Many people think visually, and pick up a concept better with a picture
than with a thousand words. That said, it's all too easy to botch the
job when creating and using a diagram:
* using concepts and symbology to which the audience has not already
been introduced (would you start off a Physics 101 lecture with a
Feynman Diagram?)
* assuming a higher level of knowledge (in the subject matter) than the
audience already has
* too much material to be taken in at once (too complex -- split into a
master diagram and multiple detail diagrams)
* too finely detailed, particularly for those who have less than 20/20
vision or are slow in reading something
* general messiness -- what connects with what? ambiguity in what lines,
etc., do (a major problem with hand-drawn diagrams), and are those two
lines just crossing or are they connected?
* swapping diagrams too quickly (not keeping them up long enough),
before the audience has absorbed and understood the content
Keep diagrams simple, unambiguous, and clear. Think about the guy
sitting way in back with Coke-bottle glasses when picking the font size
and line thicknesses. Colors should be bold (fairly bright and
saturated) with good contrast, and watch out for combinations that
colorblind people have trouble differentiating*. Make sure the audience
acknowledges that they're done studying it before moving on to the next
one. Be careful that what you're saying (verbal) relates directly to
what's on the diagram (visual), or you'll confuse the audience by
talking about one thing while showing another.
* Projectors generally aren't as much of a problem, but watch out for
posters (ink on paper) under different kinds of lights. The view under
fluorescent (including CF) bulbs can be quite different than under
incandescent bulbs or sunlight. I remember a few years ago having to
write to /National Geographic/ to advise them to test view their maps
under CF bulbs, as some of the inks they chose for color keys looked the
same under the non-continuous CF spectrum. It didn't help that I'm
mildly R-G colorblind, too.
Mark Wallace wrote:
Shawn,
When I was in student teaching, I was told to NEVER use a diagram
until after I was sure that the class already understood it.
Chalkboard spaghetti turned more math majors into history majors than
anything else on earth.
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