The Vast Unknown is a personal exploration into being a more confident public speaker. My goal was to understand how be a successful public speaker, and to teach those skills to my peers. To understand public speaking, I researched and compiled all the data and best practices into a taxonomy. Then, to share these findings, I hosted a free workshop for design students to practice being more confident speakers.
The taxonomy serves as a guide for designers to learn key tools on public presentations. The visual system helps users identify what type of presentation they’ll be doing, discover fundamental objectives, and structure their presentations for success.
The overarching theme revolves around the Vast Unknown. I parallel the fears and uncertainty of public speaking to the perplexity of the cosmos.
Users can engage with the taxonomy in an imagined environment, allowing them navigate the guide as an astronaut navigates outer space. This theme provides the groundwork for my subsequent presentation and workshop. There’s an easily understood written, visual, and verbal language surrounding space exploration, and that metaphor was used in the workshop to facilitate an understanding on the subject.
Photos from the workshop taken by Jacqueline Chan
