Prezi-Re-thinking Information Presentation An explorative research on the properties of the zooming interface of the editor Prezi for presentation of information and its effects on the cultural practices of using digital presentations By: Kalina Dancheva (3721329) Course: Coding culture Programme: New Media and Digital Culture Teacher: Dr. Mirko Tobias Schäfer Teacher assistant: Nikos Overheul Date: 8 July 2011 University of Utrecht
An explorative research on the properties of the zooming interface of the editor Prezi for presentation of information and its effects on the cultural practices of using digital presentations.
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Prezi-Re-thinking Information Presentation
An explorative research on the properties of the zooming interface of the editor Prezi for
presentation of information and its effects on the cultural practices of using digital
presentations
By: Kalina Dancheva (3721329)
Course: Coding culture
Programme: New Media and Digital Culture
Teacher: Dr. Mirko Tobias Schäfer
Teacher assistant: Nikos Overheul
Date: 8 July 2011
University of Utrecht
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Like alphabet, mathematics, printing press, combustion engine, electricity, and integrated
circuits, software re-adjusts and re-shapes everything it is applied to – or at least, it has a
potential to do this.
- Manovich 2008, 14.
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Abstract
In the contemporary computer dominated era, digital presentations have become a
prevailing component in information presentation in governmental, business and
educational settings. Microsoft software application PowerPoint is currently the most
dominant presentation tool but its use and efficiency have been widely discussed by
scholars, thus becoming not only the most used but also the most controversial
presentation application. In recent years, the prevalence of slideware tools is
challenged by new type of information presentation, which uses the technology of
zooming user interface. This article will explore the potential of this type of interface by
using the case study of the application editor Prezi. The paper argues that Prezi can be
categorized as a new type of cultural interface which has the potential to overcome the
drawbacks of PowerPoint. The paper will also show that the style of the interface
presents new type of setbacks which can harm the information presentation and can
interrupt the audience’s attention. By analysing the affordances of Prezi, the paper will
finally suggest that this application highlights a moment of cultural transformation in
the way digital presentations are used and consumed as epistemic objects.
Key words: Information presentation, Prezi, PowerPoint, new practices, cultural
transformation.
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Contents
1. Introduction 4
2. Prezi–the case study 5
3. Method of research 6
4. PowerPoint and Prezi as cultural interfaces 7
5. PowerPoint and Prezi as tools for information presentation 9
6. Changing the use of digital presentation as epistemic object 18
7. Conclusion 22
8. References 24
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Introduction
In the contemporary era, digital presentations have become a standard method for
visualizing concepts and ideas in all areas of life. Among presentation tools, PowerPoint
is the most dominant with ninety-five per cent share of the presentation-software
market and a reported amount of thirty million new presentations made every day
(Parker 2001, 4). Initially created as a tool for corporate communication, currently
PowerPoint has turned into the most “ubiquitous form of digitally assisted
demonstration” (Shark and Paravel 2008, 32) and has migrated into business,
governmental, military, academic and casual settings. Even the co-creator of PowerPoint
Robert Gaskins confirms the pervasive effect of PowerPoint in the corporate world by
stating that “[a] lot of people in business have given up writing the documents. They
just write the presentations, which are summaries without the detail, without the
backup” (Gomes 2007). The prevalence of this software has provoked vast debates by
scholars and writers in popular media about the usefulness of PowerPoint for
presenting information.
American writer Ian Parker was among the first to criticize the use of this software
stating that it can affect one’s thoughts and its properties have the influence to “edit
ideas” (Parker 2001, 1) in a harmful way. Statistician and information design professor
Edward Tufte sharply criticises PowerPoint presentations stating that they “reduce the
analytical qualities of a presentation” (Tufte 2004, 3) and claims that we need to find “a
better way to make presentations” (ibid, 4). Even the US Pentagon has banned the use
of PowerPoint presentations in preference of written reports (Jaffe 2000).1 On the other
hand, the value of PowerPoint has been defended by cognitive science professors and
public speaking consultants. Scholars Donald Norman and David Farkas both defend
the qualities of PowerPoint presentations as effective components that support
speakers in an oral presentation (Farkas 2009; Norman 2005).
In the midst of the debates about the efficiency of PowerPoint as a tool for information
presentation, software developments have given a rise of new type of tools for digital
presentations using the technology of zooming user interfaces. In order to explore the
potential of this kind of interface for information presentation, I am going to analyse
the affordances2 of the online application Prezi (2011) which uses the technology
1 On July 2010 the Anti-PowerPoint Party in Switzerland pleaded for banning PowerPoint claiming that its use cost the Swiss economy about 2.1 billion Swiss Francs (McCormack 2011). 2 The term ‘affordance’ has been defined by scholar in design and usability Donald Norman (2011) as “the possible actions a person can perform upon an object” (Norman 2011, 228).
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Adobe® Flash®. This application has been addressed by popular media as “the coolest
online presentation tool” (Wauters 2009). But the present paper will step out of this
discourse and will look critically to the properties of software to present information in
a meaningful way.
This article will argue that the interface of Prezi can be categorized as a new type of
cultural interface which has the potential to overcome the drawbacks of PowerPoint,
addressed by Edward Tufte. The paper will present that the affordances of Prezi exceed
the low resolution, sequentiality3 and the deep hierarchical style of PowerPoint and
they encourage new practices for meaningful presentation and comprehension of
information. The article will also show that the style of the interface presents new type
of setbacks which potentially harm the information presentation and can disturb
attention of the audience. By analysing the affordances of Prezi, the paper will finally
suggest that this application not only changes the presentation of the information, but it
also marks a moment of cultural transformation in the way digital presentations are
used and consumed as epistemic objects.
Prezi – the case study
Prezi (2011) is an online application which enables the design of presentations in a
linear as well as non-linear fashion. It was founded by architect and expert in zooming
interfaces Adam Somlai-Fischer together with Peter Arvai and Peter Halacsyin in 2009
and since then is enjoying a growing popularity with currently three million users, as
reported by Arvai (Pollack PR Marketing Group 2011). The software of Prezi presents
an alternative to the slideware style of presentation design which we see in
applications such as PowerPoint, Apple Keynote or Google Docs. When using the tool,
users create the presentation on a single high resolution canvas. They can then zoom
into details and zoom out to see the presentation from a bird's eye view. It is possible
for the user to write text, insert images, draw simple lines and arrows and embed video
on the canvas. Other objects such as text documents, tables and graphs can only by
inserted in a pdf-format. The author can prioritize the elements by playing with the size
in order to put an emphasis on the most important parts or hide the minor details. After
all parts of the presentations are arranged on the canvas, they can be individually
framed or grouped within a common frame. The size of the frame is not strictly fixed
but depends on the amount of space that the elements take on the canvas. Users can
place a path between the components and by this way they create a linear story.
3 A term utilized by Tufte in The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.
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But despite the implemented direction, the author can leave presentation open for an
off-the-path exploration, meaning that when readers are viewing the presentation they
would be able to step aside the established direction and move freely between the
elements. When traversing the canvas, users swirl and pan around the canvas with
smooth “camera” transition between the elements. Presentations can also be made
collaboratively by a group of users. Most of the presentations are made and hosted
online in the web site of Prezi and can be viewed by every user with a Prezi account.4
The creators of the tool purposefully encourage the use of the product for educational
purposes and have created a special educational licence which provides teachers and
students with a free of charge service of one of their paid products. Prezi has also been
studied and tested by teachers who share their experience in blogs and in the
community forum of Prezi (Prezi Community 2011).
Method of research
In this research the paper will present a software-cultural analysis based on the
comparative examination of PowerPoint and Prezi. In order to do this, I will explore
three main components – the cultural conventions of their interfaces, the affordances
embedded within them and the implications that both programmes have on the
practices and use of digital presentations.
The view point in this article derives from the perspective presented in the analytical
texts in the book Software Studies. A lexicon with editor Mathew Fuller (Fuller 2008). In
this collection of critical texts, the authors present the notion that the technical
characteristics of software programmes has to be studied from a critical humanitarian
perspective which can reveal their embedded conceptual aspects and implications on
the cultural practices. In the same vein, new media scholar Lev Manovich (also an
author in the Software Studies. A Lexicon) coins the term “cultural interface” by which
he means the "ways in which computers present and allows us to interact with cultural
data" (Manovich 2001, 80). This notion leads us to the theoretical perspective of the
agency of non-humans to affect the social processes, developed by scholars of Actor-
Network Theory (ANT) Bruno Latour (2005), John Law (1992) and Madeleine Akrich
(1994). Cultural interfaces include the interfaces of web sites, games and other media
objects for which Manovich argues that they embed conventions from previous media.
4 Not all of the presentations are made available due to the freemium business model, in which the basic service is free and presentations are made and hosted on the web site, but there is a paid option which provides additional extras, one of which is a desktop application.
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By analysing Prezi and PowerPoint as cultural interfaces, the paper will search for the
different conventions which allow the affordances of the software applications.
In defining the potential of Prezi as an efficient tool for presenting information, I will
use the critical analysis of Edward Tufte on PowerPoint. In the monograph The
Cognitive Style of PowerPoint Tufte criticizes the software by outlining several major
drawbacks which according to him decrease the “quality and credibility of our
communication” (Tufte 2004, 24) and make the tool inappropriate for use by scientists
and experts. The paper will present the main points of critique towards PowerPoint and
will use them to analyse the potential of the affordances, enabled in the software of
Prezi. For the purposes of the study, 68 Prezi presentations, presented in the case
studies section Explore (Prezi 2011) in the web site of Prezi were analysed.
Finally, the paper will examine how the affordances of Prezi shape the practices of
creating and consuming digital presentations. I will base my research on the analysis of
the use and purpose of PowerPoint presentations elaborated by information design
scholar David Farkas (Farkas 2006; 2008; 2009; 2010) and media scholar Rich Gold
(2002).
PowerPoint and Prezi as cultural interfaces
In order to explore the potential of the affordances of Prezi for presenting information
in comparison to PowerPoint, the paper will first analyse the environment in which the
affordances are enabled. In this part I’d like to argue that the interface of Prezi embeds
different type of conventions than PowerPoint which will then allow for new practices
in information presentation.
In the view of Lev Manovich, cultural interfaces are shaped by the cultural traditions of
“print, cinema and human-computer interface” (Manovich 2001, 36). In this
perspective, we can define that the interface of PowerPoint implements the conventions
of the printed word page. These principles are typical in books and newspapers which
include separate pages, linear reading of the story and a table of content which marks
the individual pages (ibid, 83). The interface of PowerPoint embeds similar principles
which we see in the single slides with fixed dimensions, a linear slide transition. Also, in
academic settings, it is a common practice that presentations begin with a content of
the topics that are going to be discussed. Non-linear elements can be included by
embedding hyperlinks within the slide which would lead to a new document – an
element that in the print tradition can be compared to the reference list.
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In contrast to the conventions in PowerPoint, the interface of Prezi embeds a cinematic
way of suturing time and space. The canvas of Prezi can be described as a "navigable
space" (ibid, 212) in which authors arrange the content in a non-linear fashion. In this
type of interface, data is accessed through zooming and panning and the objects are
subjected to a cinematic “camera” vision. In Prezi we can also distinguish the
conventions of "spatial montage" (ibid, 269). This notion is defined by Manovich as an
alternative to the temporal cinematic montage which replaces the "traditional
sequential mode with a spatial one" (ibid, 269). In spatial montage, time becomes
spatialized over the surface of the screen and it includes "a number of images,
potentially of different sizes and proportions, appearing on the screen at the same
time" (ibid, 269). In this type of montage, Manovich argues that we can include
unlimited amount of text and data. The interface of Prezi also incorporates these
conventions as the narrative of the presentation becomes spatial and different in type
and in size objects exist simultaneously on the single surface of the canvas.
Moreover, the spatial arrangement of the text in Prezi also invites users to employ the
conventions of the type of hypertext called “stretchtext” (Nelson 1967). This term is
coined by computer theorists Theodor Nelson (1967) and which he described as “the
easiest possible hypertext” (ibid) in which the text is “stretched” and pointing to
specific areas leads to “new details and additional clauses popping into place” (ibid).
The term hypertext, as defined by Nelson is a “non-sequential writing-text that
branches and allows choices to the reader” (Landow 2006, 3). The prefix hyper implies
an additional “extra dimension” (Douglas 2000, 16). Stretchtext has the advantage to
the traditional notion of the hypertext because it keeps readers to get oriented and
prevents them from getting lost as they are redirected to external sources. As analysed
by hypertext theorist George Landow together with his former student Ian Lyons, in
stretchtext “text becomes context as new text is added, or rather, the previously
present text remains as new text appears and serves as its context” (Lyons and Landow
2005). The text in this kind of hypertext has fixed dimensions and it is accessed through
vertical navigation throughout different levels. In Prezi such a vertical navigation is an
immanent part of the zooming interface. By performing the actions of zooming in or out
on existing text, new information, which used to be hidden from the view, is being
revealed to the users (Figure 1). In Figure 1 this feature of Prezi has been pointed as a
useful teaching tool. Moreover, in Prezi the zooming interface can support the
contextualization of the content not only with text but also with sound, video and
animations and hence turning the presentation into a hypermedia object.
Moreover, not only are concepts spatialized instead of being temporally fragmented,
but the affordances of Prezi encourage authors to present their ideas in a new way by
6 "Eye-span" is referred to the amount of text someone takes in with the eyes for each stopping, or "fixation" of the eyes (Caldwell 2009). 7 The analysed case by Tufte is the visualization of data regarding cancer survival rates.
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group arguments within a related concept, which additionally helps the reasoning
between the parts of the concept. This feature is promoted also in the tutorials of Prezi
where the organization puts an emphasis on the use of frames for grouping ideas into
related topics (Prezi 2011). By grouping and placing a path between the arguments, the
authors create a “concept map” (Novak and Gowin 1984). This notion is developed by
education scholars Joseph Novak and Bob Gowin who define them as maps, which
represent “meaningful relations between concepts in the form of proportions” (ibid,
15). By proportions they mean “concepts labels linked by words in a sematic unit” (ibid
15). The method of concept mapping was particularly developed to support the process
of learning and in this sense, the affordances of Prezi for grouping ideas improve the
cognitive style of PowerPoint by enabling a model for meaningful comprehension of
ideas.
The grouping of ideas can take place on a horizontal level, on a vertical level of a nested
micro and macro levels or in a combination of horizontal and vertical arrangement. We
can see the use of this method of presentation in Figure 6, where the three main
elements (Internet search, information search and math search) are horizontally
differentiated with their sub-components but on a higher level, the groups present the
main pillars of the concept.
Micro level grouping Macro level grouping
Figure 6
Description: Example of grouping of ideas on two levels