The stereotypical PowerPoint presentations with monotonous design, lots of bullet points and topic-subtopic structure have received much criticism. This has been covered in the New York Times. Similar concerns have been voiced in Wired Magazine and the Chicago Tribune. Whereas some authors may complain more about the monopoly and ubiquity of certain presentation software, one strong criticism has been on the presenter being forced to think and present in a rigid way which is difficult to absorb by the audience. Edward Tufte is specially scathing in his attack:
With so little information per slide, many, many slides are needed. Audiences consequently endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another. When information is stacked in time, it is difficult to understand context and evaluate relationships. Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when relevant information is shown side by side. Often, the more intense the detail, the greater the clarity and understanding. This is especially so for statistical data, where the fundamental analytical act is to make comparisons.
It is easy to criticize but what is the solution? In terms of alternate presentation methodology, there is a lot of literature. One recurrent theme is the ‘assertion-evidence design’. The assertion-evidence design is aimed to rectify two problems in traditional designs namely unclear assertion and unclear linking of evidence:
For one thing, identifying the main sentence assertion of each slide requires more thinking than simply identifying the slide’s topic word or phrase. In addition, coming up with cogent visual evidence to support each assertion is more demanding than coming up with a bullet list of subtopics for each slide topic. Another hurdle to adopting the design arises from overcoming the weak defaults of PowerPoint for type size, type placement, text anchors, bulleted text, and distracting backgrounds.
The conclusion is that irrespective of one having strong feelings for or against specific softwares, a ‘bullet-point ridden’ presentation is not ideal. Complex ideas require innovative presentation and logical flow. Finally, the main message of the presentation should always be emphasized by well chosen headings and backed by useful pictures.
