Death to weak PowerPoint: strategies to create effective visual presentations

摘要

There is nothing more frustrating than sitting through a presentation bombarded by slide after slide of small text, difficult to read graphs, irrelevant clip art images, and poorly designed templates. Often to blame is the use and abuse of PowerPoint1 (e.g., Tufte, 2003; Bumiller, 2010). Academics typically only endure weak PowerPoint presentations at conferences, while university students may be exposed to them several times a day for an entire semester. Strong PowerPoint presentations enhance student engagement and help students retain information (e.g., Susskind, 2005), while weak PowerPoint slides can lead to distraction, boredom, and impeded learning (Savoy et al., 2009).