The Sydney Morning Herald recently featured an article titled Research points finger at PowerPoint. The basic argument is that since people can’t read and listen well at the same time, PowerPoint presentations should be put out of their misery.
Presentation guru, Garr Reynolds discusses this in a post titled, “Is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint?” and comes to the conclusion that “the way PowerPoint is used should be ditched, not the tool itself”. The boredom associated with most PowerPoint presentations is because people read the slides (yawn) to the audience whereas, it is more “effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.”
Apple’s Steve Jobs is renowned as one of the world’s best presenters and if you watch his Macworld 2007 Keynote Address, you can see Keynote/PowerPoint presentation at its best – a persuasive speech with useful visual aids.
In a related post, Stewart Mader points out how “the misguided use of PowerPoint is a classic case of the scope and design of a project being dictated by the technology, when it should be the other way around”. His presentation below outlines some of the common mistakes made in PowerPoint presentations.
[slideshare id=33398&doc=the-zen-aesthetic-15185&w=425]
This humourous presentation by engineer turned comedian Don McMillan also highlights some of the mistakes many make when using PowerPoint and shows how you can use this as a tool to drive home your point.
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These winners of the 2007 Slideshare Awards also demonstrate that HOW your information is presented is vital to getting across your message in an engaging, informative and persuasive way and how “less is always more”. Judge Guy Kawasaki said “the commonality you’ll see in these winners is big fonts, big graphics, and a “storytelling” orientation. These are three crucial qualities of a good presentation”.
[slideshare id=33834&doc=shift-happens-23665&w=425]
[slideshare id=35461&doc=meet-henry-13821&w=425]
Related links:
• Should we use any notes in presentations?
• Does PowerPoint make us stupid? David Byrne turns PowerPoint into art
Image: http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/04/is_it_finally_t.html