[Sigia-l] Smackdown: Edward Tufte vs. Don Norman

[Gray, Laurie]

To your point, Eric - I think that PowerPoint has done more to fracture
communication in the world of business than just about anything else - IM
included.

To wit: working for clients in which *everything* must be placed into a
.ppt. Any content had to fit into the context of that slide. Any
description, rationale, ...anything... had to be explained in the context of
bullet points. Because they were on the opposite coast from me, the ability
to stand up and *discuss* these designs was severely limited...

A good visual design is highly expressive, but HOW do you create a visual
design to EXPLAIN a visual design?

Laurie

-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf
Of Eric Reiss
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 4:42 AM
To: liv at livlab.com; Sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Smackdown: Edward Tufte vs. Don Norman

Livia wrote:
You don't need to have 15 slides with bullet points when you can
summarize your concept into a single, concise visual representation.
THAT's why Powerpoint sucks. It's hard enough to have the objectivity
to summarize your ideas into cohesive points that are easy to
communicate, but doing that with a tool that doesn't support that
activity in any way (but instead gives you templates/tools that
reinforce a models that don't work) is crazy hard. 

And I write:
I've really got to reread the instructions for PowerPoint. I didn't
realize you HAD to have bullet points. I usually use it to show
pictures, movies, or play sound files. Since I've always been able to
share these media with my audiences, I've never felt PowerPoint has
failed to support my activities.

I think it's unfair to say the tool sucks just because it doesn't
guarantee an exciting presentation. Should we therefore be happy
(site-mapping program of choice) sucks or all our clients would
automatically become ace information architects?

Best,
Eric

e-reiss & associates
copenhagen, denmark
www.e-reiss.com


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