Design versus Data
Fun set of comments attached to a blog post about Stephen Kosslyn’s psychological tips for Presentations highlights the tension around number-crunching and expertise.
For those that missed the twitter, there are some cog-sci principles reduced to four memorable (or at least re-memberable) principles: 1) Goldilocks — show the amount of information that is “just right”; 2) Rudolph — like the red nose, guide the user to the most salient point; 3) Rule of Four — people have cognitive difficulties dealing with more than four visual ideas; 4) Birds of a Feather — group similar things to smooth out the narrative. (This is 3rd or 4th hand, TED had something about it as did other blogs and this one.)
These are grounded in cog science and describe the kinds of things that are “brain compliant”. What’s funny, though, is the reaction of some designers:
So, wait….cognitive science is just figuring this stuff out? These are the sorts of things graphic designers and advertising students learn as freshmen.
I learned this stuff when I took graphic design, especially in typography class.
I don’t know this is kind of common sense. If you need a cognitive scientist to tell you to change a couple colors or stray from having 20 things on screen then I doubt you have anything worth bringing to a presentation.
Amen. Tufte explained much of this 6 years ago. Kosslyn does add valuable insight and data. PowerPoint keeps evolving. Presenters keep devolving.
Yeah this Design 101 (hello, hierarchy of information!), tarted up in science drag.