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Jonathan Talbott, of TIP (Talbott International Presentations) gives a few pointers on how to reach your audience better while using graphs in PowerPoint. This is of particular interest if you suspect that there might be colorblind audience members, and 12% of your audience probably is.
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A few things you can do to reach your audience better with graphs.
Consider a typical graph in PowerPoint.
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Everyone can understand this graph, right?
Nope.
12% of your audience probably can’t even
distinguish between the elements.
Be aware of the color-blind. This is what they
might see when they look at the graph.
9% of men are red/green color-b l ind, another 2-3% are red-blue color-b l ind,
as is a smal l percentage of women. This means that they have d iffi cul ty d ist inguish ing d iff erences between
shades of co lor.
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Not really what you had in mind, huh?
Not a l l co lor-b l ind people have i t to th is extreme, but do you
want to take the chance that the one person you’re try ing to get
through to does?
What to do?
Some experts suggest this.
According to research, patterns are much eas ier to d ist inguish than colors .
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And some suggest this.
Pr imary colors are c learer and eas ier for approximately 12% of your audience to
see.
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Or maybe a combination?
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One thing not to do is this.
I t g ives too much unnecessary in format ion.
Besides, i t ’s ugly and d istract ing.
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If the idea is to communicate, rather than
to confuse, then
the next time you see this on your screen
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please change it.
Or, you could just pass out pillows and blankets in
order to help your audience sleep better.
