How to avoid death By PowerPoint | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholmSalon

Key Concepts

• Death by PowerPoint
• Cognitive Optimization
• Working Memory Limitations
• Redundancy Effect
• Visual Hierarchy
• Contrast and Focus
• Object Count per Slide

Why PowerPoints Look the Way They Do

The speaker opens by questioning the acceptance of poorly designed PowerPoints and the cycle of creating equally bad presentations after being subjected to them. He argues that this isn't due to vengeance or lack of intelligence, but rather a lack of understanding of how the brain processes visual information. He highlights the frustration of attending presentations with dismal PowerPoints filled with charts, graphical elements, and excessive text, leading to boredom and wasted time.

The Problem: Ineffective PowerPoint Design

The speaker presents examples of terrible PowerPoints, including:

• A slide from a top university advising students on PowerPoint design (example not detailed in transcript).
• A slide from a customer deemed nearly unreadable.
• The "worst PowerPoint" delivered by a public CEO in 2010.
• A complex and confusing slide from the UN in Afghanistan.

He contrasts these with a seemingly better slide, but emphasizes that even those are problematic. He asserts that 90% of the information presented with such slides is forgotten within 30 seconds.

Working Memory and Information Retention

The speaker illustrates the limitations of working memory with the train ticket example: forgetting a simple "Car five, seat 42" multiple times. He emphasizes that the same limited working memory is used for both everyday tasks and processing PowerPoint slides. He quotes neurologist John Medina: "If companies would have as little respect for business as they have for presentations, the majority would go bankrupt."

Five Design Principles to Avoid Death by PowerPoint

The speaker introduces five design principles to cognitively and psychologically optimize PowerPoint slides:

1. One Message per Slide

• Principle: Each slide should convey only one key message.
• Explanation: Analogizes to a party conversation where overhearing one's name diverts attention, causing one to miss the ongoing conversation. Similarly, multiple messages on a slide compete for attention, hindering comprehension.
• Actionable Insight: Simplify slides to focus on a single, clear message.

2. Working Memory and the Redundancy Effect

• Principle: Avoid presenting text and speaking simultaneously.
• Explanation: Cites John Sweller and Mayer's "redundancy effect," stating that when text is read aloud, retention is near zero. The brain cannot effectively process both simultaneously.
• Actionable Insight: Use PowerPoint for visual aids (short text, images) and move detailed text to the documentation field (notes section).

3. Size and Visual Hierarchy

• Principle: The most important element on a slide should be the largest.
• Explanation: The brain is naturally drawn to moving objects, signaling colors (red, orange, yellow), high contrast, and large objects. Traditional PowerPoint templates often prioritize the headline, which is rarely the most important content.
• Example: Shows how reducing the title size and increasing the content size shifts the viewer's focus.
• Actionable Insight: Adjust the size of elements to guide the audience's attention to the most crucial information.

4. Contrast and Focus

• Principle: Use contrast to control the audience's focus.
• Explanation: A list without contrast causes the eyes to wander. Using contrast to highlight one item at a time directs attention effectively.
• Example: Demonstrates how highlighting specific rows in a table with contrast guides the viewer's eye.
• Argument: White backgrounds in PowerPoints create excessive contrast, drawing attention away from the presenter.
• Actionable Insight: Use contrast strategically to emphasize key information. Consider using dark backgrounds to reduce screen glare and shift focus to the presenter.

5. Objects and Cognitive Load

• Principle: Limit the number of objects on a slide to six.
• Explanation: Too many objects increase cognitive load, requiring the audience to expend significantly more energy to process the information.
• Experiment: Demonstrates the difference in processing time between seeing two objects (0.2 seconds) and counting four objects (1.2 seconds), a 500% increase in cognitive effort.
• Actionable Insight: Aim for a maximum of six objects per slide to minimize cognitive overload. The speaker uses the Swedish word for six, "[Sex]", as a mnemonic device.
• Argument: The number of slides is less important than the number of objects per slide. Corporate limitations on slide count often lead to cramming more information onto fewer slides, exacerbating the problem.

Conclusion

The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of creating "Ahh" moments (easy comprehension) rather than "Ugh" moments (cognitive overload) for the audience. He references the movie "Rain Man" to illustrate the difference between savant-level perception and typical cognitive processing. He advocates for more slides with fewer objects per slide. He ends with a cross-examination of the audience to reinforce the five principles.