1. 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)
Fax: (814)
Web:

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

3. 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
Geldard’s homunculus
My prior work
My advisor’s prior work
Et cetera
I will not explain any of these

4. 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!

5. A Really Bad Chart Example

6. 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
Isn’t this a horrible background?

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

8. 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

9. Questions?