Relax and Have Fun

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, by Edward Tufte

This 28-page booklet is a great place to start to learn about all the evils of bullet-driven PowerPoint presentations. Tufte describes several reasons why most PowerPoint presentations are terrible and then shows some examples, including a great send-up of the Gettysburg Address in PowerPoint. Reading this booklet won’t make you a great PowerPoint presenter at all, but it may give you some motivation to study the subject more. Plus, it’s funny in a snide sort of way.

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: slides are not all evil, by Jean-luc Doumont

This article rebuts many of Tufte’s arguments in the above-mentioned booklet. Doumont points out the logical errors in some of Tufte’s points and experientially disagrees with him on most of the others. Doumont has no problem agreeing with the observation that there are many poor PowerPoint’s presented daily. He just disagrees with the problems and logic noted and used by Tufte.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,by Edward Tufte

Starting with Dr. Denman’s and Mr. Swiss’ presentation on “Information and Misinformation” at TAM4, I have been hearing and reading a lot about Edward Tufte’s works on statistical evidence and information design. Having read a few Tufte-quoting books, it was time for the prime material. This book is the first of a series on visual display of data and evidence. I’m looking forward to reading the others.

For me, it was cool to read the original definitions of “data-ink” and “chartjunk.” Reading his explanations and viewing the charts and other graphics he chose for illustration purposes was great.

I’m going to read the other two titles (or three if I wait too long, another one is due out this year), before trying to describe the impact of his writings. I will say that I enjoyed reading Tufte less, having read him after reading him quoted in other works. It took some of the joy of discovery out of the reading.

Beyond Bullet Points, by Cliff Atkinson

After reading Tufte’s booklet on the Cognitive Style of PowerPoint and Doumont’s rebuttal, I wanted to see what this pro-PowerPoint presentation style was about. So, with full knowledge that the title was from Microsoft Press, I took the bait. It was very interesting. The gist of the book is that your presentations will be better if you tell a story and your stories will be better if you script them out and use pictures/graphic instead of bullet points. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I can imagine that it would be great to give a presentation like this. Even if I can’t find pictures/graphics to match every headline, I bet my presentations would benefit from scripting them using his suggestions.

The author’s blog is a good place to get a feel for his line of thinking and also get some samples.

I’m reading these works on theory and practice of effective visual communication to build up a working knowledge of tools and methods. Atkinson’s book has piqued my interest in developing cinematic writing skills to go along with the visuals.

Information Dashboard Design – The Effective Visual Communication of Data, by Stephen Few.

OK, this title included a lot of the information (verbatim) from Few’s Show Me the Numbers. It made sense to review it, given that he was again discussing effective visual communications. If you only want to read one of the books and you have any interest in dashboards, I would just start with this one. It teaches the same information on how and when to use tables and charts, plus it teaches you the specific design guidelines you need when working on dashboards. I haven’t read all of Tufte’s work yet, but it’s nice to see some of his guidelines applied more specifically to electronic presentation.

Having read the book, I know a lot more about what works and doesn’t work in dashboards. I have no idea how to build one though, as the book does not cover any construction methods in any software applications.

Show Me the Numbers – Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten, by Stephen Few.

I read this book based on a strong recommendation from Chip Denman during his presentation on “Information and Disinformation.” He recommended it during the Q & A session, in response to a question about what to read to learn how to communicate effectively with tables and graphs. He said that this book was the practical place to start, after Tufte’s books.

I enjoyed it. The book is like a textbook, in size, binding and page layout. There is plenty of room in the margins for notes and problem answers. Early on, Few encourages the ready to use the margins for note-taking. The organization of the book was very, very logical. You could tell while you were reading it that the principles of the text had been applied to the text.

In general, the book taught me how to decide whether to use text, a table or a graph. Then I learned how to maximize the effectiveness of the table or graph, based on the theories of visual communication. I should point out that I have never read anything about this subject before. I was fascinated by it. On to his book on Dashboards next.