Example Good Talk

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Example Good Slides for a CHI Paper
Presentation
Joshua B. Gross, Penn State jgross_at_ist.psu.edu
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Straightforward Overview

• Purpose/value statement
• Principles of a good slide presentation
• Example good slides
• Conclusion - good slides are a good start to a
  good presentation
• Acknowledgements

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Statement of Purpose/Value

• A good presentation starts with a statement of
  the value of the work
• Why should people care?
• Why should they hear your talk?
• What contribution have you made?
• This information is probably in your abstract,
  but should be distilled for the slide

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Presenting Background Work

• Dont try to present all the background
• Just one or two really crucial elements
• The CHI audience is broad, so briefly describe
• Examples follow
• Participatory Design
• The theory and practice of involving users at
  some or all stages of design
• Semiotics
• A theory of how systems of symbols (like a
  language) communicate ideas

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Citing Prior Work

• It may be beneficial to cite prior work
• It should be important and relevant
• Use this style (Simon, H. A., 1975)
• Often, this is used to give your audience a
  perspective
• Participatory design (Nardi, B. A., 1993)
• is not the same as
• Participatory design (Bodker, S., 2000)

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Visual Design

• The pre-packaged Powerpoint slides are ugly.
• A plain background is not ugly.
• If you arent a graphic designer, dont try to be
  -)
• Simple, Consistent, and Legible.

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Good Chart Example
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Presenting Data

• Use simple charts/graphs, with (ideally) one main
  point per chart/graph
• Dont try to jam too much data in your graph
• Labels x and y axis, and units
• Use a title that clearly explains the idea you
  are trying to get across

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Alpha and Beta Teams Perform Better in the
Evening, Delta and Gamma in the Morning
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Graphs and Charts, Part 2

• Dont just accept defaults from Excel
• Colors (including background) may need to be
  changed
• Axis dimensions and scale can be changed
• Make sure text is big enough
• Move legend to where it is most useful
• Make sure colors background are visible on a
  projection display

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Acronyms

• Acronyms are dangerous
• Example ERP
• Does it mean Enterprise Resources Planner
• Large-scale corporate planning software
• Or does it mean Event-Related Potential
• Reactions measure via electroencephalograph
• Always spell out acronyms at first use
• E.g. Event-Related Potential (ERP)
• One safe exception - HCI!

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Slang and Colloquialisms

• Avoid slang and colloquialisms if at all possible
  
• CHI is an English-language conference
• 2 billion people speak English
• Lots of dialect and regionality
• Make your message clear to people who speak
  English as a second language
• Or third, or fourth

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Future Work

• You may want to talk about future work
• Work you intend to do
• Work you may have already done
• Its been up to six months since you submitted
  your paper
• What direction is the work taking
• What do you see as the major next hurdle or
  accomplishment

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Summary and Acknowledgements

• Summarize your major contributions
• Good slides are the basis of a good talk
• Assume a broad audience at CHI
• Make sure your content is readable
• Stop on your summary slide - this is useful for
  your audience
• Acknowledgements
• Funding
• People
• Include your contact information

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Answering Questions

• An advanced tip is to have a few slides ready for
  questions you anticipate
• You wont always have one for each question
  asked, and you may not use them, but they can be
  handy
• This is a useful place to put additional/supportin
  g data, references, etc.