The Worst Slide Deck Ever Joshua B Gross

The Worst Slide Deck Ever Joshua B. Gross, BA, MS Ph. D Candidate, Expected Graduation May, 2008 311 B IST Building College of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University Park, PA 16802 Phone: (814) 865 -3859 Fax: (814) 863 -1122 Email: jgross@ist. psu. edu Web: http: //hci. ist. psu. edu/~jgross

An Inappropriate Talk Overview G Detailed explanation of some of my work G Some background, but no context G Lots and lots of data G If you can’t do a good job, you can at least confuse people G Conclusions that do not follow from the work

Requisite Prior Knowledge for All CHI Attendees G In order to understand my talk, you must know about G G G G G Usability Engineering Web Design Ecological Psychology and Affordance Theory Activity Theory from Vygotsky to present Neurophysiology Geldard’s homunculus My prior work My advisor’s prior work Et cetera G I will not explain any of these

Talk Overview Here I’ll include my entire abstract: Research into presentations at CHI and other conferences indicates that some people do a much better job of presenting their paper than others. While the slide deck isn’t the key to a great paper, a good slide deck is often the hallmark of a good paper. One of the most common mistakes is to put too much information on one slide. Now I’ll say that I know you can’t read this much information, but it’s really crucial to the rest of my presentation. Or I’ll read the slide to you - that’s fun for everyone!

A Really Bad Chart Example

What’s Wrong? Too much data Unreadable Poor chart choice Legend doesn’t help Can’t read the titles unless you use a white background G Isn’t this a horrible background? G G G

One Point (and a Non Sequitor at That) G Participatory design is the only correct solution!

Latin and Other Foreign Languages G While the argument may seem, in this case, post hoc ergo propter hoc, in reality res ipsa loquitur G Latin phrases are another good way to confuse your audience G Probably safe exceptions: G Et al. G Per se G Etc. or et cetera

Questions?