Blogroll
- Akira O'Connor's blog
- Bad Science
- BPS Research Digest
- Engadget
- Grad Hacker
- NeuroBollocks
- Neurobonkers
- Neurodudes
- Neuroskeptic
- practiCal fMRI: the nuts & bolts
- ProtoScholar
- Psych Gripe
- Psychological Statistics
- Rita Santos – CBT Therapist (London)
- Serious Stats
- Statistically Significant Science
- The Connectome
- The Neuron Club
- Wired
- XKCD
- [citation needed] by Tal Yarkoni
Tag Cloud:
analysis Android apps Brain BrainVoyager coding computer computer skills computing data desktop dropbox e-book ebook education endnote essays Excel experiment Experiments fMRI FSL Google Google Scholar Hardware Imaging internet Internet Resources ipad iPhone keyboard laptop links Mac MacBook Air Macbook Pro Matlab mendeley mouse MRI netbook neuroimaging neuron Neuroscience Open Sesame OpenSesame os x papers parallel port PC plagiarism programming psychology PsychoPy python R reaction time research response box Review Software SPM SPSS statistics student studying study skills tablet textbook timing TTL vision web windows zotero-
Recent Posts:
Blog Archive:
- November 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
Twittery-Tweety-Twoo
- RT @IanDunt: David Anderson makes an absolutely killer point. If he went to fight for Isis, this could not happen. But because Shamima Begu… 2 hours ago
- RT @n_ramnani: 📣NEW 3YR POSTDOC POSITION! Deadline, ~1 week, 4th March! ⏰ Exciting project: How do frontal lobe & cerebellar circuits handl… 2 hours ago
- RT @practiCalfMRI: Unintended consequences! Fixed head motion with printed head restraint. Result? RF coil now moves on the bed, causing in… 18 hours ago
- RT @ChrisFiloG: The next @OHBM conference will be the first one with an official Code of Conduct ( humanbrainmapping.org/i4a/pages/inde…). The new rules a… 18 hours ago
- Proud to be a member of such a progressive society. twitter.com/chrisfilog/sta… 18 hours ago
Calendar:
February 2019 M T W T F S S « Nov 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
Advertisements
A psychological analysis of problems in powerpoint presentations.
Jul 24
Posted by Matt Wall
A God-awful powerpoint slide I found on the web. Don’t do this. Ever.
Powerpoint (or I guess Keynote, if you’re super-cool) presentations – love ’em or loathe ’em, they have become an integral part of the academic and business world. I can’t really imagine doing a lecture or talk without using powerpoint in at least some small way these days. However there’s nothing worse than a bad powerpoint presentation – we’ve all seen them. The colours are garish and clashing, the text is illegible, the organisation is incoherent, and the illustrations are irrelevant or actively misleading. How can we avoid these mistakes in our own presentations, and ensure that we craft a well-structured, pleasant-looking presentation which will add to the impact of what we say, rather than detract from it?
A quick Google of ‘how to make a great powerpoint‘ brings up 144 million pages (including, interestingly, one from Microsoft itself), many of which contain conflicting information (I assume they do anyway, I haven’t read them all). Fear not though, gentle reader; the inimitable Stephen Kosslyn (and colleagues) of Stanford University has just published a paper with the intriguing title of “PowerPoint® presentation flaws and failures: a psychological analysis” in which the common flaws in presentations are deconstructed with an eye to the psychological principles of effective communication. This is great, because it not only points out what’s often wrong with slides, it give some clue as to why these things are wrong. You can read the paper here (free HTML full text – yay!) or download a PDF from the link on the top right.
Kosslyn et al.’s analysis is based on “Eight cognitive communication principles”:
…and it’s proposed that optimising presentations in terms of these cognitive principles will produce greater engagement, understanding and retention of the material, by the audience. The authors then followed up this fairly abstract classification with a series of three studies; rating real-world slideshows from various domains (academic, business, governmental) on sub-units of these eight features, showing that flaws are noticeable and annoying to the audience, but also that people often have difficulty identifying the exact flaw in a given slide.
The results suggest that adherence to good practice when designing slides is important, but that a lot of people’s intuitions about what makes a good powerpoint are themselves flawed. Some people may have an ‘eye’ for good, clean design, whereas others might not be able to avoid making some obvious mistakes. I won’t repeat any more of the papers results here, but I urge anyone who relies on powerpoint to go and read the paper and assimilate its findings into their next presentation.
TTFN.
PS. Another excellent write-up of this paper is here.
Posted in Commentary, Software, Study Skills
Leave a comment
Tags: design, good practice, keynote, powerpoint, presentations, slides