The Presenter Experience of Canvas Presentations

Most presentations are given with supporting visuals and driven by specialized presentation software. Today, this software either follows the classic slideware metaphor, presenting a series of discrete screens—or it implements the more recent canvas presentation metaphor, using a zoomable free-form canvas to arrange information. Both paradigms were previously evaluated with presentation authors and audiences. In this paper, we extend our understanding to how they impact the presenter herself during delivery of a talk. In a lab study participants gave presentations with slideware and canvas tools, and we measured their emotional state through self-reporting. We find that a recommendation for a tool depends on the experience of the presenter or their spatial ability.