YAPC was great fun. Now I've got back and reconnected to the rest of the world, I can share my thoughts. Overall I really enjoyed most of the talks, and had a great time. Comparing the experience with my experience with academic talks, and academic conferences I'd say that overall I was impressed. I have a few points....
- Dark text on a white background almost never looks good. It tends to look dirty, and can be hard to read. This was true when I use to made slides using 35mm film, just as it is true with modern projectors. Light text on a dark background is I think much easier to see, and was always recommended by our reprographic department.
- Small text is hard to read, especially when it's in a anaemic serif font like Times New Roman. Larger text in a sans-serif font is normally considered easier to read. Someone using a Mac used a very nice font, if I knew what it was I'd use it myself.
- Use only a few points per slide, if you are using a large font this results in clear easy to read slides. There is no point in trying to cram a lot onto a single slide, if people are interested, they will ask you directly for additional details.
Overall, most talks were very good, and I can't think of any particular talk I saw that broke every guideline possible, but some were better than others. As I often find however, the talks I look forward too the most are often disappointing, but the ones I pick at random are often exciting and highly interesting - I often found this in academia too.
