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Go through the following points for every illustration you consider: |
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Which idea should be communicated? |
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What kind of format is optimal (photography, graphic pictures, diagrams, tables...)? |
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Is the illustration supporting the idea or is it included because you have it, or it's such a neat picture? |
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Is the illustration stimulating? Intellectually or emotionally? |
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Does the illustration allow you some leeway for explaining? A totally self-explaining illustration is a
bad illustration. |
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Is the illustration with your explanations clear and understandable?
(If you have to say: "..and
also ignore the table in the lower hand corner and mentally substitute "magnetic field strength B"
for "electrical fields strength E" wherever you see it...", it is a lousy
illustration! |
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Does the format match the purpose?
A three-dimensional perspective drawing that clearly took hours
to make is not a good match for illustrating simple things, where one dimension would have been all that is needed. |
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Is the illustration within your general level of sophistication?
A black-and-white table quickly copied
on a foil will look totally out of place if everything else is colourful and very sophisticated. It also works the other
way around. Try to keep one (your!) standard throughout your
presentation. |
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There are a few very important points about how to write on viewgraphs
or Powerpoint foils! |
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Readability. Whatever is written, must
be readable from all places in the audience! |
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Never use typical typewriter fonts and size,
i.e. font size 10 to 12! |
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Minimum letter size on a viewgraph is ca. 5 mm; this corresponds
to a font size of at least 14 bold, better 18. |
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There are reasons for
Make sure to provide enough contrast between the letters and the background.
| You may also go white on black with beamers; |
| but always use high contrast, |
| because otherwise
you can't read it |
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If you have to go to a smaller font because otherwise it won't fit
on the foil, you have too much stuff on your foil. Never,
really never, put more on a foil as will fit with font
16, at the very minimum font 14. |
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Clarity. |
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If the audience has to exert it's mental capability to try to understand what it sees on your illustration,
they will not listen to what you say! |
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The biggest enemies to clarity are volume and precision!
Complete and precise information (with all the little disclaimers, validity ranges, boundary conditions and exceptions to
the general rule) belong in the handout, not on the viewgraphs! |
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Guide the attention to the core information! Generally, the audience should be able to grasp the contents
of a viewgraph within 30 seconds. There may be exceptions if you work with the illustration, e.g. by overlaying it
with other viewgraphs. |
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Stay within one format! Use the same colours or symbols throughout you presentations for the same effects. |
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Attractiveness |
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The choice of fonts and colours, of line sizes, frames etc. determines to a large extent if your viewgraph
looks attractive. |
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Of course, beauty rests in the eye of the beholder, but there is a general consensus. |
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Use colours sparingly and do not cover every square cm of the viewgraph
with something. |
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There is a clear headline at the top |
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Rule of Thumb: 25 words or 7 lines per topic: |
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This will keep it readable. |
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It forces you to be concise. |
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Lower and upper case letters: |
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Simple! UPPER CASE LETTERS ARE HARDER TO READ |
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Telegram style is what's needed: |
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Keywords instead of sentences. |
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Complete sentences will tempt you to read them out loud. |
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Never ever read out loud what is written on your foil. Your audience
will not include analphabets! |
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One thought per topic! |
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Structure and emphasize with colour. |
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But don't get too colourful: Two to three colours are sufficient. |
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Mark essentials with colour. |
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Have essentials, if possible, at the top or bottom of the foil. |
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This goes against common feeling, but is a well known composition principle in art. |
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There is a clear headline at the top! |
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Orders of magnitude and units. |
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Try to have units "understandable" to your audience. For physicists
and material scientists, e.g., use eV/atom, for chemists kJ/mol for the same thing. |
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Give no more than three digits if possible |
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Units and multipliers (e.g. "· 106") belong in the heading
of rows and columns. |
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Structure of a table |
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Vertical structures are easier to comprehend. |
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Keep the decimal points aligned. |
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Use the structures your audience knows and expects. |
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Emphasizing some points |
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Mark directly with bold letters or in colour
whatever you want to draw attention at upon presenting the table |
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Underline or mark during the presentation when you want to make a point
that is not directly obvious. |
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Major Rule; disobediance casues sudden death (= ail grade
in our seminar): |
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A picture from any kind of microscope
has a readable scale embedded in the picture! |
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There is a clear headline at the top! |
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Quantity of information - some general rules
Of course,
in scientific presentations you may have good reasons not to stick to these rules. But make sure, they are really
good reasons. Not having enough time or energy to redraw an old diagram with too many graphs is not a good reason! |
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15 - 20 data points - no more! |
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At most 4 graphs in one coordinate system |
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No more than 3 columns in column diagrams |
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At most 6 sectors in cake diagrams |
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Lines and areas |
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Use strong primary
colours for lines and pastels for areas. Note that green is tricky! |
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Make your graphs in strong lines, differentiate by strong colours. |
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If colour is not available, differentiate by thick and thin lines, not by point-dash sequences. |
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© H. Föll (Matwis Seminar)
