Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
 Not Terribly useful May 22, 2009
B. Powlen (Virginia)
Not a particularly useful product, I gave it to my boss who does nothing but bitch about the evils of Powerpoint presentations...
 An enjoyable indictment March 9, 2009
Trevor Burnham (Ann Arbor, MI)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Tufte makes a cogent case against PowerPoint in this sleek, catalog-sized volume, blaming it for, among other things, the Columbia disaster. He recommends paper handouts as an alternative for anyone presenting serious science, numbers-intensive business, or anything else requiring thought. Does he go a bit overboard? Certainly. But that's what makes the book fun rather than pedantic. Everyone in my PhD program has read it at some point with great interest, pondered it for a while, and then reverted to using PowerPoint. C'est la vie.
However, before you buy this, realize that this volume is also a chapter in Tufte's latest full-sized design book, Beautiful Evidence. If, like me, you enjoy having Tufte's works on your shelves, then this excerpted edition is of little use.
Specific, but excellent March 9, 2009
Dean Hunt (San Francisco, CA)
Most of the negative reviews seem to stem from an understandable disappointment: that this is a short pamphlet, which does not give much in the way of dogmatic slide-design advice, but instead gives convincing reasons that you consider putting your neck out there by presenting in a conspicuously different way.
If this description turns you off, buy it anyway; you have all the more reason to.
It will stick with you as all of Tufte's work does, and -- since we nearly all live in a PP world anyway -- when you do return to the slide machine you'll know how to share (or, perhaps unfortunately, hide) information more efficiently.
And, if you're the person who has to listen to all these presentations and make decisions based on them, you'll be all the better at spotting the holes and the things covered up.
With such a vast canon of literary analysis, film studies, and journalism theory, it's troubling that the medium which is perhaps most central to corporate life in America has only one (moderately) sustained criticism. If PowerPoint has any part in the way that you make decisions or learn, you must read this.
-Dean
 What's the goal? December 8, 2008
B. McMackin
If your goal is to learn about improving your presentation style, with or without powerpoint, then this book is not for you.
IF, however, you are interested in reasons and times not to use powerpoint, this might be OK.
If you are looking for a rant on why powerpoint is not an effective presentation tool for complex presentations, this most certainly is for you.
 Presents the bad without an alternative good November 16, 2008
S. J. Chatwin (Ojai, CA USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've admired Tufte's work since he first published "visual display..." so I leapt on this when it appeared and purchased 17 copies for colleagues at work. They liked and agreed with it, but dismissed it as impractical advice!
I find I agree with almost all his points about PowerPoint's dumbing down of information, but then sat back an thought about the message and the medium. Powerpoint is a tool for presentations - it focuses the audience, keeps the presenter on track and provides handy reminders. It's not intended to be a high information content medium.
However the abuse of powerpoint comes in its use a a non-presentation way to distribute information. So often a person who misses the presentation asks for the slides as an alternative to being there. Now Tufte comes into his own and his points are more relevant because the Powerpoint has become the message and there is no presenter to amplify the information.
This pamphlet is useful, but only when considered in context of what you want to do with your PowerPoint slides - are they going to become the message (as in the Columbia examination) or are they the medium to keep the presenter on track. Read his other books as well and write a White Paper or report to go with your slides.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 47
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