It’s 2009. I think everyone out there knows that Powerpoint is, at best, overused (at worst:Stalin). Particularly gruesome is the animated slide-transition “feature,” which I think most agree has the same communication effectiveness and subtle charm as “<blink>” tags, mouse-cursor trails, and hilarious animated gifs of cats.
So how is it that presentation tool Prezi is suddenly the toast of the town? The quick sell looks like this:
“Prezi allows anyone who can sketch an idea on a napkin to create and perform stunning non-linear presentations with relations, zooming into details, and adjusting to the time left without the need to skip slides.”
I love how the first phrase suggests that there’s this great mass of napkin-sketching geniuses out there who can’t get their ideas out (until now!). I mean, I like mind maps, but turning one into an outline is pretty easy. So the presentations are “non-linear.” Does that mean the audience can interact with them, zooming in on sub-points of interest? If it does, let me show you this thing called “hyperlinks.” And is skipping slides really this tremendous problem?
When it comes down to it, the real selling point of Prezi is just the “stunning” presentation. Now, perhaps I’m jaded, but “zoom-in/zoom-out” leaves me unstunned. More importantly, though, this seems a textbook example of chartjunk: a “really great” visual effect that serves only to obscure or distract from real information. I think (hope) it’ll have the lasting appeal of Powerpoint’s racecar-noise-with-flying-in-bullet-point.
Perhaps I’m missing something (feel free to correct me in the comments) or just being curmudgeonly, but I think Prezi is vastly overhyped. Powerpoint is bad enough. Also: I like how the Prezi logo, by mixing case, suggests that the product may in fact be called “Pretzl.” Ok, now that’s definitely being curmudgeonly.
8 Comments
well, personally I think you *are* missing something – I think the power here is to use the different levels of magnification as different narrative frames, so that the more you zoom in, the more you dig into the story. Add to that the ability to explore it both sequentially, via a path, and non-sequentially, by zomming and panning, and what you have here is a presentation tool *that is also* a decent multimedia authoring environment, so that the artifact you leave is usable in more than just a sequential, slidedeck way. But then that’d just my $0.02
Scott, I’m with you on the value of “different narrative frames” to help you “dig into the story.” I just can’t help thinking that this is a problem that’s already been solved–and solved more elegantly–by hyperlinked HTML. I can get an outline like
1. point one
2. point two
3. point three
and click to see more on the point that interests me. If page refreshes are the problem, 20 lines of Javascript gives me show/hide for links.
I admit that this may not look as pretty to some, but it also has significant advantages:
In return for giving up all this, Prezi gives you: cool zooming effects. I just don’t think that’s a fair trade; if your ideas are good, they’ll look good with out any whiz-bang special effects.
Believe me: as a one-time graphic designer, I have a keen love for beautifully-presented ideas, and I think that (despite what Semantic Web devotees might like to think), presentation is often inseparable from content. Prezi, though, seems less to beautify ideas than tart them up.
It’s likely that Prezi will find an enthusiastic audience, just as Powerpoint has, in boardrooms across the world. But I don’t share your hope that a lot of people are going to learn more because of it.
Prezi follows along in a number of systems that have attempted to show the context of the current slide in the larger collection of slides.
This is a standard visualization technique, called focus-context, and has some value.
The points here are all good, but I believe there’s solid data showing some value in exposing contextual placement in the course of a presentation of slides.
AndyEd, of course you’re right that Prezi isn’t the first do to this; in fact, I understand that MS is working on adding this to Powerpoint right now. My point, though, isn’t that Prezi has a bad goal. My contention, rather, is that Prezi’s secret sauce–zoom ‘n’ pan–doesn’t really do anything to meaningfully enhance communication. In fact, by distracting the audience with (barely) cool effects, it works against the clear expression of ideas.
I think we agree that focus-context is a Good Thing. But Prezi (at least in the examples I saw on their site) isn’t really showing me meaningful context–just a really small picture of the slide. I can see the heading, but not the text. How is that more context than a hyperlinked outline? Maybe there are some examples I didn’t see where the presentations was wholly visual; I suppose that might be more useful.
All that said, my Prezi criticism has nothing beyond the dubious authority of “what I think” to back it up. I’d be more than happy to eat my words if I could see some of the “solid data” you mention.
Let’s face it, guys. It’s a moot point. The reason everyone uses PowerPoint is NOT that it’s a better package. Persuasion, now defunct, was decades ahead of PowerPoint in allowing the user to design multiple layouts; Harvard Graphics was way ahead in classy graphics and charts. People use PowerPoint because Bill Gates figured out a way to get it on every business machine sold, long enough to fool the non-designer business person into thinking it was the next best thing since sliced bread. You gotta have more than zoom-in/-out to overcome that!
I’m partner in the Prezi competitor Ahead http://www.ahead.com, and would like to argue why the online zooming approach has it’s advantages apart from being stunning.
1) It’s online, hence you can share and embed your presentations anywhere on the web. Try that with a PPT
2) PPT is essentially built for text-based communication. Ahead (and Prezi) are built for communicating visually (which has proven to be the most effective way to comunicate)
3) You can present your information in a wider spatial context. Zoom out to get an overview, zoom in on to look at a detail. Ahead is mostly used by architects, designers and photographers and neither Keynote nor Powerpoint give them an adequate way of presenting visual content in the detail and richness that they require.
That said, I totally agree that for the left-brained business world PPT is still the best and safest bet, and probably will be for quite some time. But for right-brainers the spatial approach Ahead & Prezi offers is far superior.
Let’s face it, guys. It’s a moot point. The reason everyone uses PowerPoint is NOT that it’s a better package. Persuasion, now defunct, was decades ahead of PowerPoint in allowing the user to design multiple layouts; Harvard Graphics was way ahead in classy graphics and charts. People use PowerPoint because Bill Gates figured out a way to get it on every business machine sold, long enough to fool the non-designer business person into thinking it was the next best thing since sliced bread. You gotta have more than zoom-in/-out to overcome that!
I am preparing an image-intense presentation that is about 20 percent word “slides.” Prezi isn’t serving me well for this, as I have only two choices, and neither are acceptable. One is to upload all the images one by one, place them in a group and then try not to get motion sick as the screen pans from one to the next. After 50 slides I’m pretty sure my audience will be heaving. My other choice is to make a video of my pictures and embed that. Easy enough, but now I have no way to jump back to an image during discussion. I think Prezi forgot something pretty basic here, or they didn’t think visual artists would like a cool way to present, too.
I’m off to try ahead now. After three days of wanting Prezi to work for me I had to bag it.