| | |  | Secure Communications | Home » » slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations | | | | | | | Product Promotions: | | | | | Description: | | No matter where you are on the organizational ladder, the odds are high that you've delivered a high-stakes presentation to your peers, your boss, your customers, or the general public. Presentation software is one of the few tools that requires professionals to think visually on an almost daily basis. But unlike verbal skills, effective visual expression is not easy, natural, or actively taught in schools or business training programs. slide:ology fills that void.
Written by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore's Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, this book is full of practical approaches to visual story development that can be applied by anyone. The book combines conceptual thinking and inspirational design, with insightful case studies from the world's leading brands. With slide:ology you'll learn to:
- Connect with specific audiences
- Turn ideas into informative graphics
- Use sketching and diagramming techniques effectively
- Create graphics that enable audiences to process information easily
- Develop truly influential presentations
- Utilize presentation technology to your advantage
Millions of presentations and billions of slides have been produced -- and most of them miss the mark. slide:ology will challenge your traditional approach to creating slides by teaching you how to be a visual thinker. And it will help your career by creating momentum for your cause. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Nancy Duarte | | Paperback:
| 296 pages | | Publisher:
| O'Reilly Media | | Publication Date:
| August 12, 2008 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0596522347 | | Product Length:
| 8.64 inches | | Product Width:
| 9.08 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.67 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.84 pounds | | Package Length:
| 8.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 8.9 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.87 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.46 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 114 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 114 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
278 of 311 found the following review helpful:
 Overrated, extremely light on contentJan 23, 2009
By D. Farmer
I rarely review books, but this one was such a waste that I'd feel guilty if I didn't at least TRY to persuade you not to buy. The main problem with the book, as other reviewers have alluded to, is that it sort of tries to BE a design masterpiece rather than teach you. The design is interesting, but it is to the point that the content is subordinated to the design. There are maybe 5 pages worth of useful content.
Another irritant to me is that this is by far the most commercial book I've ever seen (more ads than a magazine). It seemed that every few pages I was being told to buy this book, or buy all of some other guys books. There is a two page section that is taken from Guy Kawasaki's blog. The whole thing is incredibly derivative (but shallow).
Finally, and this I can take responsibility for, it didn't meet my needs because I am not Al Gore, nor am I the CEO of a company. If I gave a presentation in the style of this book I'd be laughed out of the office. I'm an analyst, and the warm and fuzzy slides would not be good. Duarte's advice on data intensive slides? "Both [of Stephen Few's] books should be on your shelf along with everything Edward Tufte has written."
I have two Tufte books and they are virtually identical, I don't see myself buying his others (and they suffer from the same lack of relevance to corporate analysts). Disappointing.
248 of 292 found the following review helpful:
 Yet another designer's bookSep 12, 2008
By David Field
I have to rain on the parade of this book and Garr Reynold's book (and other ones).
The message is "I'm one of the best slide designers in the world (which is true) and I'm going to show you WHY."
The message should be "I'm one of the best slide designers in the world and I'm going to show you HOW."
You'll see plenty to interest you, but unless you're a full-fledged graphic designer you'll never recreate these slides. Imagine putting this book (and the Reynold's book) into a room with some of your worst slide creators, or even yourself. Would you see an improvement in their skills? I doubt it.
You might as well become a painter by reading books that have the world's greatest pictures in them. Even though there is explanatory text here it isn't enough to bridge the gap.
To see a book written for its audience, try the "Before and After" books by Jon McWade which deal with desktop publishing. Unfortunately John has not yet tackled slides, but you can see an page layout idea and make it yourself in minutes.
So, sorry about this, because both this and Reynold's book are "nice" books. The energy has gone into the book's design and production rather than the content. But that makes them coffee-table books, and unless you have a coffee table in your office I'd advise that you give both of them a miss.
95 of 118 found the following review helpful:
Emperor's New Old ClothesNov 25, 2008
By Christopher Jones
I had high hopes for this book. It looks very nice. It has the right nods to Tufte early on. But...
But the true content is very thin, includes a load of chart junk (the anti-Tufte - I guess the true cue is in the title, this is a PowerPoint book) and page after page of abstract diagrams demonstrating "flow" - much like the woeful second half of "Say it with Charts" which is about 50 pages of arrows.
Very very disappointing indeed.
43 of 54 found the following review helpful:
don't buy this bookOct 27, 2008
By Christine Lacroix
Don't buy this book. The text is maddeningly small and poorly contrasted. With postage stamp size visuals it's like reading a telphone book.
Get The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams and check out the website of the author of The Craft of Scientific Presentations, Michael Alley for templates and research based design tips.
With these two resources you'll have everything you need without having to wade through the padding in Duarte's book.
50 of 65 found the following review helpful:
 AMAZING--not about slides, about mind to mind communicationAug 26, 2008
By Robert D. Steele
I just destroyed this book with folded pages and ink annotations, so the perfectionists out there may want to order two copies, one for eating and one for sharing. The price is phenomenally reasonable, especially for something that is all color and totally elegant.
This is not about powerpoint slides. If anything, it is a very subtle but explicit critique of how retarded they still are (e.g. no separation between bullet groups). This is an utterly inspiring combination of wisdom, education, visual excitement, and plain fun that "lives" what it preaches.
When I get back to the office I am going to read this book again while I create a briefing on the Earth Intelligence Network and educating the poor one cell call at a time that respects the deep knowledge being imparted by this author and her team. Mills Davis, visualization and semantic genius (Project10X) called my presentation "dense" yesterday, and I needed this book to understand just how polite he was being.
Bottom line mechanically: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 font size MINIMJM. For the advanced audiences, 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 6 minutes and 20 seconds total.
I read and reread sections, and the recurring thought in my head was that this book may well be all one needs to run a semester long course on the communication of important complex ideas. The author does not just show a correct slide, the author breaks down every aspect (e.g. fonts, color, grid layouts, use of images, creating your own art) into separate chapters with very ably-illustrated palettes covering all the options. I have a note on this, "nuances are unpackaged and illustrated."
I note the author's admonition that change across the presentation is a distraction, that animation should support the message and the continuity of understanding.
For large organizations, the author covers templates as a means of harnessing the diversity of knowledge of varied functions and employees, while maintaining a consistency of brand. BRAND is huge within this book, and in this book BRAND is not a legal term, it is a philosophical term. I am hugely impressed by a chart showing UK companies that treat BRAND as a design imperative being so much more competitive and profitable than those that do not. This book is not just asserttions and demonstrations, it is fact and case based and eminently authoritative.
I learn for the first time that powerpoint slides can be instantly made to be black and white to focus audience on the speaker, or made all white, by pressing B or W. Why didn't I learn that from Microsoft? Because their tool bar is not designed to teach....perhaps?
Special pages for me:
10-11 The Presentation Ecosystem (Message, Story, Delivery)
12-13 Time Estimate for world-class presentations (36-90 hours)
18-19 Rick Justice and 27 slides on eight topics (organization)
58-59 Making Diagtrams Work Together
64-65 Following the Five Data Slide Rules (Tell the Truth is Rule 1)
82-83 The (Financial) Value of Good Design
116-117 Lose the logo on every slide....
142-143 Dissecting a font (this section alone was HUGE eye-opener)
148-149 Typesetting a block of text (what powerpoint does not do)
The references are phenomenal, and comprise an instant library for any person, firm, or school of design. I only have ten links allowed, so below I list the reference categories, and link to a single book from the multiples identified--no disrespect intended for the others!
DESIGN
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)
BRANDING
The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design
VISUAL THINKING
Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands
INFORMATION GRAPHICS
Nigel Holmes On Information Design (Working Biographies)
DATA DISPLAY
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
CONTENT
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
BUSINESS BOOKS
The E-Myth Manager: Why Most Managers Don't Work and What to Do About It
The index is very good, another manifestation of the utter devotion to quality of the publisher, O'Reilly (I dislike most of their book sets, this one very properly rose to a proper high level).
Lots of white space. There isn't an ounce of fat or irrelevance in this book. It is world-class in every respect, and most publishers are so crummy about price and color that I want to end with a tip of the hat to o'Reilly for getting this one "just right."
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