on information design

Music: The Dandy Warhols: This Machine (2012)

For the past couple of days I have been reading, with great interest, the controversy surrounding Edward R. Tufte's scathing critique of Microsoft's PowerPoint software program, first advanced in his self-published pamphlet The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint in 2003. Since that time Tufte's arguments have been widely supported and critiqued. His critique advances largely around two claims: (1) good visual design demands graphics that correspond in some way to the cognitive tasks requested of audiences; and (2) PowerPoint, Keynote, and other "slideware" programs, reflect a "cognitive style" of the "software house," which means the slide templates reflect marketing logics. Regarding the latter, for example, he observes that "bullet outlines can make us stupid," which implicates a commercialized logic of narcotization---authority conferred by seeming order. Or as we might say as rhetoricians, form running roughshod over content.

Tufte's arguments are fun to read. His pamphlet is a brilliant example of visual aids done correctly (his graphics are often hilarious), and his prose a lesson in memory. He reduces his critique in the introduction thus:

PP convenience for the speaker can be costly to both content and audience. These costs result from the cognitive style characteristic of the standard default PP presentation: foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spatial resolution, a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narrative and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thing information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous decoration and Phluff, a preoccupation with format not content, an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.

There are, of course, a number of objections. The most common I've come across are voiced by folks like Jean-Luc Doumont in essays like, "Slides are Not Evil," which all-but-dismiss Tufte's critique as "dogmatic, judgmental, [and] often sarcastic in tone." I think Jean-Luc misses Tufte's point (which is, you know, to make a memorable point with that pointed prose). Another voiced objection comes from my colleague Dale Cyphert, who has been writing about and studying the "basic course" in my field (public speaking) for a long time: "Even though a liberal education offers far more than technical skill with the culture's communication methods, competent citizens must effectively use the common tools of the discourse community. The fluent use of presentation software is now expected by audiences raised in a media era." Moreover, she adds, college recruiters often voice the expectation that graduates have some familiarity with PowerPoint.

Of course, Tufte's critique and cultural demand converge on commercialism: business interests want future employers to have some facility with slideware. Tufte's critique is hard to deny: the whole point of slide presentations is to reduce complexity for memory. Tufted argues that slideware should be used to assist cognitive tasks and deliver content, which may be good for academics but does, of course, sidestep the fact that many slide presentations by public speakers are sales pitches.

Again, I'm coming around to my colleague Barry Brummet's argument that style has now become inextricably wed to identity, such that form and surface have become "content." Tufte is right about the cognitive style encouraged by PowerPoint. But can we avoid it?

I don't think so. As I write a textbook on public performance (that is, public speaking is no longer just about or even centered upon speaking) I'm caused to contemplate the challenge: how to write about slideware in a way that preserves the discursive function of public address while, nevertheless, also emphasizing the importance of form and style---that is, public rhythm? A discussion---perhaps even an extensive one---is necessary for "visual rhetoric" in a public speaking textbook, and insofar as some studies show as much as 90% of professional speaker use slide software, discussion is unavoidable.

Influenced by Tufte's critique, I'll definitely have some guidelines for creating slides (and more than a number of scare stories, including the famed NASA disaster's relationship to PowerPoint and the more recent condemnation of the software by U.S. military officials). But, there is one thing my schooling in the "information design" literature has taught me: Presi and it's motion-sickness inspiring "zooms" is pretty much the worst thing one can use for assisting in the delivery of information. If you want to use Presi as "art," well then, knock yourself out.