Subject: [apps-discuss] Diversity and today's micro-rant about slide readability

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 10:01:28 -0400

Folks,

To explain and amplify on my comments in the meeting...

First, it a slide or other kind to presentation material is
accessible to some IETF participants but not to others, it is
ultimately a diversity issue that impedes understanding and
participation in the latter group.    Some situations with those
differences are hard to work around and, while I don't think we
should go to extremes, that is no excuse for not dealing with,
and avoiding, the easy ones.

Unlike many other diversity issues, at least one aspect of these
will eventually apply to everyone reading this -- if you are
reasonably lucky, you will all get old.

Where slides are concerned, two principles ought to apply:

(1) If the information is important, it should be read out, not
just waived at.  Reading it out makes it accessible to everyone
who can hear but not see (regardless of whether the reason for
"not see" is a visual impairment, being in the wrong place in
the room, being remote, or something else.   

(2) A slide with more than about 15 or perhaps 20 lines of text
on it is almost guaranteed to be unreadable in a large room.
If you have more important information than that, make multiple
slides.  If the information isn't important enough to display in
a usable way and/or read, perhaps you can eliminate it and make
everything else bigger.

In a meeting presentation, the problem of a crowded slide can be
mitigated somewhat by having the slide in meeting material
posted well in advance.  But, if one is going to depend on that,
why not leave it off the slide (making the rest of it readable),
include it in the meeting material, and point to it with warning
as needed.

In some contexts, but not in the IETF, people sometimes feel a
need to show off everything they know or how much they have
accomplished by putting up a lot of crowded, dense slides in the
hope of overwhelming or impressing the audience with apparent
quantity.   Let's not go there.

thanks,
    john

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 10:12:52 -0400

On 7/21/2014 10:01 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
> just waived at. 

There are widely different styles of doing presentations that all are
(or can be) effective.

As an example, it can be quite good to have the talking be quite
different language than the text that is on the slide, where the talk
gives one level of detail and the speaking gives another. (Oddly, which
is which can vary.)

A rule of the type you suggest would prohibit that mode.   In fact, just
reading what is on the slide is a universally-reviled presentation method.

> Reading it out makes it accessible to everyone

The purpose of making sure that the slides are online is to make them
accessible to a wide variety of 'limited' participants, including,
remote, english as second language, and sight-impaired.

That's a far more useful model than the rule you suggest.

> on it is almost guaranteed to be unreadable in a large room.

As a rule, of course.

However it can be quite useful to have a slide that is meant as
secondary documentation rather than detailed explication.  Its
presentation is mostly to mark its presence for the audience.

Of course, the presenter needs to be especially judicious about creating
and using these.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

---

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 10:34:19 -0400

On the one hand, I get the incident that raised this thread. If you are in a big room and someone puts up a slide with 12-point font, they might as well not have put up the slide. 

It is not an age thing: even with 20/10 vision you will not be able to read the slide.

On the one hand, I agree with the sentiment to not just wave at the slide - that does not help visually impaired individuals.

However, I disagree that we need to stipulate what is or is not a good presentation.

Let us take the 12-point font issue. If you are in the room and sitting in the back, you can download the presentation and make the font size whatever YOU want. If you are remote, like I am right now, I can zoom in on the presentation. If you are visually impaired, you can have your computer read the slide to you.

Therefore, this is by no means a diversity issue. It is a “best practices for communications” issue, and perhaps the EDU team should work on that to help regular IETF presenters learn how to communicate.

On Jul 21, 2014, at 10:12 AM, Dave Crocker <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> apps-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 10:36:08 -0400

--On Monday, 21 July, 2014 10:12 -0400 Dave Crocker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> (1) If the information is important, it should be read out,
>> not just waived at. 
> 
> There are widely different styles of doing presentations that
> all are (or can be) effective.
> 
> As an example, it can be quite good to have the talking be
> quite different language than the text that is on the slide,
> where the talk gives one level of detail and the speaking
> gives another. (Oddly, which is which can vary.)

Indeed.

> A rule of the type you suggest would prohibit that mode.   In
> fact, just reading what is on the slide is a
> universally-reviled presentation method.

I was not suggesting "a rule".  I do suggest that people making
presentations need to think more about usability, accessibility,
and effects.  Your observation below about being judicious might
even be in agreement with that.     I was merely suggesting that
putting up an unreadable slide and then pointing to it and
saying (or implying) that the information is there is not an
effective technique.    If the slide is readable, posted far
enough in advance that people who are remote or unable to read
even well-designed sides in real time, etc., then the sorts of
things you suggest are entirely reasonable.   On the other hand,
if one talks in "quite different language than the text that is
on the slide" and the slide cannot be read by a significant
fraction of the audience, then putting the slide up is pretty
useless.  It may actually be harmful as people strain to read it
and are thereby distracted from following the oral part of the
presentation.

>...
> Of course, the presenter needs to be especially judicious
> about creating and using these.

Precisely.
     john

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 11:00:49 -0400

Eric,

I mostly agree and think the idea of the EDU team doing one or
more tutorials on good presentations is a great one (even though
I wonder if those most in need of such a tutorial would attend).

On the other hand, you are obviously faster and more efficient
than I am.  If I'm trying to follow a presentation (in the room
or remotely), the odds that I can find the online copy of the
slides if I don't already have them in front of me, download
them if I haven't done so, and then find the right place and
read through the slide without completely losing track of the
presentation itself are about zero.  In that regard, I may be
better off remote than local because, if I'm remote and slides
have been posted in advance, I will probably have them
downloaded before the talk starts and open in front of me on one
screen while following Jabber on another -- options that are
less feasible while I'm sitting in a meeting room.

I probably also cannot reliably walk and chew gum at the same
time, which is diversity issue relative to those of you who can
:-)

best,
   john

--On Monday, 21 July, 2014 10:34 -0400 Eric Burger
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> On the one hand, I get the incident that raised this thread.
> If you are in a big room and someone puts up a slide with
> 12-point font, they might as well not have put up the slide. 
> 
> On the one hand, I agree with the sentiment to not just wave
> at the slide - that does not help visually impaired
> individuals.
> 
> Let us take the 12-point font issue. If you are in the room
> and sitting in the back, you can download the presentation and
> make the font size whatever YOU want. If you are remote, like
> I am right now, I can zoom in on the presentation. If you are
> visually impaired, you can have your computer read the slide
> to you.
> 
> Therefore, this is by no means a diversity issue. It is a
> "best practices for communications" issue, and perhaps the
> EDU team should work on that to help regular IETF presenters
> learn how to communicate.