The Worst Slide Deck

Ever
Joshua B. Gross, BA, MS
PhD Candidate, Expected Graduation May, 2008
311B IST Building
College of Information Sciences and Technology
The Pennsylvania State University
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
Detailed explanation of some of my

work
Some background, but no context
Lots and lots of data

If you cant do a good job, you can at

least confuse people

Conclusions that do not follow from

the work

Requisite Prior Knowledge

for All CHI Attendees

In order to understand my talk, you must know about

Usability Engineering
Web Design
Ecological Psychology and Affordance Theory
Activity Theory from Vygotsky to present
Neurophysiology
Geldards homunculus
My prior work
My advisors prior work
Et cetera

I will not explain any of these

Talk Overview
Here Ill 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
isnt 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 Ill say that I know you cant read this much
information, but its really crucial to the rest of
my presentation.
Or Ill read the slide to you - thats fun for
everyone!

A Really Bad Chart Example

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Whats Wrong?
Too much data
Unreadable
Poor chart choice
Legend doesnt help
Cant read the titles

unless you use a

white background
Isnt this a horrible
background?

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One Point (and a Non

Sequitor at That)
Participatory design is the only

correct solution!

Latin and Other Foreign

Languages
While the argument may seem, in this case,

post hoc ergo propter hoc, in reality res

ipsa loquitur

Latin phrases are another good way to confuse

your audience

Probably safe exceptions:

Et al.
Per se
Etc. or et cetera

Questions?