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"As yet, no new vision of personal computing like the one that came from Xerox PARC in the 1970s has emerged." Despite many attempts, namely keynote, prezi and

by alvis 9y ago

"As yet, no new vision of personal computing like the one that came from Xerox PARC in the 1970s has emerged." Despite many attempts, namely keynote, prezi and slide.js, the way we communicate remains largely the same. Can't we come up with something better?

BjoernKW 9y ago
That's an interesting question. PowerPoint, Keynote and their ilk are largely skeuomorphic in that they mimic actual slides on actual overhead projectors, which probably no one below the age of 30 has ever encountered in real life. Tools like Prezi on the other hand often focus too much on impressive animations and transitions that carry little to no information. Presentations created with Prezi often appear as all fluff and flim-flam. Besides, that constant zooming in and out makes me sick when watching it on a large screen at least. There has to be a better way to communicate. I'm not exactly sure how it looks like but to achieve it we probably have to forego metaphors from the 1970s as well as superficial animations that carry no meaning.
- 2K17 9y ago
  You are using same characters as book printers - is your post skeuomorphic like a newspaper section for letters from readers?
- mnw21cam 9y ago
  A while back, I gave a conference presentation, but instead of using Powerpoint, I just had a directory with a load of mp4 videos. It turns out that if you run xine with all of them on the command line, you can use the right arrow to skip to the next one. Put a long-lived static image at the end of each video, and you have a completely custom-built set of slides with whatever transitions you want. In my case, I used the videos to illustrate mathematical models and results. It was a marginally more powerful method than using Powerpoint.
TuringTest 9y ago
> Can't we come up with something better? http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/ http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/ Of course that requires providing the spectators with the capacity to interact with the content at their own pace. If you want to use the lecture format, there's no alternative to crafting a well-structured presentation a la PowerPoint. There could be better tools that could help more in finding the right structure, but the end result will look largely the same - a sequence of images and text that convey the main ideas in an easy-to-grasp format.
- alvis 9y ago
  I disagree with the point that "there's no alternative to crafting a well-structured presentation". I'd argue that a jupyter notebook or equivalent (e.g. pweave) is 1000X better than powerpoint.
  - TuringTest 9y ago
    That sentence was qualified by "in lecture format", i.e. with a teacher exposing words and images with a projector, like you do with PowerPoint. Jupyter notebooks, like explorable explanations, require the audience to interact with the tools and not merely be passive watchers, which was the context for that sentence.
bluGill 9y ago
"There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation ..." http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/Socrates/socrates.html http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/Socrates/socrates.htm... I'm sure there are older presentations, this is just the oldest one I can think of looking for. Humans have had thousands of years to perfect giving presentations. Coming up with something better is something we are unlikely to do because many things have been tried, and the worst have been discarded. You might argue that Socrates didn't have any presentation, but I would argue right back that if you presentation cannot stand without the visual aids that is a problem you should fix. Once your presentation without aids is good the visual aids can help. Note, the above is the ideal. I do not claim to be good at giving presentations.
- alvis 9y ago
  No doubt, the content is the essence of all presentations. All tools are just aids. As you suggest, we have been perfecting presentation for thousands of years. To an extent, powerpoint has captured some of the best ways of communication in my opinion. In particular, the ability to annotate a picture is one of those. After all, a picture is worth more than thousand words. Having said that, there are many ways of communication. Our existing presentation tools have only captured a few of them. We need more.
Twisell 9y ago
Well I once had a 2 day formation about how to use mind map for presentation... This heavily convinced me that slides are the best paradigm so far. Because mind map is far too subjective and can be easily misinterpreted if not totally misunderstood. But it’s unfair to say nobody’s trying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

by alvis 9y ago

BjoernKW 9y ago

That's an interesting question. PowerPoint, Keynote and their ilk are largely skeuomorphic in that they mimic actual slides on actual overhead projectors, which probably no one below the age of 30 has ever encountered in real life. Tools like Prezi on the other hand often focus too much on impressive animations and transitions that carry little to no information. Presentations created with Prezi often appear as all fluff and flim-flam. Besides, that constant zooming in and out makes me sick when watching it on a large screen at least. There has to be a better way to communicate. I'm not exactly sure how it looks like but to achieve it we probably have to forego metaphors from the 1970s as well as superficial animations that carry no meaning.

2K17 9y ago
You are using same characters as book printers - is your post skeuomorphic like a newspaper section for letters from readers?
mnw21cam 9y ago
A while back, I gave a conference presentation, but instead of using Powerpoint, I just had a directory with a load of mp4 videos. It turns out that if you run xine with all of them on the command line, you can use the right arrow to skip to the next one. Put a long-lived static image at the end of each video, and you have a completely custom-built set of slides with whatever transitions you want. In my case, I used the videos to illustrate mathematical models and results. It was a marginally more powerful method than using Powerpoint.

TuringTest 9y ago

> Can't we come up with something better? http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/ http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/ Of course that requires providing the spectators with the capacity to interact with the content at their own pace. If you want to use the lecture format, there's no alternative to crafting a well-structured presentation a la PowerPoint. There could be better tools that could help more in finding the right structure, but the end result will look largely the same - a sequence of images and text that convey the main ideas in an easy-to-grasp format.

alvis 9y ago
I disagree with the point that "there's no alternative to crafting a well-structured presentation". I'd argue that a jupyter notebook or equivalent (e.g. pweave) is 1000X better than powerpoint.
- TuringTest 9y ago
  That sentence was qualified by "in lecture format", i.e. with a teacher exposing words and images with a projector, like you do with PowerPoint. Jupyter notebooks, like explorable explanations, require the audience to interact with the tools and not merely be passive watchers, which was the context for that sentence.

bluGill 9y ago

"There are many reasons why I am not grieved, O men of Athens, at the vote of condemnation ..." http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/Socrates/socrates.html http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/Socrates/socrates.htm... I'm sure there are older presentations, this is just the oldest one I can think of looking for. Humans have had thousands of years to perfect giving presentations. Coming up with something better is something we are unlikely to do because many things have been tried, and the worst have been discarded. You might argue that Socrates didn't have any presentation, but I would argue right back that if you presentation cannot stand without the visual aids that is a problem you should fix. Once your presentation without aids is good the visual aids can help. Note, the above is the ideal. I do not claim to be good at giving presentations.

alvis 9y ago
No doubt, the content is the essence of all presentations. All tools are just aids. As you suggest, we have been perfecting presentation for thousands of years. To an extent, powerpoint has captured some of the best ways of communication in my opinion. In particular, the ability to annotate a picture is one of those. After all, a picture is worth more than thousand words. Having said that, there are many ways of communication. Our existing presentation tools have only captured a few of them. We need more.

Twisell 9y ago

Well I once had a 2 day formation about how to use mind map for presentation... This heavily convinced me that slides are the best paradigm so far. Because mind map is far too subjective and can be easily misinterpreted if not totally misunderstood. But it’s unfair to say nobody’s trying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map