type usually has less white space, both inside the letters and between letters, and so the letters visually blend together more than their roman counterparts. The result is big white or black perceptual masses with less distinct letter shapes, and so your readers need to slow down to recognize letters and words. And if your audience is spending more mental energy processing text shapes, that’s less mental energy available to pay attention to you and your message.

Traditional typography sets most text in roman type with italics and bold reserved for specific uses or headlines. (And bold italic faces were rarely seen before the 1980’s). These conventions exist because they work. Roman type is easier to read, especially in larger blocks of text. Even projected, medium weight letters read better than all bold ones.

Here’s another, more practical reason not to make your slides all bold, all the time (or all-cap, all bold, all the time – shudder). If you start with bold all-caps, how do you emphasize something? Make it bigger, brighter, even harder to read? There’s nothing left.

So, if you have slides with bunches of words that looks similar to paragraphs, then this applies to you:

• If you are designing slides in PP to project to a large group, it would be best to remove most of the words from your slides. Then you can feel free to use bold for the remaining 4 words on the slide.
• If you are designing a slideument (a document that will be printed and may be projected), please “unbold” all that bold type (you’ll use less toner when you print, too).

Your audience will thank you.

* Display faces – those that are not designed to be used for entire paragraphs of text – usually don’t have many variations, if any.

“Filling space”

I encounter many aspiring designers in my work. It seems that some of them aspire to fill troubling white space with stuff. Extra text, cheesy clip art, blurry photos. You get the idea. Here is a tip on how to use photography in PP files to “fill space.”

Don’t.

Ok, I know many of you just can’t do that. The draw is just too great. Like some universal force, you - must - fill - the - space. So give in to the dark side, but do it with style. Choose a single image, not many. And make sure it’s a good one. Here are some tips:

• If you are discussing many ideas, you don’t need to have an image to represent each one. Really. Especially on the same page. A single image can be remarkably effective, and is usually better looking than a whole bunch of little images. It’s also more efficient. You can spend less time looking for one really great image instead of more time gathering a bunch of mediocre ones.

• Look for imagery in unusual places. If you have a digital camera, you may already have some good images lurking around. And you can always take some more. Get really close to things or frame usual objects in unusual ways. Clouds, landscapes, ordinary objects around the house are all potentially great images.

• Crop. Do what professionals do, crop an image so that it becomes more interesting. For example, a typical snapshot often has the subject perfectly centered in the middle of the frame with lots of space all around. Boring. If you crop the image so that the subject is off-center (Google rule of thirds) and that some of the subject is cut off by the frame, the same image can become more dynamic.

• You don’t have to be literal. If your topic or business is not particularly photogenic or doesn’t lend itself to naturally stunning images, then go for beauty over fact. Many of us work in businesses that are either visually boring (or downright ugly) or so intangible that visualizing key ideas is fraught with the peril of cliché. Resist. In the context of filling space, beautiful images can stand on their own with no hidden meaning.

• Avoid clichés. Think beyond what first comes to mind. For example, a crystal-clear picture of a diverse group of people sitting around a conference table with their sleeves rolled-up is a crummy expression of teamwork. What about a motion-blurred photo of an 8-person rowing crew?

• Repeat. There is no law that says you can’t reuse the same image over and over again. In the context of filler images, combined with interesting cropping, a single image can easily be used throughout a presentation. As noted earlier, this also has the advantage of being more efficient.

Again, if you are filling space, consider why the space is there in the first place. Some professional designer probably intended for the space to be clean. But if you must alter the design, try to do it well.

Need to write

Sorry.

Time keeps passing, I need to write.

Funny thing about blogs: writing them is (or can be) very fulfilling, and help articulate otherwise mushy ideas. But for me, unless an idea really reaches out and grabs me – just won’t let me stop thinking about it – it usually ends up in a growing Word file called “blog topics.”

Oh well.

More in the next day or two.