Williams, S., Spinuzzi, C., & Newbold, C.(2019). Toward a heuristic for teaching the visual rhetoric of pitch decks: A pedagogical approach in entrepreneurship communication. Communication Design Quarterly, 7 (4), 4-16.

Williams, S., Spinuzzi, C., & Newbold, C. (2019). Toward a heuristic for teaching the visual rhetoric of pitch decks: A pedagogical approach in entrepreneurship communication. Communication Design Quarterly, 7 (4), 4-16.

This is an original research article from SIGDOC the journal, not the conference. In it, Williams et al. talk about effective design of pitch decks from a pedagogical point of view. They're interested in learning about effective visual pitch deck design so that they can use it in entrepreneurial training programs. 

Spinuzzi hooked them up with 18 decks from SEAL 2018, I believe. Then they sent these decks out to prominent business people for evaluation. The business people (who read the decks out of context, since they weren't there at the live presentation) then ranked the decks. There seemed to be a consensus about which decks the businessmen wanted to invest in, so seven decks were selected for further analysis. The business people were spread all over too. 

Anyways, Williams et al. then used a template to analyze the seven decks: Newbold’s (n.d) “Color CRAYTONTIP” Heuristic. The Color CRAYTONTIP model divides 50 visual concepts into 10 major categories contained in the acrostic itself (see the Appendix for the full rubric):

• Color
• Contrast
• Repetition
• Alignment
• Y (Why)
• Organization
• Negative Space
• Typography
• Iconography
• Photography.

Five of these stood out as more important

• Y (Why or Rhetorical Fit)
• Typography
• Color
• Photography
• Contrast.

These were the research questions:

• What are the visual design practices used by successful novice entrepreneurs in constructing their pitch decks?
• How do those choices reflect accepted visual design principles as outlined in the Color CRAYONTIP model?
• Based on the alignment of design practice and visual concepts revealed, what are the core visual concepts that we should teach to novice entrepreneurs to help them generate the most effective pitch decks?

Successful novice entrepreneurs. 

This study simulated the angel investor phase. 

The Edward Tufte thing was interesting, how he has a criticism of PowerPoint logic in 2003. Interesting timing. 

Clark (2008) was an important citation (cf. “presentational issues”). 

It's also interesting how closely this study resembles the Davida study, specifically insofar as you'll need to get people to evaluate the arguments? They code the arguments, but don't I have to get AIs to score them too? Anyways, similar process. Empirical research. 

https://sigdoc.acm.org/toward-a-heuristic-for-teaching-the-visual-rhetoric-of-pitch-decks-a-pedagogical-approach-in-entrepreneurship-communication/