Perceptions of the Readability, Effectiveness, Clarity, and Attractiveness of PowerPoint Graph Slides
Jo Mackiewicz & Ginnifer Mastarone, Illinois Institute of Technology
Most research on PowerPoint has focused on its value for communicating technical information. These discussions have focused on whether using PowerPoint slides impedes or extends the speaker’s intended message. These discussions have not, however, examined audience perceptions of PowerPoint slide designs, particularly graph slide designs. In fact, even though numerous authors offer guidelines for creating readable and clear slides, few of these guidelines are supported by research that investigates perceptions of them. This study examines 37 participants’ perceptions of PowerPoint line and bar graph slides. Participants were tested for 20/20 and color vision. Then, participants viewed 16 line graph slides and 8 bar graphs slides. They rated their perceptions of (serif versus sans serif font) readability, legend placement effectiveness, (2D versus 3D) plot area clarity, and color combination attractiveness on 1-7 Likert scales. The aims of this study are to determine the extent to which common advice for PowerPoint slide design has merit and to determine the design elements that audiences perceive to be most readable, effective, clear, and attractive. Thus, this study may help people generate PowerPoint slides that are well-received.

Grant proposals for environmental advocacy
Karen Griggs, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne
Grant proposals to fund technology for advocacy Technology changes stimulate environmental advocacy; however, funding the technical writing that supports this advocacy work is a major challenge for non-profit, public interest environmental organizations. Environmental advocacy communication includes public sector writing such as action alerts to activists and a wide range of print communication genres. Due to a dramatic increase in Internet communication, telephone conference calls, and teleconferencing, activists and officials can cut travel costs and save time. Environmental advocacy work now includes scripting and production of slide shows, designing and maintaining Web sites, interactive message windows for sending messages to public officials, collection and revision of URLs for e-mail action alerts, designing and sending messages, and designing and publishing technical reports on the World Wide Web. This presentation will describe the specific problems that two environmental organizations faced and how they solved them through technology: St. Joseph River Initiative Izaak Walton League of America I contrast bureaucratic requirements of a state pollution control agency, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and its requirements for applications under the Clean Water Act; and the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Network and Fund, their guidelines for grant proposals, and their criteria for funding advocacy work.

Wild liebacks, daisy chains, Gri Gris, and run outs: technology and technical communication in leisure activities.
Teena Carnegie, Eastern Washington University
☆☆Janet Reno 5.8 5B’s to LO. A direct start is the crux but it can be circumnavigated. Slab climb to the right of the right facing flake. A bulge at the end guards the red point. (Bland, 2001) This short paragraph provides important technical information that could mean the difference between an afternoon of challenging and enjoyable exercise and an afternoon involving injury or even death. If you can read and understand the above information, you are part of a discourse community or subculture which has evolved its own practices for communicating technical information. Such discourse is part of a sport that relies heavily on modern technology and technical information to ensure the safety of the participants. But what is most interesting about this information is its existence and development outside of recognized institutional means for legitimizing knowledge. It represents what Bernadette Longo refers to as current non-dominant knowledge and practices in our culture (2000). It is, however, still a part of the “knowledge as commodity exchange” that Jean-François Lyotard identified in his work on postmodern society (1984). Sports equipment, after all, must be manufactured, and each piece of equipment (even a daisy chain) comes with written specifications and extensive directions for use. While we may assume that those who write the specifications and instructions for the equipment would fit into the classification of technical writer, we rarely, if ever, associate technical communication with leisure activities. The histories and definitions of technical communication (its metanarratives) have long focused on the academic/industry dichotomy. Technical communication has continued to situate its research interests in the workplace. It aligns itself with systems of activities related to industry, and it seeks to legitimize its knowledge by association with engineering, computer science, and science in general. By maintaining these associations, technical communication sustains its role as the middleman in the relationship between suppliers and users of knowledge, thereby garnering value for itself. Leisure activities afford little legitimacy and value and have generally been excluded from the domain of technical communication. In this paper, I propose to take technical communication outside of the standard associations and metanarratives that link technical communication to scientific, professional, and workplace contexts. Instead I will examine the discourse of technology use in a specific leisure activity (rock climbing). I believe that such examinations offer valuable insight into how communicating the use of technologies can become integrated into cultural and social practices and how those practices are, in turn, shaped by the use of the technology.

Exploring textually mediated spaces – Methodological challenges of “contextualized” studies of genre
Stuart MacMillan Concordia University
As mediational means, genres stabilize experience and give it coherence and meaning (Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1995), yet are sensitive over time to changing social and environmental exigencies. Researchers employ numerous strategies to observe and document changing contextual forces that guide and constrain text production within organizations. Activity Theory (Engeström, 1999), for example, has been employed as a multilevel framework to contextualize knowledge production and sharing within organizations. Carliner and Boswood (2004) suggest the combination of discourse analysis, designer interviews and usability testing as a triangulated approach to document design process and determine effectiveness of information products. This presentation discusses various challenges researchers may face when undertaking “contextualized” or “situated” studies of this type.