Study: PowerPoint animations are comprehension killers – Ars Technica
June 17th, 2009 by Josh
Study: PowerPoint animations are comprehension killers – Ars Technica.
So, for example, on a slide dedicated to discussing four aspects of a given topic, the relevant text and images can be made to appear gradually, so that each aspect is discussed thoroughly before the next even appears. The alternative, dumping all the information to the screen at once, and then working through it verbally, would seem to have the potential to distract and overwhelm the audience. So, this seems to be a situation where animation should clearly help.
Not so, as it turns out. At least in this study. Students watched identical lectures. The only difference was one had PowerPoint animations and the other didn’t. Both sets increased their scores from the baseline (around 40%) but the non-animated group went up to 82% while the animated group only went up to 71%.
Of course this is just one study, so take it with a grain of salt. But it’s something to keep in mind next time you’re putting a presentation together and have the itch to make it fancy. I know I’ve given in to that temptation myself in the past.
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June 17th, 2009 at 11:26 am
I’ve read of other small usability studies that basically came to the same conclusion. People can read text faster than one can talk. So there is often a reinforcing mechanism going on if you just show all the text on the slide at once. Your audience will end up reading the slide 4 or 5 times while you are talking about each point. I almost never use animations, except for emphasis, and even then, I would show an entire slide or graph to start with, and then focus in on some area of it using highlights or dimming.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Yeah that makes sense. I think people when presenting and/or teaching try to take too much control over the audience. Like we don’t want them to read ahead, because that means they’re not listening to us. . . so if we dole out the information only as we’re talking about it they can’t read ahead. But then they lose the reinforcement you mentioned.