The Glance Test

Over the past six months, Nancy Duarte and I have collaborated on a job aid that measures "personal perception of signal to noise ratio in a still media". This tool came from two themes in her book "slide:ology" that I found particularly useful.

The first theme was that of slides as a 'glance media'.

That is, like a billboard, a slide should convey its message to the viewer in three seconds or less.

After reading slide:ology, I took this concept quite literally, and started testing slides that I saw against a 'glance test'. I would show a slide for three seconds and then put it down. Could the audience correctly identify the message of each slide? In my tests of typical business slides, most failed... miserably. In fact, so absurd is the concept of 'getting' a typical business slide in three seconds that the test usually provokes laughter.

This leads to the second theme - Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR).

If a slide fails the glance test, it either lacks signal (to amplify the message) or has too much noise (distracting from the message). Or both.

Usually both...

Applying the design principles that Nancy articulates in slide:ology, we created a 'scorecard' so that a user can measure the SNR of any slide. Now, bear in mind, Signal and Noise are relative to the viewer. I like to say "one man's signal is another man's noise".

For example, an image of a starving African child might amplify your message for one audience member, or it could just as easily provoke such an emotional response that it clouds the message for another audience member.

You must know your audience.

The Glance Test has turned out to be a powerful tool. I have used it with teams to measure their signal to noise before attending a slide:ology workshop. The typical business score is 4 parts signal to 7 parts noise (4:7).

After the workshop, scores soar to 9:1 or better.

My experience to date indicates that a score of 5:1 or better will create a slide that passes the 'three second glance test'.

Nancy has a post on her blog that I strongly recommend. She shares the 'glance test' in a pdf, and shows two examples of presentations that she recently scored at Stanford.

While increasing signal requires some skills that must be learned, reducing noise is quite easy - less words, less colors, simple images. Most of the presenters that I've coached find that reducing their noise (which increases their SNR) makes a dramatic difference in their presentation.

So, visit Nancy's blog, download the tool, and start using it!!