To be fair, from my friends who’ve actually had color theory and graphic design classes, STEM folks tend to do a poor job of communicating well.

it's a way of thinking about your audience, i think. when i worked in accounting and had to present to and teach accountants: simple formatted tables, stuff that looks like excel, it didn't need to be bright or colorful. it just needed to have colors that were unobtrusive. i'm working in music now and if my seminars don't have showmanship (and if i use powerpoint at all) i'm hosed. different audiences have completely different styles that they are used to communicating with, and if you adapt to that you're going to have more success

so like, i'm sure the STEM folk are fine at communicating within their field. outside? well, a few of my uncles were engineers. does it show?