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The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

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Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#41

Post by MonkeyClub »

ahartmetz wrote: post #30
nativeit wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What has a higher information density than text? Almost everything else: images, graphs, sound, video Pictures are pretty famously “worth 1000 words,” after all.

Many things can only be said in text, though. Video can work as a replacement for the so inclined because they can have narration.

To add to that, text has more of "authorial intent" (debates on the demise of which notwithstanding) than other media.

Consider the visual rebus, for example, which is open to interpretation and depends on commonality of context in both producer and consumer, contrasted to a rigorous argument, which depends onoy on commonality of (technical) jargon.

Video ends up conveying information thanks to narration, while the visuals assuage boredom. Like an Adam Curtis documentary: it's essentially an essay read out, with clips and music overlaid to keep the audience from realising they're told, rather than shown, the argument.

Having the talking points as aides memoire on screen is nice in that it charts the course of the argument, but the map is not the territory, and we end up with significant information loss and knowledge gap.

I think that moving from the message in itself to its summation (i.e. from text to bullets) creates a knowledge divide between the producer (who knows more) to the consumer (who has access to less and can only divine the rest).

It's pretty bourgie IMO.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#42

Post by Angostura »

efitz wrote: post #7

Nobody has the patience anymore to be presented to or read in any form other than bullet points and low information density charts. I grew up before computers and learned to communicate in the absence of all the short attention span distractions that exist today. I remember the first time I picked up a Wired magazine and couldn’t tolerate the insane lack of continuity. I still cannot stand the video style of images p…

I can actualy cope quite well with the slides that have 5 words on. But typically in the organisations that I have worked for, people will cram 200 words on a slide and then droningly reads them out.

No matter how often I explain that 'people can either listen to what you are saying, or read the slide - pick one' - it doesn't really sink in

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#43

Post by Angostura »

nativeit wrote: post #29
copperx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has a higher information density than text? Or do you mean that writing will evolve to become increasingly higher density?

> What has a higher information density than text? Almost everything else: images, graphs, sound, video Pictures are pretty famously “worth 1000 words,” after all.

Now draw a picture that conveys everything just said in 24 words.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#44

Post by funcDropShadow »

mkleczek wrote: post #16
efitz wrote: post #7

Nobody has the patience anymore to be presented to or read in any form other than bullet points and low information density charts. I grew up before computers and learned to communicate in the absence of all the short attention span distractions that exist today. I remember the first time I picked up a Wired magazine and couldn’t tolerate the insane lack of continuity. I still cannot stand the video style of images p…

In the age of LLMs there is no point in writing long prose. The more content is generated the more people will move to higher information density formats. Why bother with generating long text if the reader is going to summarise it with a LLM anyway? OTOH - citing Ben Affleck: "why would I bother to read something you didn't bother to write?"

> In the age of LLMs there is no point in writing long prose. The more content is generated ...

Wow, do you really equate long prose with "generated content"? Long prose is novels, deep non-fiction books, long letters, and much more. You can like them or not. In comparison "generated content" is sugar-coated garbage, like way too many social media posts. There was never any point in reading such "generated content".

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#45

Post by MathMonkeyMan »

I can put together a good powerpoint presentation -- one that isn't just bullet points and fluff.

It takes me forever. It's like preparing for a talk at a tech conference. I spend hours and hours off the clock refining the slides, the script, and rehearsing the timing.

Nobody's going to put in that effort if they have to present multiple times per quarter, especially if they know that nobody cares and that it doesn't really matter anyway.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#46

Post by EdwardCoffin »

Neal Stephenson has a funny anecdote about explaining PowerPoint to a friend of his who had managed to be unaware of it until now, culminating in Stephenson's explanation "for people who can't communicate, it's what a dialysis machine is for people who don't have kidneys" [1].

This is the culmination of his response [2] to a question [3] in the Q&A period of a talk on his book tour for Seveneves [4]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHF6vDv8AE#t=40m20s

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHF6vDv8AE#t=38m46s

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHF6vDv8AE#t=38m06s

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHF6vDv8AE

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#47

Post by thom »

Slides are cursed with multiple audiences and lifetimes. After an initial persuasive speech, perhaps some new initiative gains momentum, and the slides are often the first and only relic associated with The Project for quite some time. They are a cultural artifact onto which many beliefs, hopes and dreams are projected in ways that are not at all evident from their content. Minions are asked by their managers if this thing is actually possible or desirable. Vendors are asked to pitch in. If you’re very unlucky you’re asked to start estimating for the thing and you’re sat, puzzled, thinking “but this is just some bullet points?” Sometimes the detail only comes later once things are signed off and someone is made accountable, and it’s that poor soul’s job to go back and find out exactly what gaps everyone has filled in inside their heads.

I don’t actually think PowerPoint is responsible for all this, I think it’s just people are often too lazy to create more structure and depth at the right time, and transition to something else.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#48

Post by mkleczek »

funcDropShadow wrote: post #44
mkleczek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the age of LLMs there is no point in writing long prose. The more content is generated the more people will move to higher information density formats. Why bother with generating long text if the reader is going to summarise it with a LLM anyway? OTOH - citing Ben Affleck: "why would I bother to read something you didn't bother to write?"

> In the age of LLMs there is no point in writing long prose. The more content is generated ... Wow, do you really equate long prose with "generated content"? Long prose is novels, deep non-fiction books, long letters, and much more. You can like them or not. In comparison "generated content" is sugar-coated garbage, like way too many social media posts. There was never any point in reading such "generated content".

I wasn't clear enough and I agree: art cannot be replaced by LLM (although this is heavy disputed by AI believers). Consuming art also precludes reading summaries generated by LLMs.

My comment was about "utility" texts (this is a context of this discussion, I suppose) - my prediction is that we are going to write shorter and more condensed texts to avoid overhead of LLMs use in generating and summarising text.

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#49

Post by zero_k »

This is by Edward Tufte. If you haven't had the chance to check out Edward Tufte's other works, in particular, the Visual Display of Quantitative Information [1] then I highly suggest you do. Every time I see a horrible graphic in a research paper, I redirect authors to [1]. It ought to be a must-read for anyone wanting to create a graph. Seriously, if you intend to display information, read that book. It'll open your eyes to make you see the immense amount of waste of space and clutter that people introduce.

It's basically an ode to clear, cutter-less, data visualization. Check out this timetable [2] (horizontal lines: stations, vertical lines: hours, diagonal lines: trains), and your mind will be blown. It's compact, it gives you all the information you need, it can be navigated by your grandma (or your granddaughter) and it likely shows more information than most digital or paper-based system you have ever met, in a smaller format.

[1] https://www.edwardtufte.com/book/the-visual-display-of-quant... [2] https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/format:webp/0*8zW...

Re: The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (2006) [pdf]

#50

Post by jncfhnb »

kqr wrote: post #18
jncfhnb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a McKinsey consultant and this reads as kind of crazy. Nobody is ever doing anything with 50 distinct slides. My general advice is a title that is a sentence that explains your point, then a visual that proves it and a sidebar of supporting insights so you don’t have to be an expert at reading the visual. Frankly I think it’s very effective and is very closely tied to writing guidelines. The important thing is ge…

This is the very thing TFA is against. It reduces complex arguments into one-sentence theses, one after another, luring the listener into compliance.

I’m only skimming the article tbh but all of the slides I’m seeing look terrible and useless. I don’t see much text about reducing arguments to one sentence theses.

A one sentence thesis is good communication. That’s the point of a thesis statement. It’s the core idea behind most writing education. If you don’t have a clear thesis up front, then people have to divine what you’re trying to convey themselves bottom up from the arguments on the screen.

“Luring the listener into compliance” is frankly the reader’s problem. PowerPoints are presentations, not debate stimulus. They are generally intended for one person to convey information, not foster a group discussion. It would be very bad to blame the concept of a blog if you’re drawn in by persuasive writing to a false idea.

PowerPoints are bad when someone is using it and you can’t tell what they’re trying to tell you. Especially with regard to whether it has the verbal explanation or not.

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