Example “Good Slides” for a CHI Paper Presentation

Joshua B. Gross, Penn State | jgross@ist.psu.edu

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

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

Presenting Background Work

• Don’t 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

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)”

Visual Design

• The pre-packaged Powerpoint slides are ugly. • A plain background is not ugly. • If you aren’t a graphic designer, don’t try to

be :-)

• Simple, Consistent, and Legible.

Good Chart Example

Frequency Follows an Inverse Log Relationship to Word Length

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Word Length

Word Frequency

Presenting Data

• Use simple charts/graphs, with (ideally) one main point per chart/graph• Don’t 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

Alpha and Beta Teams Perform Better in the Evening, Delta and Gamma in the Morning

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

0600 0800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200

Time of Day

Mean Tasks Completed Per Minute

Alpha Team Beta Team Gamma Team Delta Team

Graphs and Charts, Part 2

• Don’t 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

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!

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…

Future Work

• You may want to talk about future work• Work you intend to do• Work you may have already done

• It’s 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

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

Answering Questions

• An advanced tip is to have a few slides ready for questions you anticipate• You won’t 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/supporting data, references, etc.