I would like to urge science communicators to add one more professional in their teams: the science designer! It can be a science scenographer, science light designer, anything. Someone to make science things look beautiful.
Scientists are always talking about elegant solutions, the beauty of nature, etc. But where is all this beauty when it comes to conferences or pictures of an event?
Today I was looking the website of a conference about humanities and space science. Exciting stuff, I though, clicking on the pictures of the event.
...well, how off-putting can be images of a Columbus-meets-Mars-Rover type of conference?
Very, I tell you. Boring beige, boring suits, ugly powerpoints. Bad lighting. Uninteresting backgrounds, uncharming rooms. I believe the presentations must have been quite interesting, but being nice to the the eyes is important too, I think.
Don’t you agree that looking good is important for an event? There are lots of people here in Nature Networks organising events. Do you worry with that? Museums worry about the “user (visitor, in the case) experience”, I know.
But shouldn’t conferences worry about the “participant experience” and the pictures that people will see later?
PS: a friend of mine presented a talk about scientific “Literatura de Cordel”, a Brazilian popular style of literature. The talk was really interesting, but the little coloured books were one extra attraction. Everybody picked up one to take a look. And I’m sure the pictures of the talk were nice too.
Sure sesthetics is important!... As much as every other rhetoric aspect of science!
You don’t have just to be right, you must look right too. :) On the other hand, of course nobody actually must do anything…
This has to do with the problem of seducing editors and readers to care for your texts and your work. It’s hard enough for someone to develop interest for an unknown researcher… If the work looks ugly, it’s certainly harder.
Of course there are also situations when you don’t need to seduce people, because they have to see your presentations for other reasons, and this is generally when you end up watching long and ugly performances…
The appearance of science is very much connected to the content of, and apparant trustworthyness of science.
For instance, we would view a conference attended by people, collectively dressed in three-piece suits very much different from one in which nearly all attendees are dressed in jeans and t-shirts. The latter is, in the wider life sciences (medicine excluded), the prevailing trend. Ties are absent and jackets are casual if present at all. This is the “uniform of scientists”. A uniform, since it is a norm, obviously deviating from it, will result in people staring and commenting on it. Moreover, we would have a set of expectations of who this three-piece suit guy is, in the middle of t-shirt community. Is he coming to sell us something? Is he “one of us”?
The same goes for the design of powerpoint presentations and posters. If they are too slick – they become “suspect”. Is this an industry backed study?
“Designing” science – in all its shapes, will have consequences that reach into the areas of content and trust.
It may not neccesarrily have to be terrible though. Some “designing efforts” are part of a scientists’ everyday life – the 3D rendering techniques, increasing proficiency with graphic software and requirements by some journals have elevated the simple act of drawing a graph into a fully-fledged creative act of persuasion.
Thus, some aspects of science are becoming increasingly sensitised to issues of “aethetics”: our publications. This is not strange, as many scientists identify such publications are one of the goals of their struggles. Perhaps these are the salient aspects of science, with respect to aesthetics and the rest may not be far behind.
Nonetheless, such things may need some extra effort (including “science designers”, “aesthetic managers of scientific events”) but the people who take up such a function, such a responsibility, should consider that shapes are connected to content.
There are lessons to be learned here, from the philosophy and sociology of science, in which issues of shape, beauty and aesthetics (the sublime) have been studied intensively. There lie starting points in understanding what is to designed in which ways and what the consequences of such designs (whether positive or negative) may be.
I hesitate to mention it, given all the talk of the beautiful and the sublime, but there’s yet another reason to consider aesthetics in the presentation of science: communicability. For instance, one might want to consider (to privilege one sense over others) the visual impact of one’s presentation on non-scientists, such as decision-makers. “A picture is worth a thousand words” is a dictum that may prove its worth in the area of policy-making …
I believe the “design” standard for science should aim for clear, concise, and compelling communication. For example, font choices should be efficient and colors should be professional. I have written about this on my blog in many forms: Art of Speaking Science http://artofspeakingscience.com