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PowerPoint: sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying

April 10, 2007

Is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint?

Last week an article appearing in The Sydney

Morning Herald entitled Researcher points finger at

PowerPoint generated quite a stir. The article

highlighted findings by researchers from the

University of New South Wales, including John

Swellerwho developed the Cognitive Load Theory

back in the '80s. One of the findings mentioned in

the article: it is more difficult to process information if

it is coming at you both verbally and in written form at

the same time. Since people can not read and listen

well at the same time, the reporter suggested, then

this may mean "the death of the PowerPoint

presentation." The assumption being (apparently) that

a presentation made with the aid of slideware such as PowerPoint or Keynote

necessarily includes lines of text projected on a screen that mirror the spoken

word of the presenter.

The article generated so much attention due in part to this quote by Professor

Sweller:

"The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster.

It should be ditched."

John Sweller

Professor Sweller's comment makes a provocative headline and adds to the

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long list of professionals and researchers deriding the PowerPoint tool. I have

added the professor's quote to my talks on the Presentation Zen approach. Two

versions of the slide appear below.

Is PowerPoint a method?

I am assuming that what Professor Sweller means is that the wayPowerPoint

is used should be ditched, not the tool itself. Suggesting we abandon

PowerPoint because it's often (usually?) misused and abused to produce awful

presentation visuals is like saying we should dump the idea of 24-hour cable

news because so much of it is vacuous rubbish. But whether were talking

about bad TV or boring presentations, shouldn't we blame the content

producers not the content medium? When people rail against PowerPoint they

seem to be saying that PowerPoint is a method, and a flawed method at that.

But is PowerPoint itself really a "method"? In a 2004 interview with Cliff

Atkinson, Multimedia Learning author Richard Mayer said this:

Wabi-Sabi and Presentation Visuals(part II)

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the ol bullet- filled PowerPoint slide back in the

firing line. Good presentation techniques, and

even classroom instruction methods, are as

much art as science. Still, we can learn a lot

from examining the findings from researchers

such as Sweller and Mayer. Most of us know

intuitively (or through experience) that

presenting to an audience with text-filled slides

does not work, but others your boss perhaps may need more convincing. This is where the research and evidence from

specialists in psychology, education and other disciplines can be a great help.

Research shows that visuals (animation) plus concise, simultaneous narration is

better than just narration alone. When it comes to the issue of projected text on

a screen and narration, Mayer draws this conclusion:

Words should be presented as speech (i.e., narration) rather

than text (i.e., on-screen text) or as speech and text.

Richard Mayer

What to do about PowerPoint?

So, is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint?

Hardly, but it is long past time to ditch the use

of the ubiquitous bulleted-list templates found

in both PowerPoint and Keynote. And its long

past time that we realized that putting the same

information on a slide that is coming out of our

mouths usually does not help in fact usually

hurts our message. Next time you plan a

presentation, then, start by using a pencil and pad, a whiteboard, or a stick in

the sand anything except jumping headfirst into slideware on your computer

with its templates, outlines, and content wizards that may point you down a

path you wish not to go. And as you examine your work from previous talks

remember this rule of thumb: if your presentation visuals taken in the aggregate

(e.g., your PowerPoint deck) can be perfectly and completely understood

without your narration, then it begs the question: why are you there?

LINKS

Book by John Sweller et al: Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines

to Manage Cognitive Load

Bert Deckers take on the newspaper article

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Michael Alley: TheCraft of ScientificPresentations :Critical Steps toSucceed and CriticalErrors to Avoid

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John Daido Loori:The Zen ofCreativity:Cultivating YourArtistic Life

Guy Kawasaki: TheArt of the Start :The Time-Tested,Battle-HardenedGuide for AnyoneStarting Anything

Edward Tufte: TheVisual Display ofQuantitativeInformation

Edward R. Tufte:Visual Explanations:Images andQuantities, Evidenceand Narrative

Edward Tufte:EnvisioningInformation

Edward Tufte: TheCognitive Style ofPowerPoint

Daniel Pink: A WholeNew Mind: WhyRight-Brainers WillRule the Future

Cliff Atkinson:Beyond BulletPoints: UsingPowerPoint toCreatePresentations ThatInform, Motivate,and Inspire

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Is it finally time to ditch

PowerPoint?:

Is it Time to Ditch PowerPoint? from LeadingSmart

I enjoy reviewing the Presentation Zen blog. It is kept up by blogger Garr

Reynolds and covers issues related to professional presentation design.

Yesterday he posted an article called, Is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint? It

would be a [Read More]

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mittlerweile rund um den Globus hohe Wellen schlgt. In diesem Artikel wird der

Wissenschaftler zitiert mit den Worten: Die Verwendung von Powerpoint ist ein

D... [Read More]

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See it, hear it - not the death ofpowerpoint from WOWNDADI

Very good article over on Presentation Zen: Is it finally time to ditch

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research referenced is a good confirmation that it makes sense to draw a

diagram (or create something visu... [Read More]

Tracked on April 22, 2007 at 09:12 PM

Preparing Presentations from A Bob's Life

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Comments

Great insights Garr. I've been experimenting in situations where you read along

with a speaker (eg. quotes, sermons and such) Experentially I find there IS

conflict in the mind, but I get much more from the eye than I do from the ear.

But then what I think REALLY counts is the overall experience of a speaker

and his images, behavior, props, etc. - much more powerful than any text.

Bears out what you preach about PowerPoints.

Bert

Posted by: Bert Decker| April 10, 2007 at 01:44 PM

Er...University of South Whales? You mean University of New South Wales

(NSW)?

Posted by: Seth Yates | April 10, 2007 at 02:13 PM

Sometimes circumstances forces you to make Powerpoint presentations

containing your entire presentation... no matter how much it bugs you to do so.

In a previous life I taught introductory Computer Science (and especially C

programming) at a university in South Africa. Many of my students were working

and could not attend classes. I had to set up my slides for people who would

not be there to hear the lecture.

But in class I tended to forgo the slides and rather ran an IDE live to

demonstrate the concepts I was talking about, which seemed to work fairly

well. The students present certainly were more responsive and interested

during the live demos than during 'slideshow' classes.

Interesting blog, by the way, I've been lurking for months ;-)

Posted by: Leoni Venter| April 10, 2007 at 03:19 PM

Garr, do you have any comment then on your own use of quotes in slides?

I felt it was quite ironic for you to use a written quote to illustrate a point about

not reading / speaking the same text! ;)

How would you present the quote slide example you have added to your

presentation? Would you read the quote or stand silently while your audience

read it? Are you concerned that as you speak some people may be rereading

the quote and so miss your discussion?

I'd be interested in peoples perspective on this since using quotes in

presentations is something I do myself.

Are written quotes different from bullet points or do they suffer the same


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cognitive limitations?

Posted by: AnEmbodiedMind | April 10, 2007 at 04:28 PM

I can't remember if you mentioned it an earlier post or not, but this is exactly

what Cliff Atkinson's book 'Beyond Bullet Points' covers. I think people really

enjoy not having to read a ton of text on slides :)

Posted by: Jedidja Bourgeois | April 10, 2007 at 04:37 PM

This sensible and well-balanced article overlooks one valid use case for anextended text block in powerpoint: a multilingual audience in which many

members are accustomed to reading the presenter's language to some degree,

but not speaking it. Obviously, this is a niche case, but we do encounter it

frequently in academic meetings. In glossing the text of key points, as well as

whole quotations, the presenter provides the audience with extra tools

necessary to follow the line of argument and associated evidence. As in all

presentations, quotations must be chosen judiciously and used sparingly, but

that's a composition/content issue, not a PowerPoint issue.

Posted by: Tom Elliott | April 10, 2007 at 07:29 PM

Thanks for the question, AEM. Yes, I was aware of the irony ;-) With

presentations there is more involved, of course, than just information transfer.

As I said, it's as much an art as a science. In my talks, *Showing* the quote

demonstrates in a sense that "it is real" that I am being accountable, that this

person really did say that (and they can look it up if they do not believe me),

that I have done my homework and prepared, etc. Showing the actual quote

can bring other emotional elements to the talk as well such as credibility, trust,

etc. Tom Peters, for example, uses quotes (maybe even too many) for this very

same reason. He is just one guy, he says, but if he can show that leaders of

industry have said this and that, well, that backs him up.

I am not suggesting that slides can not have some text (even outside of

quotes). Sometimes you want to show a list of features or benefits, etc. Many in

the science community have found one declarative sentence per slide is a good

rule of thumb (with supporting visuals). Then there is the issue of audience

members who may be better readers of English than listeners since English is

not their native language. In this case the single declarative sentence, single

words, etc. may help.

Although many will gasp at the thought, information transfer is not always the

main point of the presentation even if we believe it is. In many cases

presentations are more about the transfer of emotions, motivation, inspiration,

etc. There certainly is no cookie-cutter formula....

Thanks! -g

Posted by: Garr Reynolds | April 10, 2007 at 09:38 PM

Hi Garr,

Great site, great blog; I quote it from time to time on my own blog and my goal

is to get and read just about every one of the books you have recommended.


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I also saw this NSW article and wrote a post about it and I'm very happy you've

tackled it as well. I haven't read your take yet but I'm going to get a nice cup of

coffee and read it.

Regards,

Fred

Posted by: Fred Woodbridge | April 11, 2007 at 12:43 AM

Exellent post as usual, Garr. This is challenging many of the assumptions I'vehad about text onscreen - or rather, articulating some of the unconcious

dissonance I've had about how much text is too much.

I'd been searching for the right term for "cognitive load" for a while. When I was

designing a lot of Flash animations and interfaces, I came up with the term,

"animation load" to describe how much people could handle looking at once.

"Cognitive load" describes that much better and more broadly.

You likely don't need to hear this from yet another person, but I really

appreciate the work you do on this blog. The entries are much meatier and

thought-provoking than the usual blog fare, and you're doing a true service tothe presenting community. I've felt personally inspired to do more presentation

work, and to be a vocal advocate of better presentation design in my little

circle.

I noticed you're in Portland, too - I wonder what a Portland presenter's meetup

would be like?

Posted by: Allan White | April 11, 2007 at 03:16 AM

Thanks for this. I am wholeheartedly in agreement on a personal level. On a

professional level, I work for a company where PPT decks are the dominant

means of communicating any idea, with the result that long-from Word

documents are a complete non-starter.

The question then is how do you manage the tension between a good (text

light) presentation using the practices you demonstrate above and the

requirement to have something meatier to leave behind. If you do two versions,

one light for presentation and one meaty for handout, you will probably confuse

the attention-challenged in the audience (which these days feels like

everyone)...

thoughts?

Ken

Posted by: ktrueman | April 11, 2007 at 03:28 AM

Ken - the only successful way I've seen it done is to have both a handout and

a presentation. It's more work, but more effective.

I've seen so many companies try to use PPT as a knowledge management tool,

with poor results.


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Posted by: Allan White | April 11, 2007 at 04:49 AM

We don't blame pencils for bad writing, and we shouldn't blame PowerPoint

either.

Having said that, I am dismayed that so many of my clients seem to think

PowerPoint is the format they want reports presented in. I love it for

presentations, but I do find it difficult to use to communicate complex or

nuanced ideas.

Great blog.

Posted by: Susan Abbott | April 11, 2007 at 05:58 AM

Great post. Great blog. When I first saw the title of the post, I thought Apple

annouced Keynote for Windows. :)

By the way, how did you create the transparency of the waste basket while

having the powerpoint box in there. I am guessing they are different images -

waste basket being transparent?

Thanks - Oz

Posted by: Oz | April 11, 2007 at 06:17 AM

The problem with PowerPoint is some users think it will replace the need for

presentation skills and a solid presentation. PowerPoint is only a tool. It should

aid presentations, not create them.

Posted by: Leigh | April 11, 2007 at 09:41 AM

PowerPoint is only a tool. I'm a big fan of Tufte, but I strongly disagree with his

view on PowerPoint. Regarding the space shuttle, a simple slide with an

explosion and the words "Do Not Launch" could have been put together in

PowerPoint and gotten the message across.

Posted by: Steve | April 11, 2007 at 09:58 AM

About leaving meatier slides as a leave behind.... It takes more work, but I say

a document (handout) is a document and never an onscreen visual. I do not

printout slides, but I do make a separate handout which includes the same

content (for review) with more depth. Some of the most salient visuals from the

talk (quotes, graphs, etc.) are also included. But the handout is designed as a

document to be *read.* Knowing I have a leave behind with more depth keeps

me from worrying about having to say everything about the topic or to include

written summaries on screen etc.

About the garbage can photo... Simple in Photoshop. Many ways to do it: One

way is to simply select the the bottom part of the box (which is in a layer above

the can) and change the opacity levels of the part that is below the edge of the

can giving the illusion that the box is in the can. You can also experiment with

Overlay and Multiply etc. in the layer....

Allan, actually I live in Japan, but I have roots in Oregon. Been in Asia most of

the time since graduating Uni except for my time at Apple and in Hawaii. Not


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sure, but spending so much time in a place that is the birthplace of Zen

simplicity juxtaposed with the insane (yet harmonious) clutter and complexity of

today has probably tainted my views on visual communication...

Thanks very much for all your comments; I value your input greatly. Cheers! -g

Posted by: Garr Reynolds | April 11, 2007 at 11:16 AM

I'm looking for resources to refer to as I'm putting together a number of different

class curricula and workbooks for adult learners. Is this book one that you

would recommend for such a purpose?

Posted by: Helen | April 11, 2007 at 11:50 AM

I do agree that we should present our ideas in the most efficient and effective

form (eg. defining "a square" would perhaps be done best with an image and

not verbal or textual description. Can you imagine hearing..."a square is x

number of units up, x number of units to the right, then x number of units right

again, and x number of units right again"... oh my!)

However, there are many somewhat elusive variables involved that need to be

examined and considered to develop the "best" approach...the "art" part ofpresentation skills.

For example, determining how much is "too much cognitive load" depends on

the previous knowledge (schema) of the learner--and speakers (versus

teachers) are likely to have a greater variety of previous knowledge and

therefore a more difficult time determining what is "too much." What about the

complexity of the information? I work primarily with scientists and for sure

complexity of content has an impact on cognitive load and presentation

decisions (different from business presentations). What about the goal of the

communication? Is it informative? persuasive? entertaining? motivating?

Certainly repetition plays a bigger and important role in persuasion and

motivation. What about interruptions and attention? What role do these play?

How should your presentations be adjusted to account for this?

My overall concern is directly applying ideas for instructional design and

education to making presentations. While at times they are similar, there are

many times when they are not the same at all.

Posted by: Lisa B. Marshall | April 12, 2007 at 02:45 AM

thankkss

Posted by: evden eve nakliyat | April 12, 2007 at 11:09 PM

Did you think maybe that the program is fine, but the users are at fault? ;-)

Have you seen the Identity 2.0 presentation? He used pictures on slides to

reinforce and support his words.

Much better.

Posted by: random8r| April 14, 2007 at 11:24 AM

I started reading the PZ blog a few months ago and now I find myself coming


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back almost every day with the hopes of finding another inspiration or paradigm

shift.

That being said, I recently had to make a group presentation with three other

people. Despite their recognition of the weaknesses of "slideuments," I was

unable to get them to drop the bullets. One of my group mates even pleaded

with me to keep an entire page long section of text (as in no white-space). It

seems that unless people have experience presenting sans bullets, they have

trouble believing that a presentation can be effective or even taken seriously

unless it is replete with section outlines and bullets.

Any suggestions on how to spread the gospel?

Posted by: David S | April 15, 2007 at 01:03 PM

regarding the "redundancy effect", you simply cannot assume that the spoken

speech will be intelligible. for both the multilingual reasons mentioned in

another comment (i don't think academic hearings are a niche case, btw), as

well as accessibility-reasons like not everybody's hearing being equally sharp,

room acoustics or a noisy audience. maybe comprehension decreases

(slightly?) but it seems a small price to pay for easing up a biton people who have to point their ears to make out what is being said.

this is the reason why i often watch movies with same-language subtitling, it

makes for a much more relaxed experience, you don't have to worry all the

time that you might have missed something important (as speech is gone when

it's spoken, yet written text can be read largely at your own pace).

Posted by: researchaholica | April 17, 2007 at 12:45 AM

I don't use PP, I prefer showing some stuff on the net. There are lots of

interesting slideshows on YouTube.

Posted by: Dimitar Vesselinov | April 19, 2007 at 08:07 AM

"Begging the question" is a fallacious argument in which the presenter assumes

the point he's advocating, or trying to prove. For example, someone who argues

that 'we should make our schools better because that means better education'

is arguing in a circle, failing to distinguish between education and schools, and

saying "better is better."

So, what you meant to say is something like, " . . .if your presentation visuals

taken in the aggregate (e.g., your PowerPoint deck) can be perfectly and

completely understood without your narration, then it [asks/raises/poses] the

question: why are you there?'

Posted by: Ed Darrell | April 23, 2007 at 09:06 AM

Ed,

Excellent point about BTQ. My bad -- a result of my own laziness and watching

too much CNN over the years I guess. I should know better (esp. since I was a

philosophy major as an under grad). Thanks for pointing out my sloppy English.

FYI:


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Preview Post

http://begthequestion.info/

"Descriptivists and other such laissez-faire linguists are content to allow the

misconception to fall into the vernacular, it cannot be denied that logic and

philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of

BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between

the traditional usage and the erroneous "modern" usage. This is why we fight."

Best,

-g

Posted by: Garr Reynolds | April 23, 2007 at 10:26 AM

Frequentemente uso o PowerPonte em minhas aulas. Fao uso dele como um

guia para mim, mas, para meus alunos, o discurso oral associados s telas

um facilitador. Quando as aulas so acompanhadas de tpicos escritos no

quadro branco, toma-se bastante tempo, posto que vrios alunos querem

copiar o quadro. Mesmo os que recebem os slides pelo correio eletrnico,

gostam de copiar e anotar o discurso do professor.

Posted by: Fredy Carneiro | May 27, 2007 at 10:22 PM

Powerpoint is Bad

Documents