11–20 of 97 posts
Writing isn't just communication—it's a thinking tool that forces clarity and precision. Yet I still get pushback when advocating for written narratives over slide decks in technical decision-making. Writing is frequently considered "extra work" :(
I was even so frustrated that I've put together https://www.bobek.cz/written-narratives/
At the end of the day PowerPoint is nothing special, it's just that many people start preparing a topic/subject by making bullet lists. If you're lazy, your job is done: you copy 1to1 that list into a sequence of slides and call it a day.
If you're slightly less lazy, you might look for images/graphs/content from somewhere else to support your presentation.
Everything changes when you regard the slides as being 100% for the audience and not for you, the speaker. That's when you start thinking about the UX of that, putting yourself into the shoe of who's forced to sit through what you're trying to deliver.
But again, blaming the tool is easy and doesn't address the root cause: many people who give presentations, either don't want to give them (someone might have told them that they must) or they do it purely for themselves (or don't really care about the audience).
What are the alternatives?
amazon could have thrived the same way had they used powerpoint, maybe even more. we will never know. also, different people communicate differently. dictating 6-pagers makes you select for people who prefer that, therefore having less diversity in thinking.
While the site is down: What are the alternatives?
nothing grinds my gears more than "management wisdom" like this and people who then attribute success to small details like that. amazon could have thrived the same way had they used powerpoint, maybe even more. we will never know. also, different people communicate differently. dictating 6-pagers makes you select for people who prefer that, therefore having less diversity in thinking.
Blaming the tool for poor/lazy use of it is a cheap and easy attack. At the end of the day PowerPoint is nothing special, it's just that many people start preparing a topic/subject by making bullet lists. If you're lazy, your job is done: you copy 1to1 that list into a sequence of slides and call it a day. If you're slightly less lazy, you might look for images/graphs/content from somewhere else to support your prese…