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Will the Web Browser Replace Powerpoint?

By Richard Wiggins

oday is the last day of Access '97, a conference sponsored by the University of Calgary with a theme of "Integration or Fragmentation?" As is so often the case at conferences these days, most speakers relied on a high-quality LCD projector to show the notes and graphics related to their talk. (A surprising exception was a Sun spokesperson, who used old-fashioned transparencies on an old-fashioned overhead projector.) As a speaker at the conference, I carefully prepared slides in Powerpoint, as I've done for dozens of other presentations I've given around the U.S. and internationally. I noted with interest that most of the other speakers relied on a different format for their presentations: HTML.

In many cases, speakers prepared their notes in HTML and downloaded them to a laptop, or brought them on a floppy for loading onto the desktop PC the conference organizers installed at the front of the room. Other speakers relied on live Internet connections for their talks, visiting the Web sites or Web database gateways their companies or universities wanted to talk about.

Generally speaking, reliance on live demonstrations means more fragmented and disjointed talks. At this conference, the attempt to get ISDN links into the lecture hall failed due to some technical problem. Our Internet connection was a dialup link into the University of Calgary's modem pool, which has the annoying feature of disconnecting every connection after one hour of use. Although Windows '95 networking does a nice job of popping up a "Reconnect?" dialog box, the delay of redialing and the interruption of the speaker's train of thought is jarring.

But that's not the only problem with a live Internet demo. Most Web sites are not well-organized for linear exposition with live commentary. Most Web site developers actually can't do a very good job of a live walk-through of the site. The audience observes the hapless speaker going through a number of miscues in presentation and delivery. One speaker at this conference managed to juggle two PCs that were navigating different parts of his Web site at once. The effect was reminiscent of the plate jugglers on Ed Sullivan; it was entertaining to watch things spin on stage, but I'm not sure it was the best way to impart useful information.

The folks who downloaded their HTML in its entirety seemed to fare a little better. They tended to prepare a single "table of contents" or outline page, which offered hyperlinks to each "slide" or captured screen shot. The table of contents kept things on track, and kept the exposition flowing linearly, so the speaker could cover all of his or her points in the time allotted.