Cleaning up our act

Here's some good general advice for us, and it's even based on a little bit of research:

"[I]f you want people to understand [you] better, then get that stuff off the screen...Clean it up and get it off because it is simply making it more difficult for people to understand what [you are] saying."

These are the words of Tom Grimes, Kansas State University Journalism professor speaking about his research on the influence of on-screen clutter on understanding or retention. However, he's actually talking about the overpowering visual clutter found in TV newscasts, yet his advice is generally good for our live multimedia presentations as well. You can read a little more about this study in Science Daily in an article entitled Distracting Visuals Clutter TV Screen; Viewers Less Likely To Retain Content.

Like most expatriates, I'm a news junkie. Yet, I don't watch much cable news any longer. One reason is that I simply desire to remain calm as much as I can, avoiding unnecessary aggravation; it's one of the secrets to a healthy life. However, my wife likes to see how long I can watch CNN before throwing something at the TV. Usually, it isn't long. If it isn't the "infotainment" nature of some news piece substituting for real news or the absurd lack of depth that gets to me it's the annoying visual noise on the screen, the clutter, the sound effects, the gradients, the logos, etc. Sometimes I don't know if I'm watching news on the Middle East or a production of Monday Night Football (what is MNF?). Here's a sampling below of the visual noise so commonplace today:

   
Fox: I give up — how many Fox logos can you find? There are two men in there talking someplace. CNN: Two logos, one huge with spinning animation, plus the name of the particular program. Simple data. Don't forget the 2003 data below. And where is the 2004 data? (No room?)

    
How many logos does Fox need on its screen? I find three (four if you count both sides of the visible Fox cube). CNN: two logos, distracting motion. "Security Watch: Target: USA" — Sensationalism? Nice bold (scary?) typeface, though. What's the rule on two colons in one title, by the way?

 
A sign of our times? You do not have to be a big news network to afford truck-loads of clip art, gradients, colors (!) and other visual distractions — any small business or high school student can make slides like this. The slide above (photo credit) is suspiciously similar to this one by FEMA.

Creepy crawly visuals
Generally, if we pay attention, there are indeed many things to observe — good and bad — concerning the delivery and display of text, narration, and graphics from watching TV news broadcasts. But over the last few years it seems that many of the news broadcasts have substituted "pizzazz" and "sizzle" — not to mention conjecture, speculation, and sensationalism — for clean, clear messages/reporting with depth. Certainly one thing that bothers a lot of people are the crawlers that are taking more and more of the on-screen real-estate. Although a TV broadcast is different from a live presentation with slideware, modern news programs provide us with a perfect example of how visual clutter (stock tickers, logos, "cool" graphics and effects, etc.) can interfere with the message coming out of the speaker's mouth, in this case, the news anchor's.

Lewis Black says enough is enough
Lewis Black on CNN's crawlers: "Get that &%#@! off the bottom of the screen!"

Says Lewis Black:

"We don't watch you to read do we?! We watch you to hear you...!"

Amen, Lewis. And audiences come to hear us and see us as well, not read what we wrote in a slide template. See the full 5-minute CNN interview with Lewis Black.

Jon Stewart touches here — as he often does — on the over-the-top-ness of CNN's coverage (surely CNN, though, is not the worst — I bet you can think of other networks that may be even more over the top).

   
Absurd? CNN places a "Countdown to Cease-Fire" ticker on it's screen (circled).

One simple takeaway
Try this: If you must use your logo, do so only on the first slide and the last slide. Putting your logo on every slide is like shouting your name before every new thought you have (I'm Denny Crane!... Denny Crane!). I know it may be company policy, but is your logo on every page of your brochure? Does it appear in every frame of your TV ads? Will the world come to an end if you remove the logo from all except the first/last slide in a presentation? Whatever you can do to clean up the slide, it's worth it. Page (slide) numbers? Footers? Don't need them. You and your message are what must be remembered, hitting people over the head with your logo is not going to seal the deal or get you the funding. I know we are in love with our logos, but we've got to get over that. They're important, don't get me wrong, but other people don't really give a rip about our logo. Can you remember the logos of even half the fortune 500 companies right now? Branding is important — but a logo on your PPT slides is not branding (not even close).

Ask yourself, then,  what steps you can take now to clean up your act? And remember, sometimes it's better to seek forgiveness that permission. Give it a shot.

Link
• Distracting visuals clutter TV screen; viewers less likely to retain content

Comments

[Robert Smelser]

Very good points. I've been thinking about writing on logo-branded slides myself for a bit, but you've nailed it in the last section. (Personally, I like how Apple does it with the singular Apple logo before the presentation begins.)

I don't know if these news outlets or people who prepare slides like these actually care that you take in the information unfortunately. It's just a matter of "how cool and cutting edge can I make my information look?" It's perceived impressiveness through clutter.

A company like fox Fox uses all the graphics swirling and the multiple news tickers, and the execs hope: "These make us look like we know what we are doing." The same hope goes for slides. "It's overbearing, so it must be impressive."

For improvements to be made in this area, we have to get out of the mindset that our visuals are there to impress and awe our audience and respect them as a means to reinforce our points – that they too are a form of meaningful communication.

[Xman]

But can you then explain why Japanese television with its myriad things on the screen seems to work OK?

[Phil Gerbyshak]

Perhaps all the overuse of logos is to make up for the fact that there's no content anymore, or that we can get it anywhere, anytime, and networks need to remind people where they're watching it? Zero differentiation.

That, and often a poor product. Take baseball for instance. It used to be that you'd get a Saturday "game of the week" on NBC, and it'd be a marquee game featuring 2 teams you didn't get a chance to see most of the year, and that were actually good teams. Now, we get so much baseball on TV, the Sunday night "game of the week" seldom is. You might have seen the 2 teams square off Friday night if you have cable, Saturday during the day on Fox, and then Sunday on ESPN. Why else do they have to show us the bottom line of games that ended 2 or more hours ago?

And about PowerPoints...I agree, the use of the logo is overdone. I mean come on. If I didn't see your logo on the first 10 slides, I'll remember it after seeing it on the next 50? No way! Overdone, overused, and bo-ring. Next!

[Garr]

>But can you then explain why Japanese television with its myriad things on the screen seems to work OK?

Thanks, Xman,

To the degree that we are talking about actual information transfer, retention, etc., I'd say it does not work. But news programs in Japan (except the tabloid ones) are not as bad as CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. Serious NHK documentaries are quite good, excellent in fact. The other thing, as you know, is that Kanji is very useful -- especially for technical topics -- for clarifying your point.

I think what you are talking about is basically all other TV programs in Japan? The variety programs, morning shows, gossip talk shows, etc. are a mess. BUT, they are *entertainment* programs. There is no evidence (either way) that this use of text (often splashing the thing the person just said onto the screen) helps people understand or retain.

My point, as always, is to look at other mediums like TV and see what we can learn and then apply to our situation.

I'll look at Japanese graphics on TV in future. It is absolutely amazing.

[Simon]

CNN International has undergone a redesign by UK company, Kemistry. And the results are stunning - clean, minimal type, semi-transparent with blocks of flat colour,

In my opionion, they have set a new standard in News channel presentation.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/another_look_at_the_new_cnni_32318.asp

[Chalres Renim]

No Footnotes? OK. But how do you characterize pictures from other people (you use in terms of the copyright, of course) or pictures you made by yourself but based on data from other? You cannot ask everytime for using a picture, espacially in nature science, but marked it as foreign.
If you show the citations at the end of the presentation, nobody knows where this citations belong to. If not showing the name of the autor, you have to say where this picture or diagram is from. That's nerving for the audience, espacially when it is more than one these pictures. But imagine the autor is in the audience (what you don't know) and you don't say or wrote that he has made this picture you use...
That would be the end of your presentation.

charles renim
Berlin

[Garr]

> No Footnotes? OK. But how do you characterize pictures from other people (you
> use in terms of the copyright, of course) or pictures you made by yourself but
> based on data from other?

Chalres,

Actually, I said "no footers" not no "citations" which you seem to imply. When I show a quote or a stat I put the source, of course. Though it is also a natural part of the conversation to say "according to the XYZ study of 2001..." or "As Dr. XYZ said in his latest book..." etc.

By superfluous footer I mean, for example: The title of your presentation, the location, your name, the date, the slide number, logo, etc.

Visuals are used to augment — we used to present well without them and had no trouble citing a source in the flow of our speaking without boring an audience. What appears on my screen does not go home in your hands with you. Instead, a document or a report goes home with you which, of course, has all data and references cited, more detailed graphs if any were used, etc.

Thanks -G

[Michael Young]

It seems like all the cable news shows have excessive clutter, but the shows that drive me crazy because of the needless and distracting animation and faux 3-d images are the stock market shows especially those on MSNBC: Squakbox, The Opening Bell, The Closing Bell, etc.

[Bobblehead]

insanely, I'm going to point out that it's "Junkie", not "Junky"...

Thank you for your forbearance.

[Patrick Au-Yeung]

I'm sure you have seen a Taiwanese TV newscast, to me that is absolutely the world's worst screen design ever. Talk about ticker infor overload.

[Ben Fulton]

I have to say that I never watch CNN at home (no cable) but in restaurants or at the gym I often can see the video with the sound off. So yes, I usually do watch CNN to read, not to listen!

[Bobblehead]

... Oh, and while I'm on a tear, common place is one word.

Thanks for the Lewis Black video...

[Lauri Mueller]

I loved reading that you don't think people need their logo on every slide! Affirms my own thoughts. It's tough to convince clients, though, even when they have their logo a hundred other places in the room and the meeting is for employees, lol. Every now and then I manage to cover a logo by making a photo full slide or bleed over that corner, lol, but it's still tough to break people out of the "logo in the corner" paradigm. Very few people are confident enough of their brand to not want to hit people over the head with it.

[Paul Robinson]

The CNN screen you're complaining about in here - the fact that 2006, 2005 data is shown and then "2003 data at the bottom of the screen" and there appears to be no room for 2004 data - I think you've read it wrong.

The poll was "Do you think Iraq had WMD when America invaded?" or another way of putting it is "Do you think Iraq had WMD in 2003?"

So, in 2005, 36% of people thought that. Today, 50% of people think that. You have the two year's worth of data in the box.

The box at the bottom does not represent 2003 data - it represents the story the channel is discussing right now. They use that box to always give a heads up so that if you dip into the channel you know exactly what they're talking about. Even if they take away the box showing the 2006/2005 data you will still know the story is "50% of people think Iraq had WMD in 2003". Which is the 2006 data they're discussing.

I accept it's not clear on that screen shot, but when that box gets moved away and they carry on talking, it makes more sense.

Remember as well, all they're trying to do is copy others, and add "more" than their competitors. I read somewhere that CNN International had got rid of nearly everything off screen and reduced clutter completely. In fact, here's a piece on it:

http://www.brandrepublic.com/bulletins/br/article/538827/cnn-international-cuts-onscreen-clutter-image-overhaul/

American networks clutter the screen because they know that's what locks in viewers. Baring in mind 'lock-in' in that market means having somebody effectively hypnotised: European networks get lock-in through content, American networks seem to get it through flashing, spinning and other eye candy.

[Walt Kania]

I agree, the jumbled look makes a mess of the news, and just about everything else. But I believe what the networks are trying to do is to get a channel-surfer to stop on their channel -- usually by faking some momentous news... or by instantly summarizing what's going on in the show, so late-comers are up to speed. (Jerry Springer started this: "Pregnant girl thinks the baby isn't even hers.)

What is JUST as irritating is the MTV approach of using 9.4 images and angles per second even on talking head shots. As if cutting to different perspectives and tilting the camera every eight milliseconds makes the subject more interesting. Maybe it is, if you're four years old.

Makes me dizzy to watch such hodgepodge.