[patchorang]

Designers are pretty good at siloing themselves. I worry this may further silo them as the rest of the business will continue to use PPT.

Designers frequently express frustration about "not having a seat at the table." It's going to be tough to influence the business when using a different tool than everyone else.

Edit: PPT or Google Slides* My point was more about using the tool that the rest of the business is using.

[FridgeSeal]

As a dev, I say more power to them. I support people using better tools for things. Maybe if we kept this up we’d all be using good things, and not stuck with MS Teams and Google slides because little Timmy in marketing chews crayons and can’t figure out how to use anything but the most basic software.

[zanellato19]

In my experience, its always higher level management that doesn't want to change, not the labor people.

Little Timmy will use whatever Thomas the Senior Manager tells him to use and those people get waaay to attached to the way they have always done things.

[shove]

Timmy in marketing knows things you cannot fathom

[sundry_gecko]

Can’t be much since he is in marketing :P (obvious sarcasm)

[me-vs-cat]

Such as the taste of crayons?

[webdood90]

it's possible to make your point without disparaging others that you feel are beneath you

[dijit]

No, some people should be shamed into being better.

I was shamed into using more advanced operating systems and it ended up with me having a hugely important and detailed understanding of operating system design. This has been hugely beneficial not just to me but to every person I worked with since.

I would not have elected to do this and not edged out of my comfort zone if I had not been shamed.

I was resistant to change otherwise. It is a good motivator.

[29ebJCyy]

Some people get abused into being better, but it's not the only way.

[skidd0]

Shame != Abuse

[echelon]

As an engineer for well over a decade, I've never once touched PowerPoint or any Microsoft productivity suite, so I don't think it's as black and white as you say.

Google slides have been the bread and butter of all the engineering presentations I've seen and been a part of. And that's too many to even try to count.

I think this depends on what the C-suite was sold more than anything. I've never worked in a "Microsoft shop".

Let designers use their own thing. There's no harm.

[beezlebroxxxxxx]

Interesting. I don't know a single person that uses google slides in a professional context. It's ppt files or even just pdfs. Designers will whip something up in InDesign or Illustrator if they want total control in rare instances, though.

[koito17]

To add another data point, I can't remember the last time I've seen a PowerPoint. Maybe in high school? In every job I've had, people used Google Slides, if presenting a slideshow at all. Additionally, when designers have demonstrated things (e.g. mock designs), they have always shared a Figma window.

[dijit]

Europe (especially germany, or gamedev) is all PPTs.

I sold google workspace to my org and Google Slides is what is giving me the most backlash because it is considered woefully inadequate compared to powerpoint. Especially around brand identity tied to fonts.

[lopkeny12ko]

"brand identity tied to fonts" sounds like more of a problem related to your company culture/ego of the marketing team than a shortcoming of the tool.

I guarantee you that if you substituted your company's cherished sans serif font for another sans serif font, no one would notice or care except the designers who have nothing better to occupy their time with.

[dijit]

> "brand identity tied to fonts" sounds like more of a problem related to your company culture/ego of the marketing team than a shortcoming of the tool.

I mean, first, I'm not so egotistical as to claim tacit knowledge of domains that aren't mine. Corp Comms and Marketing deserve to work with good tools, the same as engineers do.

Second, I can't imagine a marketing person coming to me and forcing me to use a different IDE that didn't permit debugging because of their personal preferences.

I would (rightfully) chew them out for being so arrogant to have an opinion on what is useful for my work.

[AzzyHN]

Genentech, and possibly the rest of the Roche pharma conglomerate, uses the full Google Suite instead of Office. Sure, they're still using Windows computers, but it's not unheard of for companies to use something other than Office.

[mastazi]

Same here, looking at the companies I have interacted with, it's mostly MS with a few Google shops here and there. I am currently in Australia and work regularly with EU-based companies. I see you are being downvoted, perhaps in other areas such as the US the market is different. We are starting some projects with a few US companies, I will keep an eye on what they use, I'm curious.

[diegof79]

The goal is to use the best tool to solve a problem. But it is tricky when you don’t know better and everyone around you follows the herd for different reasons.

Most presentation tools are poorly designed.

For example, many cognitive studies support the idea that the same brain channel handles text and speech. If you try to read and listen to different things, you can’t simultaneously pay full attention to both. Yet most presentation software encourages using bullet points, which are used extensively in business presentations.

Superfluous animation is distracting, yet presentation software animation capabilities are redundant and don’t have basic things like having a timeline with keyframes.

Outlining and notes are handy during the ideation phase of a presentation, yet outlining features are terrible.

Google Slides is extremely painful to work with. Taking a template and filling in the blanks with bullet points is okay, but even formatting a text box right is painful. PPT is better, but it has the typical MS problem: feature bloat, where the most valuable things are half-baked. Keynote is one of the best. However, its sharing editing capabilities are between buggy and nonexistent.

By contrast, Figma's visual editing capabilities are orders of magnitude better: components and auto-layout help you work faster with a tool abstraction that is much better than the crappy master slides.

So, if you work the whole day with Figma and are productive with it… why inflect yourself the pain of using PPT/Google Slides for your presentation? You will be the one presenting. (Note: many times, I used Google Slides for those shared presentations, which I suffer… but if its my presentation I prefer Keynote or Figma depending on the case)

[zarzavat]

Slides are consumed in a variety of different ways.

Slides can be something to keep the eyes busy while someone is talking IRL. Alternatively, they can be a way to exchange information outside of a presentation, reading them like a book. In the latter case, bullet points are quite useful.

A lot of features of presentation software are there solely to stop people from going to sleep.

[bmitc]

Why does it matter? How does designers using a tool affect anybody? Are you familiar with Figma? It's ubiquitous and awesome.

And, as if developers use a non-plethora of non-esoteric, non-outdated tooling.

[blackoil]

Lack of collaboration with folks in other expertise areas who won't/can't use that tool.

[dkdbejwi383]

You could extrapolate that into "software engineers should write code in MS Word because otherwise the finance department can't collaborate with them". Just use the right tool for the job.

[bmitc]

Why do others need to be able to use the tool?

By the way, Figma has powerful live collaboration features.

[SebastianKra]

Considering how bad tools parasitically benefit from rigid company structures, I'd diversify where possible and deal with the incompatibilities when they arise, rather than get locked into even more Software like Jira, Teams, etc...

Ideally, coworkers should discover the best tools for themselves and then get recommendations from each other.

My company somehow managed to get sold a proprietary VPN when Wireguard and OpenVPN exist. Obviously the only compatible client is bad.