Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

businessweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 42 posts

Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

#31

Post by neil_s »

I don't know why there's so much hate here, but I actually find the redesign much easier to comprehend quickly, without constant head-turning to read axis labels. The rephrasing of charts labels to, eg "Number of companies financed", in readable fonts makes things so much easier.

@EmilandDC, I really hope you do a complete redesign of the admittedly long presentation. I gave up a few slides in when I came across the original, but I am more likely to make it all the way through if I can read it in your presentation style.

Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

#32

Post by ZoFreX »

jmuyskens wrote: post #30
ZoFreX wrote: post #19

I 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…

The scrolling bothered me too, but it's not technically their fault. I paused ad blocking, and sure enough there's supposed to be a banner before the headline. With ads displayed it works more or less seamlessly (though it still is a bit distracting).

Whoops - I feel bad for complaining now, as you say it works without Ad Blocker.

Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

#35

Post by EmilandDC »

neil_s wrote: post #31

I don't know why there's so much hate here, but I actually find the redesign much easier to comprehend quickly, without constant head-turning to read axis labels. The rephrasing of charts labels to, eg "Number of companies financed", in readable fonts makes things so much easier. @EmilandDC, I really hope you do a complete redesign of the admittedly long presentation. I gave up a few slides in when I came across the…

Thank you Neil!

Unfortunately, making slides requires a good amount of time and redoing the 160 slides would take weeks.

Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

#36

Post by avn2109 »

snail22 wrote: post #11

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 e…

In defense of the redesign, it has improved the data-ink ratio and removed annoying gradients/visual noise on several slides (looking particularly at the chart on slide 22 here).

Though Tufte would throw a fit at those circular charts.

Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

#37

Post by [deleted] »

GFischer wrote: post #6
eykanal wrote: post #5

What 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…

IMO, the "redesigned" slides are more aesthetically pleasing but they lose a lot of information in the process. The second slide already has lower contrast (less readable), and as you mention, the bubble plot has less information. I do like the 4th slide (55) redesign, and the one on education (25). Removing pictures and logos also reduces information for me. Overall, I overwhelmingly prefer the first set of slides o…

[deleted]

Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

#39

Post by prepend »

snail22 wrote: post #11

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 e…

I've been running into many designers who focus more on looking cool rather than information being used appropriately.

Meeker did a good job of cramming tons of info and data into a concise presentation. It's probably the most data dense presentation I've seen in a long time.

This seems like a case where De Cubber was just trying to change the presentation, rather than improve it. For example: "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."

Removing the firm logo from an analysis presentation is surreally stupid as the analysis is meant to create prestige for the firm.

Re: Redesigning Mary Meeker's Internet Slideshow

#40

Post by prepend »

bernardom wrote: post #21

Wow, so much hate here. I like the re-design. Yes, he makes it readable by reducing some information. But it's a lot easier to read. Sometimes that's a good trade-off.

I don't know. I find the originals easier to read. I don't think the new design understands the information and its meaning.

Take slide 15 for example, changing a histogram into a bubble chart. Aesthetically it looks nicer, but when you try to comprehend the data it's more difficult. For example, easily comparing side by side bars is easier than trying to determine the difference in bubble sizes. One of the main points of Meeker's slide is that there is $30B in opportunity in the difference between Internet and Mobile time spent vs. ad spend. This is completely gone visually in the redesign and now adds a sentence to describe in text "Underspending on Internet and Mobile"

Post reply on HN