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210 points scapecast | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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bigstrat2003 ◴[] No.45059108[source]
I don't see how this has anything to do with PowerPoint. There wasn't clear communication; the medium was completely incidental to that. They could have been writing on a chalkboard and had a communication failure, does that mean that chalkboards should be blamed in that case?
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stinkbeetle ◴[] No.45059191[source]
Because the medium is not conducive to dense amount of technical information that readers are expected to use to make or understand decisions. Other similar mediums like a chalkboard were not singled out because the problem was identified with PowerPoint specifically. And it wasn't a choice of mediums all with similar problems, but slides vs papers. From the article,

> “The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers as an illustration of the problematic methods of technical communication at NASA.”

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1. bitwize ◴[] No.45063329[source]
Feynman communicated the problem with the Challenger disaster using a rubber band and a glass of ice water.

I don't think PowerPoint is the problem in and of itself, but rather its use as a crutch to compensate for poor communication. Of course, even among scientists, few can count themselves at Feynman's level in terms of communication skills. Maybe this is a skill that NASA scientists need to brush up on, perhaps with Pluralsight courses or something? lol