Perception and Use of PowerPoint at Library Instruction Conferences

Read/write learners, as well as all the other types of learners, would be better served by a speaker that either foregoes PowerPoint here or by a PowerPoint slide that provides visuals and sounds—charts, diagrams, illustrations, photos, videos, or podcasts. This slide should be accompanied by a handout that contains, according to Tufte, “sentences with subjects and verbs” and a narrative.¹³

In terms of instructional design, few, if any, learners are best served by the dominant practices in PowerPoint design at library conferences. According to the VARK theory of learning styles, one’s learning style is primarily either visual, auditory, touch, or read/write. In other words, a self-identified read/write learner is not only able to learn through text. A read/write learner can learn through visuals and sound during the presentation and read text in a handout after the presentation. Similarly, the visual and auditory learners can learn through graphics and sound during the presentation and through text in the handout after the presentation. Presentations should be engaging enough to motivate all types of learners to read the handout after the presentation

How Many Slides

Like many aspects of effective PowerPoint design, there is no general agreement on the optimal number of slides. To illustrate, Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government’s Multimedia Services recommends not covering more than three slides per minute.¹⁴ Using this guideline, LOTW presenters could have showed up to 135 slides and LOEX presenters a whopping 180 slides. Simultaneously, and in stark contrast, the speaker guide for a technology conference, Linux Bangalore, encourages presenters to “on an average, assume 5 minutes per slide. A 30 minute talk would have no more than 6–10 slides.”¹⁵ From this perspective, LOEX programs should have limited their program to a maximum of ten slides and LOTW presenters to about seven or eight slides. Meanwhile at Dickinson College, Technology Services points out that “a good rule of thumb is one slide per minute.”¹⁶ Through this lens, LOEX and LOTW speakers used too many slides. Finally, Princeton University’s Library Excellence Toolkit on Presentation Skills recommends one or two slides per minute.¹⁷ Following this general rule of thumb, LOEX and LOTW speakers had just about the right number of slides.

The slide-count rules listed above are most appropriate for text slides. Presenters preparing text slides should heed the “too many slides” complaint voiced by respondents. However, presenters showing slides that largely feature audio and visuals will not find the slide-count rules useful.

Words Per Slide

Presentation consultants differ on the optimal number of words or the word limit per slide. To illustrate, Seth Godin argues that you should have “no more than six words on a slide. EVER.”¹⁸ Meanwhile over at Corbin Ball Associates, presenters are counseled not to exceed fifteen words on any slide.¹⁹

The top four characteristics of bad PowerPoint presentations identified by respondents have to do with the use of text (“speaker reads the slides,” “overuse of text,” “full sentences and paragraphs instead of bullet points,” and “text so small I couldn’t read it”). Generally, the more text-heavy a slide, the more likely the audience will be annoyed with the presentation.

Slide Color

Color selection is particularly useful in our analysis because respondents ranked low color contrast as one of the most annoying elements of bad Power-Point presentations. Thus the examination of contrast between the colors chosen for the background and the text or graphics is important because it affects readability. The results from the color contrast calculator test indicate that, in general, presenters did a good job of selecting colors that had enough contrast. However, 21 percent of the presentations suffered from poor contrast. These presentations are likely to have contributed to the “slides hard to see because of color choice” problem ranked by respondents as the fifth most annoying element of bad PowerPoint presentations. Specific recommendations for color selection are provided by a couple of presentation consultants. According to PowerPoint presentation consultant Geetesh Bajaj, most people’s favorite presentation background color is blue.²⁰ Eighteen presentations (27 percent) used blue as a background. Bajaj recommends using dark blue backgrounds with white or yellow text. Seven presentations (10 percent) used a dark blue background with white or yellow text. When selecting dark backgrounds with light text, Paradi suggests a dark blue (navy shade) or dark purple with white or yellow text. For light backgrounds with dark text, Paradi advises a warm beige with dark blue, black, or dark purple text.²¹ Two presentations (6 percent) used a tan background with black text.

Genre

In effect, the recurring elements used in Power-Point presentations at library conferences provide audiences with a soft infomercial (establishing a problem or need, solution to the problem or need, product demo, testimonial endorsing the product, quotes from an “unbiased” expert linked to the product, low standards of proof, etc). The approach is persuasive rather than critical. These infomercial-like elements reinforce Tufte’s complaint that PowerPoint presentations have “an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.”²²

Although librarians often see these elements in PowerPoint presentations, they don’t often notice them. The repetition of these standard elements results in deeply uniform presentations and contributes to the perception by numerous respondents that “PowerPoint is boring.”

Colleague-Centered Presentations

Knowledge lives in communities. Colleague-centered presentations tap into the community’s collective experience and intelligence by proposing problems rather than providing solutions. Our vision of a preferred presentation at a professional conference is a Colleague-centered presentation. It reflects our belief that the collective experience and intelligence of the audience often exceeds that of a single or few presenters. For those considering presentations at library conferences, we offer the following guiding principles underlying Colleague-centered presentations:

1. Think of yourself as a facilitator rather than the speaker. Think of the program as a conversation. Consider those who have gathered together for the program as colleagues and contributors rather than the audience. As the facilitator, you will not be pouring wisdom and truth into a passive audience but coordinating discussion with active colleagues that have something to contribute to your ideas.

2. Design your program so it taps into and unleashes the collective intelligence of your colleagues. Although you can start your program by sharing your findings or business practices, after no longer than twenty minutes, involve your colleagues by posing problems and asking their advice rather than simply providing them with solutions. Note that the adult attention span is 20 minutes.²³ The mismatch between the typical 60/90/120–minute program at a library conference and the 20-minute adult attention span suggests you should include your most important points in the first 20 minutes of your program.

3. Rather than delivering a predetermined, unidirectional monologue for the majority of the presentation, anticipate areas of interest and questions and build a presentation that is flexible enough to flow with collegial interest.

4. Look upon the presentation as a learning experience for your colleagues rather than a teaching opportunity for you.

5. Consider your presentation as an idea. The emergence and evolution of ideas is a social process. Presentations represent a stage of development in the life cycle of your ideas. Interaction with your colleagues during your presentation should enrich your ideas and provide you with some new insight that either reinforces or challenges your thoughts. In essence, your idea’s life span should exceed your presentation. Depending on the life cycle of your idea, connection and engagement with colleagues during your presentation might lead to a reformulation of an idea that leads to an improved publication after the presentation or a change in the direction or implementation of a library service.

6. Imagine your presentation as a stepping stone for colleagues to read your handout (a position paper or essay written in a word-processing program that supplements or replaces your printed PowerPoint slides).

7. Remember that PowerPoint is only one element in a successful presentation experience. In addition to providing useful content to improve library services, part of your job as a conference presenter is to connect with your colleagues emotionally. Although people can be moved by presentation content, providing your colleagues with a voice and space to share their insights and problems often goes a long way toward creating a likeable and memorable learning experience.

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