[Hidden-tech] Cognitive slant of software (was: Re: Microsoft Office suite vs. other options)

[Shel Horowitz]

>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.

There are some basic rules of effective ppt, the most obvious which 
is not to jam your slides with 200 words! With 50 or fewer words per 
slide, it can be a very useful tool. I think I typically have fewer 
than 30 words on my slides. Sometimes only 6 or so. And of course, 
presenters who read their slides verbatim and in a monotone should be 
hooted off stage.

I like that Roger pointed out the cognitive framework. I happen to 
think a lot like Word and PowerPoint. Just this morning, I had an 
insight that I'm suddenly able to design much nicer fliers and other 
graphic documents because I've started to use Apple's Pages, which is 
a lot more intuitive to me than Quark or PageMaker or Illustrator--it 
thinks about how a writer (moi) might approach design, rather than 
how a designer would do it. For years, I'd been doing fliers in Word, 
because it thinks the way I do. They were serviceable but far from 
gorgeous. With this new tool, I can do very much nicer work, with 
close to zero learning curve. While some of the features are not 
particularly intuitive and I wish for more keyboard shortcuts, the 
program doesn't get in the way of my design.
-- 

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