Sacred Cow #5: If the Audience Is Technical, They Want To See Detailed Diagrams
This sacred cow is roaming the halls where I work. It’s old. It’s loud. It smells. It’s abusive. It’s obnoxious, and it rudely disrupts nearly every technical presentation I have to sit through. Unfortunately, we’re not unique in our suffering. This parasitic bovine is present everywhere you have technical people. Fortunately, there are treatments for this affliction if you know where to look. This is a sacred cow that must die else the brain rot that follows it will infect management, sales, and, oh… too late.
Well, rather than letting the technical community continue our sacred cow herding, we can be good citizens and slay this beast. Trolling SlideShare for some good examples of bad examples, I came across a gem. Complicated diagrams, despite protests from worshipers of this sacred cow, do not enhance the presentation. They do not aid comprehension. In truth, they harm and inhibit comprehension. Slides such as the example to the right can introduce what’s called “map shock,” a form of information overload. The Information Design Handbook by Jenn & Ken Visocky O’Grady describe this as:
“…also sometimes called visual shock, is a phenomenon experienced by individuals when encountering complex maps, diagrams, or pictorial representations. Information processing stops as the person tries to orient themselves to the overwhelming quantity of data. Users describe a sense of being lost, and of not knowing where to start, often accompanied by a physical and sometimes even audible, reaction.”
(p.75) emphasis mine
All too often, people delivering technical presentations are doing this to their audience while expecting them to retain this information. It’s just asking too much of the audience, no matter how technical they are. Even though the audience may be technical, the same guidelines that many of us who are passionate about great presentations write about still apply. We may have different aptitudes, but we all have brains that all operate under the same principles. Attention is attention. Retention is retention.
If you absolutely need to get that message across with a diagram that, by its very nature, is technical, try applying these guidelines:
Build it slowly. Rather than overwhelming your audience with all of that complexity at once, gradually build it one piece at a time. Don’t display the next piece until you’re ready to talk about it.
Keep it simple. Keep each build stage simple enough that someone in the audience can absorb it quickly (3 seconds or less). Ask yourself, “Would this work on a billboard?”
Consider the folks in the back of the room. Don’t forget the people in the back. If there’s text and they can’t read it, you’re not helping them at all. They’re either going to ignore you as they try to figure it out or give up and lose out on this important visual.
It is important, right? If it’s not important for the comprehension of your message, leave it out. Otherwise, it’s just noise.
Take it easy with Visio. Copying and pasting visio drawings into your slides may be the easy way out, but rarely is doing the right thing easy. If you can’t draw your diagram within your slideware itself, take several snapshots of your diagram in each logical build stage. Don’t just throw up a fully completed diagram unless your purpose is to observe first-hand the effects of map shock.
Observing these principles will require extra time and effort, but the results are worth it. Educate those around you. Let’s put a long overdue end to this sacred cow.
mage credit: Automania, used under a Creative Commons license.
