Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m not a fan of PowerPoint (or any other slide software) – specifically the use of long bulleted lists as de facto speaker notes more for the benefit of the speaker than her audience. Those who have seen me speak will know that I am a big fan of flipcharts and whiteboards – writing things down as you go. Perhaps, it’s my bias as a former university teacher, but I like writing and eschew pre-packaged slides.
To be sure, I’ve seen slide decks from people like Seth Godin and Josh Linkner that I thought were beautiful and a good accompaniment to the speech. These tend to be either gorgeous pictures or funny punch lines to and commentaries on things the speaker is saying.
And I’ve long been a fan of the slide design work of Garr Reynolds, author of the classic design book Presentation Zen, and Nancy Duarte, author of several excellent books, including Slideology and Resonate.
They both advocate good storytelling and minimally intrusive slides that support the story line in elegant, usually pictorial, ways.
But for me the model is still Bill Clinton – you don’t see him using slides, do you? Or Simon Sinek – no slides, just a flipchart.
And going back further than that, as a boy I attended a summer camp in the wilds of northern Vermont, Camp Flying Cloud, one of the Farm and Wilderness Camps that I believe still exist, much in the same way that I believe in Shangri-La, presumably in a more modern form. I attended the camp when it was just starting up, and we helped build the buildings even as we stayed in them.
The Director of the camp was an unforgettable individual who would show up from time to time at all-camp pow-wows. We’d light a big fire of logs, have dinner, and sit around the campfire talking the night away. When the moment was right, the Director would tell adventure stories about trappers and Native Americans that thrilled this 12-year-old’s imagination. I never forgot him or the stories. He had a rare skin disease that caused his skin to hang in loose folds all over his body; of course we found that fascinating, but he made you forget that when he launched into one of his stories.
No slides. No flipchart. Just storytelling.
Good storytelling conjures up far more thrilling pictures in the mind than PowerPoint can show.
But now there’s a study that suggests that I may be on to something with my biases. Stanford University Graduate School of Business professor Zakary Tormal has tested all three approaches in a recent study – the typical bullet-points-and-stock-photography slide deck that I’ve so often decried, the Zen approach favored by Reynolds and Duarte, and the whiteboard approach. What he didn’t do was try no visuals at all, but perhaps that’s for a later date.
In any case, to my surprise, there was no difference in favorability, comprehension and retention between the typical PowerPoint approach and the Zen approach. But the whiteboard approach outscored both, by about 10 percent. That’s more than the margin of error of this small study, apparently.
So there you have it. If you want to increase positive reception of your talks, comprehension, and retention, then put down that clicker and go to the board or flip chart.
Let’s hope the professor tests no slides at all against the other options. I, for one, want to know if my camp Director and Bill Clinton have the right idea, or if a whiteboard approach does in fact improve retention over “Once upon a time….”
What tools or support did the most memorable speech you ever saw employ? Or did it, Clinton-like, just depend on the art of the storyteller alone?
Thanks Nick- another great post! I would love to read the original research but can’t find it when I click on the link to Professor Tormal’s profile. Has it been published yet, and do you know the title of the paper?
Hi, Rose! Here’s the data from the press release I got:
The “Picture Superiority Effect” says concepts are much more likely to be remembered if they are presented as pictures rather than as words. In fact, research has discovered that visuals are recalled six times better than words alone.
But, what kind of visual support works best? In other words, is there a superior picture approach that maximizes the Picture Superiority Effect?
In a recent set of experiments, Stanford University Graduate School of Business professor Zakary Tormala tested the potential effects of whiteboard visuals versus more traditional PowerPoint approaches. The aim of the research was to determine whether “whiteboarding” can enhance presentation effectiveness, as defined by metrics of engagement, enjoyment, credibility, and—most critically—recall and persuasive impact.
The studies found a statistically significant difference in favor of the whiteboard approach, which outperformed the PowerPoint presentations on a wide range of measures assessing message impact.
Nick,
I am wondering where to see the research too. You seem to have more information than just the press release. Can you let us know?
I am a fan of the combination approach.
I use a handful of slides with pictures (no words). I have only one slide with bullet points. And at several point during my presentation, I write on the slides.
I am not a fan of flip charts. To write, you typically have to turn your back to the audience. And you are glued to the stage. Instead, I write on the slides using my iPad and Keynote. This is done wirelessly (via bluetooth or wifi) allowing me to even be in the audience while writing/drawing.
Thanks for the article!
Thanks, Stephen! You are much better looking than me, so you don’t want to turn your back on the audience, even briefly. I find it gives my audience a few seconds respite (from looking at me) so they don’t seem to mind too much.