PowerPoint does rocket science

Edward Tufte is a master of communication. In particular, his books on visual communication are classics, and should be standard readings for anyone in the field. Well I happened to find an essay on Tufte's site about PowerPoint, and specifically, how the slides used in a presentation on the dangers to the shuttle Columbia might have led to the death of its crew. Tufte analyzes the PowerPoint presentations made to NASA, by Boeing engineers. He points out deficiencies in the communications, and how the optimism in the presentation (not necessarily in its content, if you read it all) led NASA to not ask the DOD to take high-res pictures of the underside of Columbia while it was still in space. I still have an old book called "How To Lie with Statistics" from the 50's. Anyone in the dot-com boom can tell you how easy it is to lie with PowerPoint (or in Steve Jobs' case, Keynote). But the possibility of a miscommunication when lives are at stake makes PPT's a little more suspect. Perhaps, as the author suggests, PowerPoint isn't always the best tool for the job...

Tags: columbia, commercial, communication, microsoft office, MicrosoftOffice, nasa, powerpoint, shuttle, tufte, visual design, VisualDesign