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

[Listera]

Karl Fast:

> After all, the thinking goes, if an executive summary is good (which it is),
> then powerpoint must be better. I am not against distilling complex ideas into
> brief summaries, only against distilling them down too far. Bullets tend to do
> that.

I'll go back to your original problem with the CEO regarding a PPT version
as an indication that you thought through the problem. On that, he's
absolutely right because, here, THE FORMAT IS THE MESSAGE.

The mere act of condensing a long-format document to a small number of
slides/bullets by definition requires a process of distilling, thinking
through. Now, you may do a good job of that or not, but that's for the CEO
to decide. What he doesn't have to wonder about is whether you took the time
to think through. By presenting in the PPT format, you've already signaled
the fact that you've done the deed. Next is a judgment of well you've done
that. For a busy CEO, that's a reasonably good bet.

I'll repeat what I often say here regarding my design approach: a Japanese
garden is never done until there are no more rocks to remove.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba