Brevity is the Soul of PowerPoint

At last, a study that proves what you already knew about PowerPoint:

“Slide presentations as speech suppressors: When and why learners miss oral information,”  Christof Wecker, Computers & Education (2012) [abstract]

There’s a nice summary by Eric Horow, but here it is in bullet points:

• If your slides aren’t brief, you should
• A)  Speak without them, or
• B) Put the entire presentation on slides and don’t say a word.

We’ve always liked Guy Kawasaki’s rule of thumb: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30-point font.

What happens when your slides aren’t concise?

Video: Don McMillan

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Short Link:  http://wp.me/p6sb6-cyl

Top image (“Portrait with PowerPoint, after Pieter Jansz van Asch”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Tags: information transfer, PowerPoint, presentations, psychology, slides