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Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

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Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#91

Post by ssivark »

rhema wrote: post #65

Tufte isn't exactly wrong, but the way he writes has so much certainty in it. In reality, the design choices people make in the media they use has as much to do with social norms and culture as what really works. Alternatives like Prezi exist, but are not really going to be accepted in formal presentations https://infovisu.com/assets/pubs/linder2015beyond.pdf . If you really bring me a physical piece of paper today,…

As cool as it might look, does Prezi actually solve any real problem/need in information presentation? The spatial & hierarchical organization of the presentation feels very gimmicky for 99% of the presentations where it is absolutely irrelevant.

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#92

Post by wizzard »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #57
tgflynn wrote: post #27

> There were a number of options. The astronauts could perform a spacewalk and visually inspect the hull. NASA could launch another Space Shuttle to pick the crew up. Or they could risk re-entry. That's not how I remember it being presented to the public. The official word at the time was that there were no feasible rescue options. Yes, they could have done a spacewalk to inspect the damage but if it had been bad the…

https://spaceflightnow.com/columbia/report/rescue.html Atlantis was already scheduled for launch 41 days after Columbia. Columbia had ~30 days of air. NASA believed that Atlantis prep could have been accelerated and launched in time to attempt a rescue.

And could have had the same problem as Columbia. There was no quick fix to ensure Atlantis didn't meet the same fate.

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#93

Post by Graffur »

carlmr wrote: post #12
MattGaiser wrote: post #2

In general, we give people too much of a pass for not bothering to read what they are supposed to (and I myself am guilty of this as it seems like it preparedness for meetings is useless as nobody else reads even on the rare occasions I do speak). That is part of the reason Powerpoint is everywhere. You cannot assume that people have read anything before the meeting, you cannot assume they will read during the meetin…

As the communicator your job is to ensure that the audience gets your message. This slide is so comically bad that I wouldn't expect anyone to understand the gravity of the situation after seeing it. If this was a presentation done in high school they would have gotten a failing grade. And I think we can expect more from university educated people.

But it's not a high school presentation done for the sake of doing a presentation. It's not an audience who will review the performance. It's giving information to _professional_ _experts_ who are _responsible_ for consuming that information.

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#94

Post by [deleted] »

TobTobXX wrote: post #56
giantg2 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title of this post is claiming this slide killed 7 people. That's a pretty bold and accusatory claim that seems to leave out the other failures, right?

From the article (emphasis mine): > This, however, is the story of a PowerPoint slide that actually _helped_ kill seven people.

[deleted]

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#95

Post by rhacker »

The title is wrong - it didn't kill 7 people. And it is stated in the article that it "helped" kill 7 people, but even that is a leap. For all we know the slide actually reduced the percentage chance of this happening by .0001%. We can't actually know. We might as well blame it on the guy that was in charge of the foam order but had an extra extra long poop in the morning that reduced his work hours that day and he ordered 24 minutes to late and in those 24 minutes it caused other companies to get foam orders in first and a really good mixture batch came out and the next was sub-par and that's what the shuttle got. Basically chaos theory.

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#96

Post by logifail »

andi999 wrote: post #82
lostcolony wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tufte is not an employee of NASA. He is an employee of Yale, and a thought leader in information design. HE was the one saying the slide design is poor, and doing so not in the interest of assigning blame, but in the interest of highlighting ways to communicate better. To say that "the slide doesn't have any issues" is laughable on the face of it. But it's immaterial; your claim is that "NASA just ignored the enginee…

Agree. Also where is the executive summary for that slide on that slide?

> Also where is the executive summary for that slide on that slide?

Q: Shouldn't every PowerPoint slide be an executive summary? PowerPoint can be a terrible way to [attempt to] present detail.

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#97

Post by Graffur »

einpoklum wrote: post #49
jimmaswell wrote: post #25

> This allowed NASA managers to imply a hierarchy of importance in their head: the writing lower down and in smaller font was ignored These managers were REALLY that braindead? These are NASA managers in charge of life-or-death decisions, and their dull eyes glaze over as spittle puddles underneath them because they're too stupid to read one whole entire paragraph worth of text without ignoring subheadings because th…

> These managers were REALLY that braindead? These are NASA managers in charge of life-or-death decisions If you're in charge of 10000 life-or-death decisions, and are on a tight schedule, you are unlikely to give each of them its proper attention.

It's still their fault and not the person who created the slide.

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#98

Post by Iolaum »

giantg2 wrote: post #63
Iolaum wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to read the powerpoint and it was not an easy task. The main point of the powerpoint is not supposed to be an answer to a riddle of fonts and words. A quick and dirty re-writing of the title (and slide): _______________ Review of Test data indicates incident is well outside of safety margins. - Volume of ramp is 1920 cu in vs 3 cu in for test - Once tile is penetrated SOFI can cause significant damage. - Flig…

True, there are better ways to word it. That does leave out some detail that the original one had, like test velocity and not showing the thought process as well (like a formula on a math slide or deductive argument in philosophy). My main point is that the title claims thus slide is what killed 7 people and basically blames the creator, but leaves out all the other failures. Slide formatting and wording (which ignor…

The slide being such a mess, makes me think that the speaker's arguments may not point to the danger so clearly either. This makes me look favorably on the title even though it is hyperbole.

Granted this is pure speculation on my part and should be treated accordingly.

Re: Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people (2019)

#100

Post by folkrav »

gabrielsroka wrote: post #20
folkrav wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The size looks the exact same as this very site to me. It's #5e5e5e (effective, as it's actually a slightly transparent RGBa value) against #fff, so a contrast ratio of 6.48:1, well within WCAG AA standards, and a tiny, slight shift to #595959 would be enough to meet AAA.

Chrome Lighthouse on both mobile and desktop said that TFA did not have a sufficient contrast ratio. It doesn't look too bad on my desktop, but on my Android which is set to 130% it's almost unreadable. I had to use reader mode. And it doesn't resize on mobile, probably because they're using px in their CSS instead of em or something scalable.

You were specifically speaking about serif grey text on white, which is pretty much what I just told you - WCAG AA compliant. [1] You weren't talking about Lighthouse nor mobile specifically, so I just answered with whatever info you gave out.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/SF5WTCa.png

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