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> It will look more professional – and therefore more trustworthy – when it only uses a few hues and their neighbors This sentence rubs me the wrong way for so

by umvi 6y ago

> It will look more professional – and therefore more trustworthy – when it only uses a few hues and their neighbors This sentence rubs me the wrong way for some reason but can't seem to articulate why. Maybe because I feel like in an ideal world, trustworthiness of information should not be coupled to how slick its presentation is.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago
I have always felt that a polished presentation shows (heuristic) that the author has got past the poring of trying to work out what they wanted to say and then gotten to the point of making the visuals follow their theme - in other words it shows they have a clear idea of what they wanted to say and have had suffice t time left over to work the presentation. I am reminded a bit of a jeff below story and a kissinger story.
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > a polished presentation shows (heuristic) that the author has got past the poring of trying to work out what they wanted to say Yes, although equally sometimes polish can draw attention away from a lack of substantive content
  - bigyikes 6y ago
    If I've done my job right, the visuals are beautiful and also the least important part of my presentation.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  It's also possible they skipped over trying to work out what they want to say, or more likely and worse, they know what they want to say but they skipped over the work of collecting good data that supports what they are trying to say.
- msla 6y ago
  Polish is too easy to copy. You can copy CSS and page layout directly these days.
nxpnsv 6y ago
You certainly can produce a terribly useless plot with pretty colors. If this then adds to trustworthiness, then that’s a problem. I’d say misleading plots is a bigger issue than choice of color or font... however, all other things being equal- go for pretty...
bonestamp2 6y ago
I know what you mean, but I think there's a bit of nuance here. It's not about excessive slickness to the point where the design itself is more substantial than the data, it's about just enough design so that the presentation doesn't look amateur. I agree that appearance shouldn't impact our trust, but it often does. If we showed up to a talk on investing, we might be surprised if Rapper 50 Cent took the stage. With his off axis baseball cap, his team jersey and gold chains, we might be questioning whether we should really listen to his investment advice... until he tells us he walked away with $7 million from one of his moves, or $60+ million from another. On the other hand, if he had just walked out in khakis and a dress shirt, we probably wouldn't have questioned him before he spoke. Nobody is impressed by khakis and a dress shirt, but it's just enough that we don't question his trustworthiness, giving the data a fair chance to come through and be trusted (or questioned) on its own merit.
dahart 6y ago
> in an ideal world, trustworthiness of information should not be coupled to how slick its presentation is. On the surface and without context, this sounds like an ideal, but it’s an interesting question and I wonder if you and I would really want that ideal. I’m not so sure that trustworthiness and presentation are separable nor whether I think they should be. Just Google “ugly web pages” and really imagine how many of them you could see yourself trusting. When there are clear signs that some information has had no thought put into the presentation, isn’t it reasonable and natural to start assuming that lack of attention extends to the information itself? Presentation is a very important part of how information is interpreted. It’s easy, for example, with bad color choices to accidentally emphasize one piece of data over another, and therefore to mislead the viewer - like how something yellow or bright green tends to dominate next to dark grey. By choosing colors carefully like in the article, the presentation can actually make the information more neutral. An interesting followup question might be: what characteristics should make information trustworthy? What other cues should I look for in a presentation to know whether something is trustworthy? Ideally, the trustworthiness of information should depend solely on whether it’s true, right? But ignoring that there are points of view and shades of true, in the world we live in, we use other cues like who is the presenter and what are their credentials, whether we agree with the conclusions beforehand, whether we were seeking the information or it was pushed, whether the presentation is informational or agenda driven, and lots of other things... since it’s often impossible to know whether information is true or not without resorting to original research. What cues should we use to establish trust in information without having to do original research?
goldenchrome 6y ago
That ideal world is never going to exist because perceptions of beauty is coded in our DNA. There are countless studies that show that beauty is universally desirable and more objective than people think, to a large extent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereotype https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_ster... https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ https://vimeo.com/209961130 https://vimeo.com/209961130
MattRix 6y ago
This just common sense. Go take a scientific paper and format it in large pink comic sans and see how it changes your perception of it. The presentation of information is important. Not just the visuals, but even word choice. For example, you chose to criticize "professional" presentation as "slick", a word that more easily conveys a negative meaning.
- mjw1007 6y ago
  These days on the web, I think my brain is taking non-"professional" presentation as a positive signal. Compare these two sites: https://lygte-info.dk/ https://lygte-info.dk/ https://www.lifewire.com/best-rechargeable-battery-chargers-4589146#best-speed-c4-12-smart-charger https://www.lifewire.com/best-rechargeable-battery-chargers-... Before looking at the content, my bias is that the former is going to provide more reliable information.

by umvi 6y ago

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

I have always felt that a polished presentation shows (heuristic) that the author has got past the poring of trying to work out what they wanted to say and then gotten to the point of making the visuals follow their theme - in other words it shows they have a clear idea of what they wanted to say and have had suffice t time left over to work the presentation. I am reminded a bit of a jeff below story and a kissinger story.

KineticLensman 6y ago
> a polished presentation shows (heuristic) that the author has got past the poring of trying to work out what they wanted to say Yes, although equally sometimes polish can draw attention away from a lack of substantive content
- bigyikes 6y ago
  If I've done my job right, the visuals are beautiful and also the least important part of my presentation.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
It's also possible they skipped over trying to work out what they want to say, or more likely and worse, they know what they want to say but they skipped over the work of collecting good data that supports what they are trying to say.
msla 6y ago
Polish is too easy to copy. You can copy CSS and page layout directly these days.

nxpnsv 6y ago

You certainly can produce a terribly useless plot with pretty colors. If this then adds to trustworthiness, then that’s a problem. I’d say misleading plots is a bigger issue than choice of color or font... however, all other things being equal- go for pretty...

bonestamp2 6y ago

I know what you mean, but I think there's a bit of nuance here. It's not about excessive slickness to the point where the design itself is more substantial than the data, it's about just enough design so that the presentation doesn't look amateur. I agree that appearance shouldn't impact our trust, but it often does. If we showed up to a talk on investing, we might be surprised if Rapper 50 Cent took the stage. With his off axis baseball cap, his team jersey and gold chains, we might be questioning whether we should really listen to his investment advice... until he tells us he walked away with $7 million from one of his moves, or $60+ million from another. On the other hand, if he had just walked out in khakis and a dress shirt, we probably wouldn't have questioned him before he spoke. Nobody is impressed by khakis and a dress shirt, but it's just enough that we don't question his trustworthiness, giving the data a fair chance to come through and be trusted (or questioned) on its own merit.

dahart 6y ago

> in an ideal world, trustworthiness of information should not be coupled to how slick its presentation is. On the surface and without context, this sounds like an ideal, but it’s an interesting question and I wonder if you and I would really want that ideal. I’m not so sure that trustworthiness and presentation are separable nor whether I think they should be. Just Google “ugly web pages” and really imagine how many of them you could see yourself trusting. When there are clear signs that some information has had no thought put into the presentation, isn’t it reasonable and natural to start assuming that lack of attention extends to the information itself? Presentation is a very important part of how information is interpreted. It’s easy, for example, with bad color choices to accidentally emphasize one piece of data over another, and therefore to mislead the viewer - like how something yellow or bright green tends to dominate next to dark grey. By choosing colors carefully like in the article, the presentation can actually make the information more neutral. An interesting followup question might be: what characteristics should make information trustworthy? What other cues should I look for in a presentation to know whether something is trustworthy? Ideally, the trustworthiness of information should depend solely on whether it’s true, right? But ignoring that there are points of view and shades of true, in the world we live in, we use other cues like who is the presenter and what are their credentials, whether we agree with the conclusions beforehand, whether we were seeking the information or it was pushed, whether the presentation is informational or agenda driven, and lots of other things... since it’s often impossible to know whether information is true or not without resorting to original research. What cues should we use to establish trust in information without having to do original research?

goldenchrome 6y ago

That ideal world is never going to exist because perceptions of beauty is coded in our DNA. There are countless studies that show that beauty is universally desirable and more objective than people think, to a large extent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereotype https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_ster... https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ https://vimeo.com/209961130 https://vimeo.com/209961130

MattRix 6y ago

This just common sense. Go take a scientific paper and format it in large pink comic sans and see how it changes your perception of it. The presentation of information is important. Not just the visuals, but even word choice. For example, you chose to criticize "professional" presentation as "slick", a word that more easily conveys a negative meaning.

mjw1007 6y ago
These days on the web, I think my brain is taking non-"professional" presentation as a positive signal. Compare these two sites: https://lygte-info.dk/ https://lygte-info.dk/ https://www.lifewire.com/best-rechargeable-battery-chargers-4589146#best-speed-c4-12-smart-charger https://www.lifewire.com/best-rechargeable-battery-chargers-... Before looking at the content, my bias is that the former is going to provide more reliable information.