All Presentation Software Is Broken - igvita.com

http://www.igvita.com/2012/05/14/all-presentation-software-is-broken/

by igrigorik • 14 years ago

36 5 14 years ago

vph2• 14 years ago

i guess this sensational title is aimed to draw an audience?

There's nothing new here than what Edwards Tufte discovered long ago.

The tools are not broken. In fact they are getting increasingly better. Of course, if you don't know how to use them; rather, if you can't give a good presentation, it's not because of the software.

igrigorik• 14 years ago

To the contrary, the tools are getting progressively worse. Show me one feature in Powerpoint or Keynote that is specifically designed to give me actionable feedback on how to improve my presentation.

I'm not arguing for or against visual design - yes, you're right nothing new there. What I'm trying to point out, as we start migrating our presentation tools to the web, is that we don't need to copy all the useless inheritance.

For now, and yes I'm the early technical adopter.. I'm willing to edit the HTML markup directly, heck I'll FTP the darn thing to your server, and will do other backflips.. all if you manage to give me good feedback on how to do a better presentation next time around.

Michiel• 14 years ago

> all if you manage to give me good feedback on how to do a better presentation next time around.

You really should ask the audience that question.

What a web based tool could do is integrate a feedback mechanism, maybe even tied to specific slides. Imagine you are giving the presentation, and I am bored to tears by your slide on profit margins increasing in Q2.

So I open the synchronized viewer app on my phone, and touch the frownie face icon or the icon that says 'zzzz'. Hopefully you will replace the bullets with an animated chart for your next presentation.

Maybe there already is an app for that?

vph2• 14 years ago

>To the contrary, the tools are getting progressively worse.

You have been unable to argue this point convincingly.

> Show me one feature in Powerpoint or Keynote that is specifically designed to give me actionable feedback on how to improve my presentation.

This is a tall order. But there are two features in Powerpoint that help. One is the timing mechanism. This definitely helps the presenter in real time to take specific actions to cope with the remaining time.

The other is showing the next slide on the laptop (only to the presenter).

Maybe you expect too much from a piece of software, such as PowerPoint.

joeblau• 14 years ago

> What I'm trying to point out, as we start migrating our presentation tools to the web, is that we don't need to copy all the useless inheritance.

Why didn't you name the article that then? Title confused me and made me think you were actually proposing a solution.

All Presentation Software Is Broken - igvita.com

Related Stories