Way Beyond PowerPoint: XML-Driven SVG for Presentations
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Piez, Wendell
IDEAlliance
2004

Abstract:

Microsoft PowerPoint is ubiquitous, and therefore controversial. Most critiques, both of the software and of its widespread adoption in educational settings, express concerns that are not particular to PowerPoint alone, but apply to “slideware” presentations generally. The reliance on sequences and hierarchies of bullet points (a poor means of presenting some kinds of complex information), the foregrounding of visual gimmicks over content, the displacement of attention from the speaker and her message onto summary arguments presented dumbly on screen: far from being necessary features of presentation technology, these (according to the critics) prove to be shortcomings that interfere with, rather than enhance, a presenter's ability to communicate. This paper presents an alternative to slideware, in the form of SVG graphics used for presentation.