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But that’s precisely the point. There are lots and lots of people who need to make presentations regularly, who do not have professional visual design training

But that’s precisely the point. There are lots and lots of people who need to make presentations regularly, who do not have professional visual design training or the budget to hire pros. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the number of PowerPoints and the like made by pros is a vanishingly small number of total PowerPoints. The rest of us are not supposed to be craftsmen in that, we’re supposed to be craftsmen in the thing the presentation is about. This is a market opportunity for someone to make better tools.

sfpotter 4y ago
I disagree. If you're giving presentations as part of your job, then part of your job is to give presentations. Presumably, you should also do a good job of giving those presentations. Giving a good presentation means communicating effectively using the medium, which very well could require becoming enough of a craftsman to use the medium well. Lots of jobs require learning skills that are unrelated to main focus of the job. That's just life. Of course, we could talk about whether so many people should be giving presentations, but that's another issue... I suppose the opportunity exists for someone to step in and create a magical tool, but I have to say I think it's probably better if people just learn to communicate visually if they're able.
- paultopia 4y ago
  I mean, sure, I guess, if you think that visual design isn’t a professional field that people can spend their whole careers on. I come at this from a weird angle, maybe. As an academic, I’m basically a professional writer. I recognize that I have pro-level writing skills, earned over years of blood and pain, and that when I read some corporate memo (more often than I’d like) it will almost certainly be written very badly, by my lights. But I forgive that, because even though writing memos and such is a part of many corporate jobs, it isn’t the most important skill, and it’s a skill that takes years to master. Would it be ideal if those memos were written more skillfully? Sure. Is that realistic, given the constraints on people’s time? Absolutely not. When someone wires up a language transformer model to fix that, I will cheer.
  - sfpotter 4y ago
    I guess it depends on what field of academics you're in. Speaking as a fellow academic, all the time I've spent improving my ability to communicate visually has repaid itself many times over. This has helped my talks, my skills in the classroom, and my papers (it doesn't hurt to be able to make nice figures). It even helps when I'm just trying to explain something to a colleague on the blackboard. (Incidentally, your response is quite condescending. I clearly didn't suggest that visual design isn't a professional field.)
    - paultopia 4y ago
      I wasn't trying to be condescending, but to point out that your view seems to imply that visual design isn't a professional field---that is, one that takes massive specialized investments to learn!
      - sfpotter 4y ago
        Well, given a charitable read of my comment, that obviously isn't what I was implying. There are plenty of fields which require tons of specialized training but which nevertheless can be useful with only a modest amount of time invested. You seem to be making things out to be pretty black and white: "either I will become a master at visual design or I won't give it a second thought!" There's an abundantly useful middle ground.

sfpotter 4y ago

I disagree. If you're giving presentations as part of your job, then part of your job is to give presentations. Presumably, you should also do a good job of giving those presentations. Giving a good presentation means communicating effectively using the medium, which very well could require becoming enough of a craftsman to use the medium well. Lots of jobs require learning skills that are unrelated to main focus of the job. That's just life. Of course, we could talk about whether so many people should be giving presentations, but that's another issue... I suppose the opportunity exists for someone to step in and create a magical tool, but I have to say I think it's probably better if people just learn to communicate visually if they're able.

paultopia 4y ago
I mean, sure, I guess, if you think that visual design isn’t a professional field that people can spend their whole careers on. I come at this from a weird angle, maybe. As an academic, I’m basically a professional writer. I recognize that I have pro-level writing skills, earned over years of blood and pain, and that when I read some corporate memo (more often than I’d like) it will almost certainly be written very badly, by my lights. But I forgive that, because even though writing memos and such is a part of many corporate jobs, it isn’t the most important skill, and it’s a skill that takes years to master. Would it be ideal if those memos were written more skillfully? Sure. Is that realistic, given the constraints on people’s time? Absolutely not. When someone wires up a language transformer model to fix that, I will cheer.
- sfpotter 4y ago
  I guess it depends on what field of academics you're in. Speaking as a fellow academic, all the time I've spent improving my ability to communicate visually has repaid itself many times over. This has helped my talks, my skills in the classroom, and my papers (it doesn't hurt to be able to make nice figures). It even helps when I'm just trying to explain something to a colleague on the blackboard. (Incidentally, your response is quite condescending. I clearly didn't suggest that visual design isn't a professional field.)
  - paultopia 4y ago
    I wasn't trying to be condescending, but to point out that your view seems to imply that visual design isn't a professional field---that is, one that takes massive specialized investments to learn!
    - sfpotter 4y ago
      Well, given a charitable read of my comment, that obviously isn't what I was implying. There are plenty of fields which require tons of specialized training but which nevertheless can be useful with only a modest amount of time invested. You seem to be making things out to be pretty black and white: "either I will become a master at visual design or I won't give it a second thought!" There's an abundantly useful middle ground.