Jonathan Talbott, of TIP (Talbott International Presentations) gives a few pointers on how to reach your audience better while using graphs in PowerPoint. This is of particular interest if you suspect that there might be colorblind audience members, and 12% of your audience probably is.

1. A few things you can do to reach
your audience better with
graphs.

2. Consider a typical graph in
PowerPoint.

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4. Everyone can understand this
graph, right?

5. Nope.

6. 12% of your audience
probably can’t even
distinguish between the
elements.

7. Be aware of the color-blind.
This is what they might see
when they look at the graph.
9% of men are red/green color -
blind, another 2-3% are red-blue color-
blind,
as is a small percentage of women.
This means that they have difficulty
distinguishing differences between shades
of color.

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9. Not really what you had
in mind, huh?
Not all color-blind people have it to
this extreme, but do you want to
take the chance that the one person
you’re trying to get through to
does?

10. What to do?

11. Some experts suggest this.
According to research, patterns are much
easier to distinguish than colors.

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13. And some suggest this.
Primary colors are clearer and easier for
approximately 12% of your audience to see.

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15. Or maybe a combination?

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17. One thing not to do is this.
It gives too much unnecessary information.
Besides, it’s ugly and distracting.

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19. If the idea is to
communicate, rather than to
confuse, then

20. the next time you see this on
your screen

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22. please change it.

23. Or, you could just pass out
pillows and blankets in order
to help your audience sleep
better.