Hans Rosling and HIV – clutter AND clarity

4 September 2009

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In this talk at the TED conference in February 2009, Hans Rosling explained the HIV epidemic. He used data gleaned from UNAIDS and WHO and delivered an astounding presentation. One where he explains the layout of his first chart not more then 4 seconds into his presentation.

Rosling's talk has two principal messages. First that the global HIV epidemic has reached a "steady state" with 1% of the adult world population infected and second that there are huge differences in HIV occurrence between and within African countries. He points out the dangers of averages, and assuming groups are homogenous: many African countries have the same, relatively low, HIV levels as can be found in most of the world, whereas 50% of the world's HIV infected people live in a few countries in Eastern and Southern Africa (with 4% of the world population).

It's fascinating and humbling in equal measure.

On a more pedestrian level, it struck me that Rosling’s visuals seem to fly in the face of so called ‘best practice’. Tom Wisdom (Kansas State University Journalism professor) said: “If you want people to understand better, then get that stuff off the screen…clean it up and get it off because it is simply making it more difficult for people to understand what [you are] saying” This isn’t just Wisdom’s personal preference, it’s based on his own academic research into the influence of on-screen clutter on understanding or retention (he’s written extensively on the over-powering visual crap we see in TV newscasts). His key message is if you want people to hear and understand your visual message, the answer is not to add more clutter but to remove it all.

Rosling on the other hand has the most cluttered charts I’ve ever seen. They’re full of balls, axes, curves, and labels – they even move around. And yet, it works. Not because of who he is (although that plays a part), but because of his knowledge, passion, enthusiasm and that he knows that a good presentation is as much about performance as it is communication. It’s worth noting that he doesn’t use Microsoft PowerPoint – his foundation has developed its own software to show data. It has unique features that Microsoft’s presentation app doesn’t have. It doesn’t make it better – just different.

If nothing else, watching Rosling present shows that cluttered visuals don’t automatically lead to a poor presentation. Passion, confidence, knowing your subject and knowing where you’re going can overcome pretty much any weaknesses in your visuals.

Kelli Garner
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