Tufte notes

Tufte disagrees with the usage of PowerPoint on many levels specifically through its cognitive style.

On page four he instantly comes to griping with that, “These costs arise from the cognitive style characteristic of the standard default PP presentation:….” Tufte then lists at least ten things that a normal PowerPoint presentation is either lacking or weakening its data content.

Tufte cites “foreshortening of evidence and thought” basically meaning that PP is weakening a presenter’s argument to begin with because its taking away from that which you are using to support your argument because of a limited data field and using fragments of ideas instead of the whole.

Another critical fault in PP, Tufte states, is its “hierarchal bullet list”. He says how for hundreds of years information has been conveyed without bullet style points, but PowerPoint only uses bulleted points. He then shows the reader, on page 18, a bulleted version of the Gettysburg Address and begs the question, What if Lincoln had PowerPoint at Gettysburg. To the reader it becomes abundantly clear at this point that bulleting information is worthless.

What also ties into that previous facet, is that there is no causality within PowerPoint. It’s impossible to follow the data presented in a PP, unless its in a graph (which even then is statistically lacking), because there is no linear relationship between one piece of information and the next.

The low-resolution style of PP is also problematic, claims Tufte. He uses a brilliant example of two pictures of the space shuttle Columbia, nearly consecutive frames in the film of the foam insulation debris breaking from the shuttle and then hitting the wing. Because of the poor quality in PP resolution you can scarcely make out the space shuttle let only what is going on with the space shuttle.

Tufte’s most brilliant point, for me, is the fact that PP wasn’t intended to bring information to people in the way that it is being used. PP was developed for business people to make presentations to develop powerful points for the products that they are selling. By using PP presenters often turn otherwise useful information into a sales pitch.