Slide makeovers - good and bad

There are lots of sites and blogs which point out the foibles and follies of SlideWare, indeed I've done it here myself a number of times. Inevitably, there is a spectrum among these sites – some are good, some are very good and some are not good at all. I came across two slide makeovers recently that I thought I might share with you. One very good and one so bad, I madeover the makeover.

The Good
Jan Schultink over at Slides That Stick did a tremendous overhaul on a financial performance slide from Skype. Here's the before:

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And here's the after:

Click to enlarge

Now, I'm no graphic designer [I have the hairy scary bunch in the basement who fulfil that function] but to my eye, this work is excellent and to my presenter-brain, it is even better. The point of the slide is to illustrate the tremendous, consistent growth the company has enjoyed. That message is significantly diminished by the clutter and clumsy handling in the Before version. But just look at the clarity of the After – job done. Click on over to Jan's blog to read his thinking on this overhaul, it's good, good stuff.

The Bad
Dave Paradi did this slide makeover as part of his makeover video podcast series. Here's the before:
... which we can all agree is a stupid and audience-irritating way of presenting this information. Here's Dave's take on the after:

... which I think is just awful! It's cluttered and fussy; he leaves already-presented material sitting on the screen; and there are too many elements onscreen (although to be fair, Dave does introduce them sequentially in the podcast). This was very interesting data, which leaves no room for argument in the death-by-bullet-point discussion, but I really don't think this makeover does justice to the material. My sneaking suspicion is that this slide needs to make sense to a reader after the event as a leave-behind, hence the squishing and clutter.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've read Dave's blog and he knows what he's talking about and has produced a book through a reputable publisher on this topic. Here's some video of Dave doing his stuff - and he's good. His research is strong, his points are clear and his delivery is fine. But I can only assume that Dave was having a bad hair day when he produced the above, because this makeover needs to be madeover:

What people hate about your slides

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PS: Friend-of-the-blog, Ed, was also less than impressed by Dave's makeover. You can find his cogently expressed thoughts on this slide here and he also madeover the makeover:

Slide Makeover... of a Slide makeover

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