I’m all for displaying your information graphically, but people have to know where to draw the line. Here is an actual slide from a psychology lecture I attended:

Obviously when you are presented with something like this it confuses you even further. The key is simplicity. Especially if you are presenting in a second language, you don’t want a lot of cluttered information, but only key concepts and white space to reinforce the message. If you are making a graph to show your audience, try dissecting it into as many pieces as possible, remember the post-it? Use those smaller pieces in independent slides, and if you want to show the relation between them you can then zoom out and show how they are connected. There is a very good video I came across about displaying information visually by Dan Roam, author of the book The back of the napkin. I’m still reading the book (sorry Dan) (but I’m already sure I will add it to the resources of the web page when I’m done. Done reading the book and it’s great! check it out in the Resources section of the web page.

The Way of the Whiteboard: Persuading with Pictures – Dan Roam

Until next time,

Byron Stanford for Project Presentation.

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