A review of the research that is available reveals some substantial gaps.  Sure, the research seems to support our intuitions that text-laden slides are less effective than slides employing well chosen visuals.  But there are so many more questions.  Martin Shovel, among others, has suggested that the use of expressive language (unsupported by a projected visual) can be more effective than the typical PowerPoint-based approach.  True?  If so, in what situations?  

WhiteboardSelling advocates (you guessed it) designing and delivering your message by drawing on a whiteboard.  This approach is supported by many luminaries including Dan Roam.  Seems like a good idea, but…

How about Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen style?  Who can read that book or his blog and not feel inspired?  But, I doubt the emotional appeals made with beautiful photography are all that appropriate for the conference room.  Am I wrong?

Further, a presentation is much more than a collection of slides.  How should we organize the material?  In Presenting to Win, Jerry Weissman describes 15 different presentation organizations.  When should you apply any one of these?  Or, perhaps there is something magical to the “rule of three” – the ancient Greeks certainly thought so, and public speaking experts continue to argue for its effectiveness (see Andrew Dlugen, Nick Morgan, and Olivia Mitchell).

To be clear, I don’t believe there is a single best approach to presenting.  There are a very large number of factors that come into play – not the least of which is the level of comfort the presenter feels with their presentation material.  However, I do believe we can make significant progress in quantifying the benefits of different presentation strategies in particular contexts.  Using the language employed by Brent Dykes on his PowerPoint Ninja blog – it is important to know which tools can be applied effectively in different situations.

This is the challenge that has inspired us to form Firestarter Labs.  Recognizing that we, on our own, cannot possibly fill all the gaps in research literature, our software will assist academics, salespeople, and others in conducting targeted experiments and sharing their results.  Our hope is that based on these findings we will be able to deliver advice that is increasingly supported by empirical evidence.

For those that are interested, here is a set of the academic research we have found useful:

Alley, M. and Neeley, K.  Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides: A Case for Sentence Headlines and Visual Evidence, Technical Communication, vol. 52, no. 4.  2005.

Alley, M., Schreiber, M., Ramsdell, K., & Muffo, J. How the Design of Headlines in Presentation Slides Affects Audience Retention. Technical Communication, 53, 2006.

Atherton, C.  Visual Attention, a psychologist’s perspective, presented at Technical Communication UK Conference.  See coverage by Olivia Mitchell at New evidence that bullet-points don’t work

Blokzijl, W. and Andeweg, B.  The effect of Text slides Compared to Visualizations on Learning and Appreciation in Lectures. In Engineering the Future of Human Communication IEEE International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings. Seattle, 2007.

Blokzijl, W. and Andeweg, B. The effects of text slide format and presentational quality on learning in college lectures.  2005 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference Proceedings. 2005.

Hamann, S.B., Ely, T., Grafton, S., & Kilts, C.  Amygdala activity related to enhanced memory for pleasant and aversive stimuli, Nature Neuroscience, 2: 289-293, 1999.

Kock, N., Chatelain-Jardón, R., and Carmona, J. Using Surprise in Human-Computer Interfaces to Enhance Knowledge Communication Effectiveness.  Proceedings of the 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Waikoloa, Hawaii, 2008.

Mackiewicz,. J.  Comparing PowerPoint Experts’ and University Students’ Opinions about PowerPoint Presentations.  Journal of Technical Writing & Communication, 38: 149-165, 2008.

Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R.  Aids to computer-based multimedia learning. Learning and Instruction, 12: 107-119, 2002.

Muldoon, C.A. Shall I Compare Thee to a Pressure Wave? Visualisation, Analogy, Insight and Communication in Physics.  Doctoral Thesis. Science Studies Centre, Department of Psychology, University of Bath, England, 2006.

Sweller, J.  Cognitive Load Theory, learning difficulty, and instructional design. Learning and Instruction, 4: 295-312, 1994.

Scott Berkun just posted a teaser video for his new book Confessions of a Public Speaker on his blog.  My initial impression was that it was an exciting and quirky ad that effectively conveyed his onstage personality.

I was surprised to find that this 94 second video sparked an interesting discussion centered on how the rapid display of text, which is matched to Scott’s speech, increases the cognitive load on the viewer and therefore distracts from the message.  This wasn’t my personal experience, but the fact that there was near consensus amongst the other very knowledgeable contributors, made me curious.

I decided to watch the video again and interestingly, I found the text so disturbing I had to look away a time or two.  Was it because I was being more analytical? Or, was it simply a difference in context (my task load etc.)

 So, the question – what would a random sample of people think?  Being a true geek, I ran a quick test on a favorite service of mine – Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.  $2 and 30 minutes later I had some (admittedly unscientific) data.  20 people (who presumably were unfamiliar with Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory or Mayer’s Theory of Multimedia Learning) watched the video and answered a simple three question survey: 

1. What did you learn / take-away from this video?
2. What did you like about the video?
3. What did you dislike about the video?

 75% of respondents clearly displayed that they got the primary message.  The comments of the remaining entries were too general to make a judgment regarding how much got through (e.g., “An advertisement for a book about improving your public speaking skills.”).

25% unequivocally stated they liked the use of text in the video

50% stated that they disliked or were in some way conflicted about the use of text

Here is a sample of the responses:

Learned: I learned that the guy speaking in the video has written a book on his experiences being a public speaker, what the mistakes he has made were and how to do the right things to become a good public speaker. I learned that this book may help me become a better public speaker.

Pro: I liked the natural way it was presented by the person in the video and the very quick way he was able to put his points across.

Con: I disliked the popping up of text, while the person was speaking. It seemed good in the beginning, but the popping up of the text lasted too long and created a fake feeling of coolness which introduced a level of “visual patronizing”. What I mean by that, is that most of the text that popped up was not really profound, and thus, I was wondering while watching it why emphasize all of what he was saying, rather than just the important points.

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Learned: I learned that this book exists, and that it appears to be pretty well recommended as an aid to public speaking.

Pro: It held my interest, with the music and graphics. I think I liked the transcription of what was being said, though I’m not 100 % on it.

Con: Its strengths could border on weaknesses — it was very busy and in-your-face, which depending on my mood could have been irritating. The chicken sound was a little much, too.

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Learned: I learned that Scott Berkun has a new book out on public speaking. Sounds like the book could help you if you think you are a boring speaker. I’d be interested to know how this book would help with family communication.

Pro: Scott is very engaging without special visual effects but I liked being able to read and hear the message at the same time.

Con: I wanted to hear one example of how he messed up! I thought that it was a little short in regard to the content of the book.

What can we make of this data?  My guess is that the use of text created a feeling of excitement (which viewers liked) but that most were overwhelmed.  Those in the latter group would clearly have suffered if the information being conveyed had any substantial complexity.  As suggested by Kathy Sierra (of Creating Passionate Users), Olivia Mitchell, Chris Atherton, and others, there are likely ways to create the same excitement without the associated risk of overload.

If your interested, the raw survey data can be found here.

Judge for yourself.

His paper (which won the best paper award) describes a model that captures the types of experiences an audience can have through a printed publication or presentation.

The Author

For example., a head shot of a person along with an autograph and a block of text (such as seen on the editor’s page in magazines) is a pattern that allows you to feel the presence of  the author.  Without  the signature,  however, the pattern is incomplete and the intention is obscured.  Is it a first person experience or perhaps a story about that person?

Third Person Interior

A photograph of a hand-written  letter (as contrasted with the letter itself) gives the audience the sense that the author is referring to the mind of the writer of the letter.   Likewise,  photographs of people displaying significant facial  expressions  can  signal  a  wide  variety of  emotions,  such  as  anger,  sadness,  fear, etc.

External World

The simple display of physical objects is the most common approach to providing the audience with the experience of the world outside of the minds of  the or some third person.  Interestingly, a small tweak to this pattern can a sense of recommendation by the speaker.  For instance, the simultaneous display of multiple product photographs with captions.

Public  Ideas

Public ideas are those shared by or open to the public such as scientific findings.  Patterns that signal public knowledge include the display of photographs showing scenes of teaching or existing publications (e.g., newspaper clippings).  Typographic patterns such as citations and block quotes also provide the experience of public knowledge.

Interactivity

The most obvious way to use visuals to create interactivity in a presentation is through the display of questions.  Other experiences of interactivity can be created through the incremental display of steps in a process or the like.

Ishizaki, S. Toward a Unified Theory of Visual-Verbal Strategies in Communication Design, In Proceedings of the 2009 International Professional Communication Conference..