Yet another poseur "designer" who clearly hasn't read Edward Tufte's books, and has made crucial mistakes such as making the graphs less accurate than they were before and adding additional extraneous clutter (such as those extra icons) on top of the original information. Real design is supposed to make information more legible, not less, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how slick or "pretty" the end result appears to be.
Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
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Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#12> The Paris-based designer kept the “serious look and feel” and stuck with the shade of grayish green favored by Meeker, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. But De Cubber introduced a dark background—white, he says, is harder to read on a big conference-room screen—and reduced the number of different colors to create visual consistency. Finally, he got rid of an unnecessary color block at the top and the firm’s logo at the bottom to eliminate clutter and create some breathing space.
I'm sorry, but isn't the usual advice that you use dark text on a light background, because in a presentation room with ambient light, the dark background may wash out?
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#13What a horrible, horrible headline. Mary's analysis is incredibly detailed, extrememly informative, and FREE. This link-bait headline chose to ignore all the content and focus exclusively on the fact that the plots are ugly. Strangely enough, I managed to get through the slideshow without falling asleep, and I even was able to read her (quite well laid out) graphs and understand her points. The author even acknowledg…
Free, because no one would pay for it.
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#14Yet another poseur "designer" who clearly hasn't read Edward Tufte's books, and has made crucial mistakes such as making the graphs less accurate than they were before and adding additional extraneous clutter (such as those extra icons) on top of the original information. Real design is supposed to make information more legible, not less, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how slick or "pretty" the e…
"Real" design?
No true scotsman.
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#15I don't care if the slides are full of words as long as the presenter doesn't just read word from word. The art of public speaking is more important than slides. I pay attention to slides but I also pay attention to speakers.
Leonard Kleinrock, one of the important father of Internet, is not shame of his 1997 style powerpoints. They work. He is a very good public speaker. He can tell stories.
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#16> The Paris-based designer kept the “serious look and feel” and stuck with the shade of grayish green favored by Meeker, a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. But De Cubber introduced a dark background—white, he says, is harder to read on a big conference-room screen—and reduced the number of different colors to create visual consistency. Finally, he got rid of an u…
Who cares what it looks like on a big conference-room screen? 99% of viewers are looking at it on a desktop or laptop.
I've always wondered how you can apply the banal "story-telling" presentation advice to slide decks that share detailed information that requires discussion, analysis and thought. Now I know -- you can't.
Emiland has, in fairness, greatly improved the text. "77% less financing volume" is a far better annotation than "77% below". Meeker would be better advised to improve her writing skills. Her design skills are just fine.
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#17The biggest improvements are to typography, color palette and using a single background across headline and body.
The changed plots, not so much.
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#18Yet another poseur "designer" who clearly hasn't read Edward Tufte's books, and has made crucial mistakes such as making the graphs less accurate than they were before and adding additional extraneous clutter (such as those extra icons) on top of the original information. Real design is supposed to make information more legible, not less, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how slick or "pretty" the e…
"Real" design? No true scotsman.
Snail22 isn't complaining that the result's not perfect. It's that it's not even moving the right direction. The new "design" is strictly worse than the original.
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#19I don't normally pick on the design of sites submitted, but people in glass houses...
As soon as I scroll down a little the header changes and the entire first paragraph disappears behind it. It's very jarring and it's actually making it difficult to read. I'm sure it seemed like a cool idea, but design has to play second fiddle to functionality: It doesn't matter how fancy the design is if the product cannot perform its function.
A similar poor choice between shiny visuals and functionality has torpedo'd their redesign of the slides. They aren't the prettiest but I can very easily read the original charts. The new design massively reduces the contrast between text and background and makes the axis labels much smaller and a lighter font weight to boot. The result is very difficult to read.
Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow
#20Yet another poseur "designer" who clearly hasn't read Edward Tufte's books, and has made crucial mistakes such as making the graphs less accurate than they were before and adding additional extraneous clutter (such as those extra icons) on top of the original information. Real design is supposed to make information more legible, not less, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how slick or "pretty" the e…
"Real" design? No true scotsman.
Replace "real" with "informative, easily interpretable, and intuitive". The point still stands.