For my Instructional Technologies class this evening, I had to read two differing viewpoints on Powerpoint as a teaching and learning tool – the anti-PP view from Edward Tufte (yes, that Edward Tufte) and the pro-PP view from Donald Norman.
Tufte is militant in his thesis on the evils of Powerpoint – the hierarchical bullet points, its market pitch approach, its perversion and distortion of statistics are what make presentations bad. It fractures cognitive and spatial reasoning by breaking apart connected ideas (or, connecting unrelated ideas). Powerpoint establishes the dominance of the speaker over his or her audience.
Norman argues the same idea from a different angle – Powerpoint is bad when the presentation or presenter is bad. The flaw is in the content or in another aspect of the delivery (the presenter); Powerpoint is just the vessel. In other words, don’t shoot the messenger.
The problem I have in these articles is that both are right – Powerpoint can be the cause of, and the vessel for, bad presentations. If the Powerpoint is confusing, I’m not going to feel engaged in the presentation. But if the presenter’s delivery style is poor (don’t read off your slides!), I’m not going to be engaged in the presentation.
Which side are you on? Does Powerpoint lead to a bad presentation – or are there other factors at work?
Great post and great questions!
I find it difficult to blame PowerPoint for all the boring presentations that we are exposed to. I remember life before PowerPoint and we were subject to equally as many boring presentations with overhead projectors as the medium of choice.
Tufte has conducted some great research yet I side with Norman. For me, the flaw is in the content and the process used to develop the content. Often the presenter is weak and this is due to lack of training and practice.
I think PowerPoint gets blamed because it is utilized in the process of developing the content. When one prepares their presentation, the temptation to start the process by opening PowerPoint is common. Unfortunately I feel this is a major cause of poor presentations. One then tries to fit the message around the PowerPoint software before following some key steps first. What are those steps?
1. Ask several good questions before you begin. Start by asking who is your audience and why are they gathering to listen to you? What are they looking for? What is their pain?
Next ask what is your message and you need to boil it down to one sentence of about ten words or less. Doing this will clarify things for you and everything you do from that point on should support that concise message.
Then ask what do you want your audience to do when you are finished speaking? What are the next steps you want them to take?
2. The next step is to write your message. I prefer to communicate by story telling. Humans are hard wired for stories so use this method to communicate your message. Now if you can tell a story with the protagonist being your audience, then you have content that will resonate with them.
3. Once your story is completed, then open PowerPoint and add visuals that will support your story. Think in terms of a child’s story book. 90% visuals and 10% text.
4. The final step is practice. All to often our egos trick us into believing we can just waltz up to the stage and make a flawless presentation without any rehearsal at all. We need to have greater respect for our audiences and we need to understand the importance of the opportunity to present to a group of people.
I find that preparing a presentation in this sequence gives the presenter a better chance to deliver a compelling message that is clear, concise and resonates with the audience.
Therefore for me, PowerPoint is just a tool that is abused and not the cause of “Death by PowerPoint”.
I enjoyed reading your post.