Improving Communication Through Thoughtful Planning

Lunch & LearnNovember 12, 2014

Grab some lunch and join us for our first company-wide “Lunch & Learn”

Improving communication through good design

thoughtful planning

by Ehsan Noursalehi

Illinois Launch

Everything I know, I learned from presenting to Al Goldstein

Alright big shot, so you want to present your idea huh?

You need to prepare.

1. Know the venue.

The venue dictates everything.

2. Don’t make me think.

It is your responsibility to do the hard work.

My Awesome Self Explanatory Graph

• This took my whole team a few weeks to make

• I spent 30 secs talking about the graph, without telling you anything about how we made it

• I didn’t label the axis

• I didn’t tell you why to care about this graph

• Only my team understands why this graph matters

Be a salesman.

Assume I know nothing. No one knows what you know. Tell us why to care.

3. Visual Aids Are for Notes

not

The Standard PowerPoint Slide

• It sucks that the default PowerPoint style is so bad for effective verbal communication

• PowerPoint makes it to easy to just type up your notes as bullets on the screen instead of figuring out what your big idea is

• You have to put in real effort to figure out what you are really trying to say

The Standard PowerPoint Slide

• It sucks that the default PowerPoint style is so bad for effective verbal communication

• PowerPoint makes it to easy to just type up your notes as bullets on the screen instead of figuring out what your big idea is

• You have to put in real effort to figure out what you are really trying to say

the big idea

notes

The Standard PowerPoint Slide

Know what you want to communicate

• It sucks that the default PowerPoint style is so bad for effective verbal communication

• PowerPoint makes it to easy to just type up your notes as bullets on the screen instead of figuring out what your big idea is

• You have to put in real effort to figure out what you are really trying to say

Notes Visual Aid

vs.

Notes

Notes

16

$134 BillionGreat Recession

Dodd Frank | Card Act | Bank Regulation

4. Gestalt PrinciplesPsychological principles of human perception.

An intro to similarity and proximity.

Similarity

Things that are similar are perceived to be more related than things that are dissimilar

Title for this SectionHere is some content that explains what I am trying to say. Notice how it is clearly communicated by similarity that this means something different than those bullets to the right

My IdeaThis is really just some filler content. You don’t have to read it. Stop reading it already.

Here are some bullets over here. See how the similarity of these three bullets makes it obvious that they are more related than the content to the left side?

Similarity: The Gestalt Principal that things that are similar are perceived to be more related than things that are dissimilar

This is really just some filler content. You don’t have to read it. Stop reading it already. Stop wasting your time!

Proximity

Things that are close to one another are perceived to be more related than things that are spaced farther apart

CA CAVA VAIL ILIN IN

A sample body of text I want you to read in detail. Not really, just kidding. Up to you.

A sample body of text I want you to read in detail. Not really, just kidding. Up to you.

A sample body of text I want you to read in detail. Not really, just kidding. Up to you.

A sample body of text I want you to read in detail. Not really, just kidding. Up to you.

Testing Proximity Testing Proximity

Testing ProximityTesting Proximity

5. Sketch First

6. Make it simple

7. Make it simpler

Improving communication through good design

thoughtful planning

by Ehsan Noursalehi