slide:ology

CHAPTER 4

63

Displaying Data

64 slide:ology

Following the Five Data Slide Rules

When it comes to displaying data in your presentation, you

must adhere to one principle above all others: clarity.

Projecting your data on a slide puts you at an immediate

disadvantage to printing it in a white paper or scientific text.

In a presentation, the audience doesn’t have the benefit of

being able to pull your data in close to examine it.

So it is absolutely crucial that any data in your presentation

carries with it a clear message. And you can keep that mes-

sage clear by remembering this one fact:

Data slides are not really about the data.

They are about the meaning of the data.

Most presenters don’t really understand this distinction. How

many times have you sat through presentations where the

speaker referred to one complicated chart for five minutes,

after which you still couldn’t figure out the point of the slide?

The problem is that, most of the time, slides aren’t a good

medium for showing complex data. When it’s important for

your audience to examine the data and come to their own

conclusions, you should distribute the data as a printout.

Displaying Data 65

Tell the truth

Get to the point