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Why PowerPoint Should Be Banned

Posted by Soulskill on from the hang-on-my-clicker-isn't-working dept.

An anonymous reader writes: An editorial at the Washington Post argues that Microsoft PowerPoint is being relied upon by too many to do too much, and we should start working to get rid of it. "Its slides are oversimplified, and bullet points omit the complexities of nearly any issue. The slides are designed to skip the learning process, which — when it works — involves dialogue, eye-to-eye contact and discussions. Of course PowerPoint has merits — it can help businesses with their sales pitches or let teachers introduce technology into the classroom. But instead of being used as a means for a dynamic engagement, it has become a poor substitute for longer, well-thought-out briefings and technical reports. It has become a crutch."

17 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. To be more specific ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... MEETINGS should be banned.

  2. But I love it when slides are read to me by jaymz666 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The number of useful powerpoint presentations I have seen can be counted on one hand, but the number of presentations where all the presenter does is read, slowly, the slides to the room is uncountable...

    1. Re:But I love it when slides are read to me by moschner · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem isn't the software, but how people are using it. Banning Power Point won't fix bad end users. They will just find a different way to give crappy presentations.

      Perhaps a better approach is bundle or create software that helps people create presentations from the script on up, and perhaps the software should have one presentation the audience sees and one the presenter sees full of more info or a complete script.

    2. Re:But I love it when slides are read to me by rwa2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem isn't the software, but how people are using it. Banning Power Point won't fix bad end users. They will just find a different way to give crappy presentations.

      Perhaps a better approach is bundle or create software that helps people create presentations from the script on up, and perhaps the software should have one presentation the audience sees and one the presenter sees full of more info or a complete script.

      Yeah, PowerPoint can actually do that, what with the "Notes" section that shows up on the presenter screen while the projector output shows the slide.

      Scanned TFA, lots of whining but not really much counterpoint on how to better organize and deliver information *properly* . There's a gratuitous link to http://prezi.com/ at the end, but just having a sexier, nonlinear presentation tool won't be of much help.

      Good presentation delivery is indeed an art. But what properties make a presentation aid helpful?
      The Daily Show is one example that comes to mind for someone who uses visual aids well... by placing an interesting image to associate with a story. When it does display any bulleted text, it is only used to deliver the punchline... so timing is crucial too.

  3. reasons by roman_mir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Its slides are oversimplified, and bullet points omit the complexities of nearly any issue.

    - I see, so the reasons to use PowerPoint are exactly the same reasons as the ones to ban PowerPoint.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
    1. Re:reasons by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Informative

      When teling someone something, you tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.

      With power point, you show them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then show them what you told them.

      If you use Power Point for anything other than a high-level outline, or animated graphics that are had to show other ways, then you are doing it wrong, and that's not the fault of Power Point.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    2. Re:reasons by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Funny

      Can't we just ban stupidity instead?

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  4. In other words... by mikaere · · Score: 5, Funny
    • * PowerPoint
    • * is no substitute
    • * for
    • * good presentation skills!
    --
    It's good luck to be superstitious
    1. Re:In other words... by ganv · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed, presentation tools can't compensate for poor skills in creating or giving presentations. Do people remember before powerpoint? At the scientific conferences I attended, as often as not people were throwing unreadable transparencies onto the project at a rate significantly faster than anyone in the audience except their collaborators could comprehend the concepts. Now they just flip through readable but incomprehensible power-point slides. It's the humans you have to fix, not the technology.

  5. Wrong by gnu-sucks · · Score: 4, Insightful

    PowerPoint is not the crutch. The crutch is pointless meetings and the desire for "material" when what you really need is a discussion with the right key people in the room.

    Might as well ban PDFs while we're at it, I've seen lots of pointless PDF files too.

    1. Re:Wrong by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Meetings can be made efficient. My meetings usually are. I invite people for their topic to the correct minute. Yes, minute. Give or take 5, but it's patently USELESS to have someone sit in a meeting for an hour if all the matters to him is about 10 minutes thereof. I don't need the design crew to discuss security matters, even though I do need them in the meeting in general. The meeting has an agenda and it has a time slice for every topic to be discussed. If you think you need more time, tell me in advance, but during the meeting, you will have your time slice and what you cannot get done in that slice will either have to wait 'til the next meeting or you will have to discuss it outside.

      It took a few meetings for people to get a hang of it and it was a VERY fierce uphill battle (and I'm glad I had a lot of support from higher up or it would never have had a chance to fly), but now we get more done in a single 45 minute meeting than we used to do in a 4+ hour meeting. Yes, that also means that people have to come prepared and that they have to be PRECISELY on time. But their benefit is that instead of sitting around for hours and staring holes into the wall 'cause things are being discussed that are of no interest to them they come to the meeting, can talk about their topics with everyone they need and be gone again within less than 15 minutes.

      Plus I now need much smaller meeting rooms since few people are going to be around during the whole meeting.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  6. Powerpoint resulted in the loss of 2 space shuttle by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Funny
    here and here

    The shuttle disasters Richard Feynman, the late Nobel laureate and CalTech physicist, saw that "bulletized" thinking contributed to the Challenger disaster, where 7 crew members died and a multi-billion dollar craft destroyed due to an O-ring failure. The big problem was that NASA management wasn't really listening to the engineers - and breaking issues up into bullets helped them do that.

    The engineers who worked on the Challenger O-rings knew they weren't qualified for cold weather. But management didn't want to hear it and OK'd the launch despite the engineer's opposition.

    As sometimes happens, disaster ensued.

    In the 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster, Prof. Tufte dissects the PowerPoint slides that buried important information - such as volume, mass and velocity - about the large piece of foam insulation that penetrated the Columbia's heat shield. Creating useful engineering reports in PowerPoint is difficult if not impossible.

    And of course, powerpoint makes you stupid

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  7. EMACS IS THE WAY by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I literally had a professor (3 years ago) that put his lecture notes in text documents, and showed them on the projector from his ubuntu laptop using emacs. And he was one of the best CS professors I've ever had.

    This was because he used them as outlines for what he intended to teach during the class. We discussed, worked through things, and had eye-to-eye contact and whatever else the summary says.

    ----Isn't this what powerpoint is for? We don't want to ban powerpoint; people just need to learn to use it properly.

  8. Tech in the classroom??? by Radical+Moderate · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...or let teachers introduce technology into the classroom. "

    Oh hell no. Tech in the classroom is not an end unto itself, and certainly not a justification for Powerpoint. Don't get me wrong, PP can be a useful tool (in some cases), and yes, it don't work without tech in the classroom. But the idea that any random PP show is valuable because "it's introducing students to technology" is ridiculous. Students are on a first-name basis with technology, they don't need to be introduced to it.

    --
    Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
  9. Just then... by istartedi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just then there was a concussive shock. Momentarily the Post's reporter was transported into a netherworld of pounding, blinding light as his office exploded in a cloud of acrid smoke and swirling documents. He lost consciousness momentarily. When he awoke, there were several men standing over him with solemn, angry looks on their faces. Their black paramilitary uniforms were outlined in stark contrast against the white-boards and family photographs. "Who... who are you" he struggled to speak.

    "We're the Power Point Rangers".

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  10. WTF? by rev0lt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Powerpoint is a tool. Don't blame the tool, blame whoever is making the content. The truth is, doing informational slides require skill, knowledge and a good speaker to present them - it doesn't really matter if you're using acetate sheets or some fancy top-of-the-line video editor. Its like blaming typewriters for making bad literature. And if you 're afraid powerpoint is going to make you stupid, guess what? You already are.

  11. Re:Ancillary titles to TFA by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not really, some of the analysis following the Challenger disaster at NASA concluded that the use of Powerpoint limited the ability to put enough relevant information on the screen to allow analysts to make the necessary connections to identify risks.
    http://www.edwardtufte.com/tuf...

    In a similar study performed by the Army, the conclusion was that all of the necessary detail that would have been included in a whitepaper was trimmed away for the 5-bulletpoints that they could put on the screen, to quote the article:“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04...

    --
    Wherever You Go, There You Are