The document outlines a company-wide 'lunch & learn' event focused on improving communication through effective design, led by Ehsan Noursalehi. It emphasizes the importance of preparation for presentations, utilizing visual aids effectively, and understanding psychological principles like similarity and proximity for better communication. Practical tips include knowing your venue, simplifying your message, and sketching ideas before formalizing them.

1. Lunch & Learn
November 12, 2014
Grab some lunch and join us for our first
company-wide “Lunch & Learn”

2. Improving communication
through good design
thoug ht ful planning
by Ehsan Noursalehi

3. Illinois Launch
Everything I know, I learned from
presenting to Al Goldstein

4. Alright big shot, so you want to
present your idea huh?
You need to prepare.

5. 1. Know the venue.
The venue dictates everything.

6. 2. Don’t make me think.
It is your responsibility to do the hard work.

7. My Awesome Self Explanatory Graph
• This took my whole team a
few weeks to make
• I spent 30 secs talking about
the graph, without telling
you anything about how we
made it
• I didn’t label the axis
• I didn’t tell you why to care
about this graph
• Only my team understands
why this graph matters

9. Be a salesman.
Assume I know nothing. No one knows
what you know. Tell us why to care.

10. not
3. Visual Aids Are for Notes

11. The Standard PowerPoint Slide
• It sucks that the default PowerPoint style is so
bad for effective verbal communication
• PowerPoint makes it to easy to just type up your
notes as bullets on the screen instead of figuring
out what your big idea is
• You have to put in real effort to figure out what
you are really trying to say

12. The Standard PowerPoint Slide
• It sucks that the default PowerPoint style is so
bad for effective verbal communication
• PowerPoint makes it to easy to just type up your
notes as bullets on the screen instead of figuring
out what your big idea is
• You have to put in real effort to figure out what
you are really trying to say
notes
the big idea

13. Notes Visual Aid
The Standard PowerPoint Slide
Know what you want to
communicate
• It sucks that the default PowerPoint style is so
bad for effective verbal communication
• PowerPoint makes it to easy to just type up your
notes as bullets on the screen instead of figuring
out what your big idea is
• You have to put in real effort to figure out what
you are really trying to say
vs.

15. Notes
Notes

16. 16
Great Recession
$134 Billion
Dodd Frank | Card Act | Bank Regulation

17. 4. Gestalt Principles
Psychological principles of human perception.
An intro to similarity and proximity.

18. Similarity
Things that are similar are perceived to be
more related than things that are dissimilar

21. Title for this Section
Here is some content that explains
what I am trying to say. Notice how it
is clearly communicated by similarity
that this means something different
than those bullets to the right
My Idea
This is really just some filler content.
You don’t have to read it. Stop reading
it already.
Here are some bullets over here. See how
the similarity of these three bullets makes it
obvious that they are more related than the
content to the left side?
Similarity: The Gestalt Principal that things
that are similar are perceived to be more
related than things that are dissimilar
This is really just some filler content. You
don’t have to read it. Stop reading it already.
Stop wasting your time!

22. Proximity
Things that are close to one another are perceived to be
more related than things that are spaced farther apart

24. CA VA IL IN VA IN CA IL

25. Testing Proximity Testing Proximity
A sample body of text I want you
to read in detail. Not really, just
kidding. Up to you.
A sample body of text I want you
to read in detail. Not really, just
kidding. Up to you.
A sample body of text I want you
to read in detail. Not really, just
kidding. Up to you.
A sample body of text I want you
to read in detail. Not really, just
kidding. Up to you.
Testing Proximity
Testing Proximity

26. 5. Sketch First

28. 6. Make it simple

29. 7. Make it simpler

30. Improving communication
through good design
thoug ht ful planning
by Ehsan Noursalehi