Supergraphic or summarize

Supergraphic or summarize

Is the ideal of a presentation to tightly guide the viewer to a small set of conclusions. Or is the ideal to give the viewer a very detailed set of clearly diagramed data and them draw their own conclusions.

When learning the 'best method of powerpoint' the objective is the first. However Tufte http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/ puts forth in his presentation and books that it is important to display as much data and as clearly as possible and allow the audience to decide. Tufte's argument is very persuasive - that almost any important dataset would need to be multivarient and thus displayed very complexly.

So the reality is rather challenging. In a business situation presentations are supposed to be short, tight and to the point. However, there is so much complexity that to present clearly in a powerpoint one small page, simple graphic is impossible.

I'm starting to explore supergraphics and using paper instead of powerpoint to clearly show the breath of data, rather the just try to get the point across. I'm exploring the idea and we'll see the results.