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The cognitive style of PowerPoint

PowerPoint is presenter-oriented, not content-oriented, not audience-oriented. PP advertising is not about content quality, but rather presenter therapy: "A cure for the presentation jitters." "Get yourself organized." "Use the AutoContent Wizard to figure out what you want to say." PowerPoint's convenience for some presenters is costly to the content and the audience. These costs arise from the cognitive style characteristic of the standard default PP presentation: foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spacial resolution, an intensely hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narratives and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous chartjunk and PP Phluff, branding of slides with logotypes, a preoccupation with format not content, incompetent designs for data graphics and tables, and a smirky commercialism that turns information into a sales pitch and presenters into marketeers. [p.4]
The cognitive style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within (2006)
Edward R. Tufte

Posted on:
2009.07.04 -0500

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