Notes on Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint
p. 3
Opening anecdote about Gerstner's first day at IBM: hit the 'off' button; "Let's just talk about your business."
p. 4
"Yet PowerPoint is entirely presenter-oriented, and not content-oriented, not audience-oriented. The claims of PP marketing are addressed to speaker...."
"PP convenience for the speaker can be costly to both content and audience. These costs result from the cognitive style characteristic of the standard default PP prsentation: foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spactial resoilution, a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narrative and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous docration and Phluff, a preoccupation with format not content, an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch."
"Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when the relevant information is shown adjacent in space within our eyespan."
p. 5
Compares "data graphics based on PP templates" to Pravda graphics.
"But in the reality of day-to-day pracitce, the PP cognitive style is faux-analytical." Compares intricate bulleted lists to computer code. Basically seems to be pushing a more honest, less lazy approach: design the slide yourself (using textboxes and/or graphics) to lay out the interrelation between ideas -- don't just list stuff.
pp. 8-9
Amazing dissection of Boeing slide about Columbia shuttle disaster, showing how the slide soft-peddles the (terrifying) data and implications.
p. 10
Props to Feynman for writing "about much of basic physics -- mechanic, optics, thermodynamics, quantum behavior -- in a 600-page book with only 2 levels: chapters and headings within chapters." Talking about Feynman Lectures on Physics.
p. 11
Feynman also hated bullets.... Ha! "Indeed, for those who have rad Feynman's books, a good way to try to think clearly about evidence and explanation is to ask, 'What would Feynman do?'" Anyone wanna make WWFD bracelets?
p. 12
Gripe: "the PP design style" uses "only about 30-40% of the space available on a slide to show unique content, with all remaining space devoted to Phluff, bullets, frames, and branding."
Singles out EDUCAITONAL ADMINISTRATORS as having especially little to say -- "the really lightweight slides" among the 2,140 examined.
Nothing to say, so add Phluff, which reduces the content further. Instead: use handouts
p. 13
History of PPT: MS bought "Presenter" from the developer ("a software house"). T's point = ppt aesthetic and world is the corporate software world: programming ("deeply heirarchical, nested, highly structured, relentlessly sequential, one-short-line-at-a-time") meets marketing ("fast pace, misdirection, advocacy not analysis, slogan thinking, branding, exaggerated claims, marketplace ethics"). Wow. When you put it that way...it's like the worst of both worlds!!
Compares ppt social style ("The speaker, after all, is making power points with bullets to followers") to classic "hegemonic systems" such as Roman state system.
"A better metaphor for presentation is good teaching. Teachers seek to explain something with credibility...." Further explanation by T: Teachers explain, reason, find things out, question, identify and organize content, review evidence, highlight credible authority and not patronizing authoritarianism.
"Especially disturbing is the introduction of the PowerPoint cognitive style into schools. Instead of writing a report using sentences, children learn how to make client pitches and info-mericals, which is better than encouraging children to smoke."
"Rather than being trained as mini-bureaucrats in PPPhluff and foreshortening of thought, students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to The Exploratorium. Or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something."
pp. 14-15
Norvig's Gettysburg address ppt.
pp. 16-18
PPT and statistical evidence. T favors tables rather than cluttered or misleading graphical displays. Ideal: table-graphic. I'm not totally sold. Or I like the idea, but need a stronger example from T.
pp. 19-20
Mocking Harvard School of Public Health's Instructional Computing Facility's sample slides and adminitions ("a witless PP pitch on how to make a witless PP pitch" -- that's kind of beautiful, no?). "The templates dom, however, emulate the format of reading primers for 6 year-olds." (reproduces Dick and Jane page in sidebar.) Hey, those are my IT bretheren!
p. 23
"The Dreaded Build Sequence" = "line-by-line slow reveal"
"But formats, sequencing, and cognitive approach should be decided by the character of the content and what is to be explained, not by the limitations of the presentation."
p. 24
"Presentations largely stand or fall depending on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content. The way to make big improvements in a presentation is to get better content. Designer formats will not salvage weak content."
"At a minimum, a presentation format should do no harm to content."
"PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector for low-resolution materials. And that's about it."
More to-dos and not-to-dos. Advice = use paper handouts for high-res. Hunh: specifically an 11x17 folded to make 4 pp. "Thoughtfully planned handouts at your talk tell the audeince that you are serious and precise; that you seek to leave traces and have consequences. And that you respect your audience."
p. 25
"In day-to-day practice, PowerPoint templates may improve 10% or 20% of all presentations by organizing inept, extremely disorganized speakers, at a cost of detectable intellectual damage to 80%. For statistical data, the damage levels approach demetia."
"PowerPOint allows speakers to pretend that they are giving a real talk, and audiences to pretend that they are listening."
Stalin-cult propaganda photo spoof. Caption: "Military parade, Stalin Square, Budapest, April 4, 1956. Photograph by AP/Wide World Photos." Yow. Now that I know the date, it's even more poignant.
pp. 26-27
Research basis: Study of "several thousand slides, 5 case studies, and extensive quantitative comparisons between PowerPoint and other methods of communicating information."
Cites others' excoriation of ppt (i.e. Columbia Accident Investigation Board -- Columbia killed by ppt?)
Opening anecdote about Gerstner's first day at IBM: hit the 'off' button; "Let's just talk about your business."
p. 4
"Yet PowerPoint is entirely presenter-oriented, and not content-oriented, not audience-oriented. The claims of PP marketing are addressed to speaker...."
"PP convenience for the speaker can be costly to both content and audience. These costs result from the cognitive style characteristic of the standard default PP prsentation: foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spactial resoilution, a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narrative and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous docration and Phluff, a preoccupation with format not content, an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch."
"Visual reasoning usually works more effectively when the relevant information is shown adjacent in space within our eyespan."
p. 5
Compares "data graphics based on PP templates" to Pravda graphics.
"But in the reality of day-to-day pracitce, the PP cognitive style is faux-analytical." Compares intricate bulleted lists to computer code. Basically seems to be pushing a more honest, less lazy approach: design the slide yourself (using textboxes and/or graphics) to lay out the interrelation between ideas -- don't just list stuff.
pp. 8-9
Amazing dissection of Boeing slide about Columbia shuttle disaster, showing how the slide soft-peddles the (terrifying) data and implications.
p. 10
Props to Feynman for writing "about much of basic physics -- mechanic, optics, thermodynamics, quantum behavior -- in a 600-page book with only 2 levels: chapters and headings within chapters." Talking about Feynman Lectures on Physics.
p. 11
Feynman also hated bullets.... Ha! "Indeed, for those who have rad Feynman's books, a good way to try to think clearly about evidence and explanation is to ask, 'What would Feynman do?'" Anyone wanna make WWFD bracelets?
p. 12
Gripe: "the PP design style" uses "only about 30-40% of the space available on a slide to show unique content, with all remaining space devoted to Phluff, bullets, frames, and branding."
Singles out EDUCAITONAL ADMINISTRATORS as having especially little to say -- "the really lightweight slides" among the 2,140 examined.
Nothing to say, so add Phluff, which reduces the content further. Instead: use handouts
p. 13
History of PPT: MS bought "Presenter" from the developer ("a software house"). T's point = ppt aesthetic and world is the corporate software world: programming ("deeply heirarchical, nested, highly structured, relentlessly sequential, one-short-line-at-a-time") meets marketing ("fast pace, misdirection, advocacy not analysis, slogan thinking, branding, exaggerated claims, marketplace ethics"). Wow. When you put it that way...it's like the worst of both worlds!!
Compares ppt social style ("The speaker, after all, is making power points with bullets to followers") to classic "hegemonic systems" such as Roman state system.
"A better metaphor for presentation is good teaching. Teachers seek to explain something with credibility...." Further explanation by T: Teachers explain, reason, find things out, question, identify and organize content, review evidence, highlight credible authority and not patronizing authoritarianism.
"Especially disturbing is the introduction of the PowerPoint cognitive style into schools. Instead of writing a report using sentences, children learn how to make client pitches and info-mericals, which is better than encouraging children to smoke."
"Rather than being trained as mini-bureaucrats in PPPhluff and foreshortening of thought, students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to The Exploratorium. Or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something."
pp. 14-15
Norvig's Gettysburg address ppt.
pp. 16-18
PPT and statistical evidence. T favors tables rather than cluttered or misleading graphical displays. Ideal: table-graphic. I'm not totally sold. Or I like the idea, but need a stronger example from T.
pp. 19-20
Mocking Harvard School of Public Health's Instructional Computing Facility's sample slides and adminitions ("a witless PP pitch on how to make a witless PP pitch" -- that's kind of beautiful, no?). "The templates dom, however, emulate the format of reading primers for 6 year-olds." (reproduces Dick and Jane page in sidebar.) Hey, those are my IT bretheren!
p. 23
"The Dreaded Build Sequence" = "line-by-line slow reveal"
"But formats, sequencing, and cognitive approach should be decided by the character of the content and what is to be explained, not by the limitations of the presentation."
p. 24
"Presentations largely stand or fall depending on the quality, relevance, and integrity of the content. The way to make big improvements in a presentation is to get better content. Designer formats will not salvage weak content."
"At a minimum, a presentation format should do no harm to content."
"PowerPoint is a competent slide manager and projector for low-resolution materials. And that's about it."
More to-dos and not-to-dos. Advice = use paper handouts for high-res. Hunh: specifically an 11x17 folded to make 4 pp. "Thoughtfully planned handouts at your talk tell the audeince that you are serious and precise; that you seek to leave traces and have consequences. And that you respect your audience."
p. 25
"In day-to-day practice, PowerPoint templates may improve 10% or 20% of all presentations by organizing inept, extremely disorganized speakers, at a cost of detectable intellectual damage to 80%. For statistical data, the damage levels approach demetia."
"PowerPOint allows speakers to pretend that they are giving a real talk, and audiences to pretend that they are listening."
Stalin-cult propaganda photo spoof. Caption: "Military parade, Stalin Square, Budapest, April 4, 1956. Photograph by AP/Wide World Photos." Yow. Now that I know the date, it's even more poignant.
pp. 26-27
Research basis: Study of "several thousand slides, 5 case studies, and extensive quantitative comparisons between PowerPoint and other methods of communicating information."
Cites others' excoriation of ppt (i.e. Columbia Accident Investigation Board -- Columbia killed by ppt?)
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