>>>>> Frank Aronson <fsaronson at gmail.com> writes: > This will quickly be labeled off-topic, but I have to ask, why does every > Mac vs. PC thread always devolve into a Microsoft mugging? Neither Duane's nor my comments were intended it to be Microsoft "mugging". Other tools that copy Word and PowerPoint have exactly the same problems. The point that we and Edward Tufte were making is that each of these design tools have an inherent "cognitive style" -- a specific built-in approach to using information to solve problems -- and a user interface that encourages certain sorts of thinking, problem-solving, and design decisions, and discourages others. > As for the thumping that PowerPoint is getting in this thread... it's > kind of like blaming the hammer and nail for bad construction. It's not > the tool, but the person wielding the tool who is ultimately at fault. You make a good point: responsibility for poor presentations lies with the presenter. But it's more complicated than that. PowerPoint (and similar slideware) has a distinctive, definite, well-enforced, and widely-practiced cognitive style that is contrary to serious analytic thinking. PowerPoint actively facilitates the making of lightweight presentations. Tufte identifies the characteristics of PowerPoint's cognitive style as foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spacial resolution, a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organising every type of content, breaking up narrative and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focussed spatial analysis, conspicuous decoration and fluff, a preoccupation with format not content, and an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch. He makes the point that a better metaphor for presentations is good teaching. Teachers seek to explain something with credibility -- which of course is what many presentations are _trying_ to do. But the core ideas of teaching -- explanation, reasoning, finding things out, questioning, content, evidence, credible authority -- are contrary to this hierarchical market-pitch approach. -- Roger Williams <roger at qux.com> Chief Technical Officer, Qux Corporation 433 West Street, Suite 8, Amherst, MA 01002, USA Tel +1 413 253-6400 * Fax +1 508 302-0230 * GSM +1 508 287-1420