Edward Tufte Article
In the article “PowerPoint does Rocket Science – and Better Techniques for Technical Reports,” Tufte goes on to say how in the current day, numerous amounts of people in the aeronautics field are using PowerPoint for professional means and describes in what ways they present the information in vague terms. Although PowerPoint has played a revolutionary role in terms of executing a presentation, there are still many flaws within peoples’ presentation skills that result in altered meanings or indifferent concepts. Tufte explains the key faults in PowerPoint presentations that can mislead the audience and points out possible reasons for why this is so.
Tufte brings out the example of the Columbia Shuttle disaster and presents a slide used in one of the presentations. The first fault that is pointed out is the overuse of the word “significant.” In almost every bullet of the list, the word is present within a sentence. By overusing the word, the word literally loses its significance and causes the audiences to lose their connection to the importance of the terminology that’s associated to “significant.”
Tufte explains that organization is the key in a presentation. The main focus in the PowerPoint presentations is the hierarchical organization in the slides. In a paper this makes proper sense, as one is taught to structure their information from most inclusive down to least inclusive. However, when presenting in PowerPoint, this might not always be the case. By having a detailed hierarchical structure, the slide actually loses its clarity. Too much information presented within the slide causes confusion within the audience and Tufte adds to this by saying how many of the divisions are superfluous and distract from the essence of the information. Unfortunately due to these types of presentations, audiences can accidentally misinterpret the intended message of the presenter.
All in all, Tufte does a effective job in explaining how a PowerPoint presentation can go wrong by dissecting a slide into various sections and scrutinizing each individually area. By pointing out all the flaws, Tufte clearly shows how one must be careful when presenting with PowerPoint in order to avoid confusion within the audience, especially if one’s presentation is on a serious business/profession related topic. Near the end Tufte’s personal view becomes clear as he states “serious problems require a serious tool: written reports.” Personally I agree with his statement, when dealing with an important topic, the best way to execute in proper form is through a report. Although it may not be as eye-pleasing, it will convey the exact details without any of the unnecessary fluff. Tufte does acknowledge that images and/or video may be necessary to present material, so for this PowerPoint can be used. However, other than for that sole purpose, Tufte states an exemplary model for technical reports is a scientific paper or a commentary on a paper published in accredited journals like Nature.