Edward Tufte, Microsoft Powerpoint, and the Bottom Line

20060918 - Tufte Seminar, originally uploaded by sadalit.

Yesterday I attended Edward Tufte’s seminar “Presenting Data and Information,” in New Haven. I came away inspired, with a lot of new ideas to try and theories to consider. One of the big concepts is the appropriate use of PowerPoint. Tufte spent the last two hours of the course making an impassioned case against the use of Microsoft PowerPoint for data presentation. He pinned the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia on the fact that the NASA engineers used Powerpoint, instead of a technical report, to communicate (ineffectively) the risks to the higher-ups at the Administration. He showed, one after another, the ways Powerpoint makes the user conform to its limitations instead of enabling the user to present data appropriately. And he concluded with “From now on, your presentation software should be Word, not PowerPoint.”

On many points, it’s easy to agree that PowerPoint is not the right medium “when it’s important.” The engineers at NASA could have done a more thorough and clear presentation. And rocket scientists in general probably shouldn’t be using marketing software to communicate during a crisis. But Tufte’s solution, to give a two-page two-sided handout instead of (or at the very least along with) every PowerPoint presentation, assumes that the NASA bigwigs, and others like them, actually want to read and learn.

How many times have you heard otherwise from the higher-ups at your company? “Don’t make me think!” “Don’t make me read!” “Just give me the bottom line!” When your own supervisor or manager is so inundated with information that you know they won’t read past the first few lines of your e-mails, if they read them at all, why would you expect that the CIO will welcome a double-sided document in 12 point type? Tufte derides PowerPoint presentations for reading like a child’s primer, with just a few words to each line and only a few lines to each page, but the message I’ve received repeatedly in the corporate world is that this is as much as decision-makers will accept before they turn to their Blackberry. And if you’re the staffer who gives too much information and can’t, or won’t, boil it down, you lose favor.

I suspect those leaders at NASA didn’t want to analyze multiple pages of data. I’m betting they wanted their trusted staff to make a recommendation in a quick slide presentation. This is the nature of doing business now. It’s not an issue with the tools so much as with people and processes, and a comprehensive document on its own does not ensure success. Before Hurricane Katrina, there had been expert reports warning about the vulnerability of the New Orleans flood control system. A Big Dig safety inspector predicted in a 1999 memo that the bolts holding the ceiling panels in the tunnel would not hold up over time. These warnings were not delivered via PowerPoint.

Decision-makers don’t always act on the information they’re given, whether because they have incentive to ignore it, they don’t understand what’s at stake, or they just can’t take it all in. The bearer of bad news may have political reasons to be vague. But in any of these cases, which would be the more direct way to get results – a Word document with a detailed explanation, or a PowerPoint slide in big type that reads, “If we don’t do it this way, PEOPLE WILL DIE?” Before dismissing a tool entirely, I think we have a responsibility to examine why it got so popular in the first place.

Edward Tufte has a forum with a great long list of interesting topics, with an RSS feed, at:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a?topic_id=1
His essay “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint” is a chapter in his most recent book, Beautiful Evidence, and also on his website, in the “Ask E.T.” forum, topic: “PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports.” The NASA PowerPoint slide used to communicate the Columbia data can be seen here.

Comments

[Jeff]

As much as I admire Tufte on many points (and as much as I hate PowerPoint most of the time), he does get religious about some topics. I agree with you that PowerPoint is not *always* an evil. It's overused, but that doesn't mean it's also useless.