Now it can be told and revealed. Check my story on InformIT for the full details of Microsoft PowerPoint Secedes from MS Office. Suffice it to say that this is huge, HUGE, HUGE — only my sources in the PowerPoint community let me reveal the sordid underbelly of what has been festering in Redmond. Here’s a hint — check the package of the next version of Office and guess what WON’T be there. Read it all now! (It’s all there with the full final slide show from the PowerPoint team).

Posted by Tom Bunzel at 5:05 PM .

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We need more toys in our presentations. The Baby Name Wizard’s NameVoyager is an excellent, interactive data display. It’s obvious that the designer put a great deal of thought into the way it looks as well as the way it works. Gridlines are visible but not obtrusive. The figure, while information dense, has been kept uncluttered by using color judiciously and by hiding additional layers of information until invoked by moving the mouse over an area of interest. It’s also a lot of fun trying out different names and typing them in letter by letter to see the graph change. Using this sort of interactivity during a live presentation would go a long way towards keeping an audience involved and engaged. Anything that brings the presentation of information together with the fulfillment of our almost universal tendency towards play serves this purpose.

Posted by Lee Potts at 11:07 PM .

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