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Graphics in Science
BishopBerkeley writes "Nature has an interesting nugget about the second meeting of the Image and Meaning Initiative which was held at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. It is about the use of graphics in presenting scientific data. I am also a big advocate of using nice graphics in scientific presentations, but I also agree with Felice Franel, the founder of I-M, that not all images are meaningful scientifically. In fact, one encounters (and I am ashamed to admit that I have published) images that look nice but have no scientific import at all. One very cool Harvard physics professor, Eric Heller, produces wickedly beautiful (and meaningful) images of quantum mechanical models. These images have made the covers of Science and Nature, and are featured in his online art gallery, which was reviewed in the New York Times in 2002." And of course, any mention of graphic information should not go by without a big shout out to Edward Tufte.
Sometimes, it is easier to demonstrate with graphics, but a powerpoint presentation (or OOo presentation) with only a few words is not good either when demonstrating to more than a few people. Your information should be represented in many ways (graphical, text) because individuals learn things differently.
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But still.. a human eye is an extremly good tool for spotting things.. a computer can only look for the specific things you tell it to look sofr whereas an eye and a mind of someone knowledgable, will often sense something in a way that no computer can.
In most cases representing something gpahically makes that easier to grasp.
not the other way around.
If you put your entire presentation in your slides, then there is no need to listen to you.
My apologies if this was not your intent with this statement, but I have seen quite a few presentations where the person presenting really had no need to be there because the whole thing was in the PowerPoint slides. IMHO, this is bad presentation style.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The problem is most felt in dealing with non-specialists. For example, all microscopists will instantly recognize the implications of a given visual patterns of an osmium tetroxide stain in an image. In contrast, other scientists, lay people, voters, politicians, PHBs, etc. need some grounding in what the image shows, how it differs from "normal" and what the image means. A few suggestions for improving the understandability of an image include:
- textual summary: text creates reinforcement/redundancy
- annotate the images: arrows, circled regions and call-outs help the viewer know what's important and what it is.
- legends: color images, especially, need a legend or textual explanation of the color scheme.
- supporting metadata: information such as subject, scale, time (relative to some event), etc. helps create meaningful context.
- contrasting image pairs: Image pairs or sequences help cue viewers to the significant features or establish a pattern. Showing before & after, normal vs. abnormal, enhanced vs. non-enhanced, overview vs. detail, plain vs. peanut, etc. helps explain what's what.
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but if an image presenter wants the viewer to get the intended thousand words then a little extra annotation, metadata, and context can help.Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
In my experience in science keeping graphics very simple is best. I usually hope to have the audience leave my presentations with three adjectives in mind when they critique it: simple, clean, and creative. Assuming that you have followed rules of grammar and your scientific method is sound, a simple yet innovative presentation can make a good memory. Your data will be well understood and remembered. I absolutely detest the obligatory sequence data slide that creeps into many science presentations. Surely a creative scientist will someday discover a better way to effectively communicate sequence data in a presentation. And, how many people are going to stand at your poster for 4 hours to hand-copy all of your sequence data?