The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, by Edward Tufte
This 28-page booklet is a great place to start to learn about all the evils of bullet-driven PowerPoint presentations. Tufte describes several reasons why most PowerPoint presentations are terrible and then shows some examples, including a great send-up of the Gettysburg Address in PowerPoint. Reading this booklet won’t make you a great PowerPoint presenter at all, but it may give you some motivation to study the subject more. Plus, it’s funny in a snide sort of way.
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: slides are not all evil, by Jean-luc Doumont
This article rebuts many of Tufte’s arguments in the above-mentioned booklet. Doumont points out the logical errors in some of Tufte’s points and experientially disagrees with him on most of the others. Doumont has no problem agreeing with the observation that there are many poor PowerPoint’s presented daily. He just disagrees with the problems and logic noted and used by Tufte.
Leave a Reply