I definitely think it's a contender.
This is a slide I quickly made for the "Things to avoid when speaking publicly" video (see below), where I tried my best to make it as jarring as possible.
Crazy thing is, is that this is actually a powerpoint template you can download! I'm at a lost to figure out who would (at least for something serious) would ever use this template. It gives me a headache just looking at it.
Anyway, other notable "evil slide" features include:
1. Text too small.
2. Conflicting colour scheme.
3. Deliberate but inconsequential change in font.
4. Filler and non-descriptive graph strategically placed off kilter.
5. List within a list fiasco.
Anyway, like I said before, I bet it's a contender, but I also bet there's much worse out there. Pass on a link in the comments if you find one - I got a talk idea brewing, and here, it would be great to amass an "evil powerpoint slide" collection.
Oh, and in case you missed it this morning - the video:
Education & Careers
Brain & Behavior
Comments
Reversed color (yellow font on a red background) would have been more evil.
Posted by: John McKay | September 2, 2008 12:59 PM
To be truly evil, it needs clowns...
Posted by: T. Bruce McNeely | September 2, 2008 1:12 PM
Oh dammit. You are so freakin' right. I wish you had mentioned that earlier. It would have SO made the video.
Posted by: David Ng | September 2, 2008 1:19 PM
Always use a sans-serif font to improve illegibility.
Example: the health warnings on tobacco packaging and advertising in the USA, the weakest and least legible in the world: "... with colors and fonts that closely resemble the rest of the package, so the warnings essentially are integrated and do not stand out with the rest of the cigarette package."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_packaging_warning_signs#cite_note-dumas-5
Posted by: Hank Roberts | September 2, 2008 1:23 PM
Anybody have any recommended references on 'best practices' for slide presentations?
So many of us in science (esp. biotech) make such awful slides. There's probably a good, basic manual we could follow, but it seems obvious that too many of us don't know about it.
Posted by: qetzal | September 2, 2008 1:55 PM
You made at least one error: The graph is high-contrast (black on white), and hence is legible. Yes, the font is too small and sans serif, and there's no grid lines (albeit they are perhaps pointless for that graph--another error is both the absolute and relative values are comprehensible), but the biggest error of all is it's actually possible to read the graph. Oh, and you're are not using an outstandingly stupid font, like comic sans. Nor did I see any (obvious) spelling or grammar errors, but the garish colo(u)r scheme and poor contrast may well be hiding them (that is, distracting and frustrating me so much I don't notice silly mistakes in the content).
Posted by: blf | September 2, 2008 2:06 PM
EVERY PowerPoint slide is evil.
Posted by: Dean | September 2, 2008 2:13 PM
There's nothing wrong with sans serif: the infamous tobacco warnings are works of evil genius in that they include all the things that are supposed to make a warning stand out: all caps, bold, closely surrounded by a thick black border. Naturally, the effect is the opposite, which I'm sure the designers knew.
David, you failed to make the months in the bar chart in alphabetical order (I've seen it done!).
Posted by: derek | September 2, 2008 2:16 PM
A good reference for good powerpoint is The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint by Edward Tufte.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp
His other books are recommended as well.
Posted by: david | September 2, 2008 2:25 PM
Hey, what's the dissing of pictures of surgery? Lots of talks I go to have them.
Of course, I am a surgeon. :-)
Posted by: Orac | September 2, 2008 2:37 PM
No inherent evil in sans serif. Sans is what you should use for pretty much anything digital, as there is generally not enough resolution for the serifs to look good. When in print though, there is more than enough resolution for the serifs, so they should be used. I don't recall the specifics, but there was one or more studies comparing the use of the two, and sans was better off in legibility for screens, while serif'd were best for print.
So, to make it truly evil, it needs to be in a serif font.
Posted by: dreikin | September 2, 2008 2:54 PM
I agree: the graph should use the same colour scheme as the rest, maybe inking every second month red and the other ones yellow. And (some fallacy I'm liable to, too) you should include a border with sponsoring institutions, copyright disclaimers, name of the author, great graphical system to show where in the presentation you are and so on, leaving only 1/3 of the space now (so you need to scale everything down).
Posted by: Till | September 3, 2008 5:14 AM
This slide has no blinking text, and it doesn't transition in with an explosion, so there's nothing particularly evil about it.
Posted by: llewelly | September 3, 2008 2:23 PM
What is so EVIL about the font Comic Sans?
This is the second time I've heard this accusation. The first time was after I gave a power point presentation. Scleep! It was only a title in just one slide, though... I swear.
Posted by: Peter | September 4, 2008 4:52 PM
Yes! This is why the slide here is in a serif font (for the most part). The worst in terms of legibility is what was until recently the default for PowerPoint: black Times New Roman on a white background. Looks great on paper and on a computer screen, but when projected the thin parts of the letters simply disappear, and trying to read the remainder hurts. Sans-serif fonts don't have thin parts. This is why Comic Sans MS ever got popular.
Nowadays black Arial on a white background is the PowerPoint default.
It looks clownish. Like what well-meaning but moronic adults believe is best suited for children. Not serious. Best suited for silently making fun of quotes.
Posted by: David Marjanović | September 10, 2008 6:54 PM
Oh crap. I wanted to turn the second <b> tag off after "is". I never preview because it sometimes screws up some formatting... <sigh>
You might be interested in http://www.bancomicsans.com. WARNING, however: that's a splash page; when I clicked to enter a few minutes ago, the browser almost froze, and I started downloading malware from a server in China (PRC).
Posted by: David Marjanović | September 10, 2008 7:09 PM