Slides, Infodeck, or Recording? Picking the Right Format
First article in the Never Send The Slides series on martinfowler.com, published on September 8, 2026 (~2,400 words, five sections and two sidebars), authored by Sumeet Gayathri Moghe, global head of culture and organisational design at Thoughtworks; Martin Fowler provided editorial review.
Sumeet Gayathri Moghe, global head of culture and organisational design at Thoughtworks, opens a series on martinfowler.com titled "Never Send The Slides" with an article that asks the prior question: do you even need a presentation? He begins by separating two things usage conflates — the file and the act. A presentation, he writes, is an act of storytelling in which a presenter orchestrates narrative, pacing, and emotion to create meaning that neither visuals nor documents can achieve alone. The corollary is sharp: the slides are not the presentation. Since a presentation is a powerful tool of influence, you get the most out of it by reserving it for the moments that justify it.
What follows is a five-artifact scale, summarized at the end of the article in a table. The default rule is the linear document: in most business situations, the only goal is to convey information, and slideware used as a documentary format forces fragmented reading. A well-structured document — headings, short paragraphs, lists, tables, diagrams — lets the reader build their own understanding, and its explicitness reduces the risk of hallucination when an LLM summarizes it. Writing tools make it possible to codify a targeted style and readability level, the way an IDE plugin assists a developer.
a presentation is an act of storytelling in which a presenter orchestrates narrative, timing, and emotion to create meaning that neither visuals nor documents can achieve on their own
— Sumeet Gayathri Moghe , martinfowler.com
Second tier, the infodeck — the term is Martin Fowler's: a document laid out in a slide interface, meant for light reading, neither a slideument nor a presentation deck. Its appeal lies in the tool's accessibility to anyone who doesn't master InDesign; the real cost is design, whose scarcity explains why most infodecks fail. Third tier, Applications web interactives: coding harnesses that have emerged over the past year put them within reach of non-developers, and interactivity serves to manage the reader's cognitive load. Their drawback is the lack of inline commentary, plus hosting and an uncertain shelf life.
Fourth tier, recording. A monologue with no visuals is sometimes enough; recording forces conciseness, lets the audience choose their own pace, and gains subtitles and chaptering. Moghe cautions that a video's tempo isn't a room's — 129 builds in eight minutes, 141 in twenty-four — without turning that into a rule. His conclusion: most presentations would be better off as recordings. What remains is live, to be reserved for moments where synchronous presence serves to influence and address objections, and which merit the coordination cost they impose on everyone.
Key takeaways
The definition, and its corollary. A presentation is « an act of storytelling in which a presenter orchestrates narrative, timing, and emotion » to create meaning that neither visuals nor documents achieve alone. Hence: the slides are not the presentation, and the presentation is a tool of influence kept for the moments where it lands.
The default rule. in most business scenarios, the only goal is to convey information — a document suffices. Slideware used as a documentary format forces the reader to consume information « in fragmented, disconnected bursts », whereas a linear structure lets the reader build their own understanding.
What the linear format forces and slides allow. Decks leave things unsaid between slides; in an asynchronous setting, that produces misunderstandings and lost context. Linear writing forces the bridging of sections — and this explicitness reduces the probability of hallucination if the reader feeds the document to an LLM.
Writing tools as an IDE. Word, Hemingway, or Grammarly make it possible to codify a targeted style and readability level, the way an IDE plugin assists a developer.
The sidebar « slideware as a companion tool ». make the diagrams in Keynote, then import them into the document. Slideware remains the familiar drawing interface; it doesn't have to become the delivery format.
Infodeck. (Martin Fowler's term): laid out in a slide interface for light reading, text and visuals juxtaposed. It is neither a slideument nor a presentation deck. Duarte Design calls it a slidedoc and publishes a pattern catalogue for it.
The three conditions for a successful infodeck. writing first (produced in a writing tool, not in the deck); brevity that doesn't sacrifice understanding (« I'd have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time »); and above all design — the scarcity of design sense among knowledge workers is the reason most infodecks fail, and the main cost line item is the information designer.
Applications web interactives. over the past year, coding harnesses have put HTML/CSS/JS within reach of non-developers. Interactivity serves to shift the audience's cognitive load onto the artifact — filtering a word cloud, chunking a long article into a microcourse with reflection questions.
Their often-forgotten tradeoff. wikis and collaborative documents have native inline commentary; adding it to every app is extra cost. An interactive but stateless app is barely better than a one-way information transfer. On top of that comes the question of hosting and shelf life.
Recording before live. A well-written monologue, with no visuals at all, is often enough (the example given is Ed Zitron). Recording forces you to cut the fat; the audience picks their own moment, speeds up, slows down, replays; subtitles and chaptering do the rest. The stated conclusion: « most presentations are better off as recordings ».
A video's rhythm isn't a room's. at 30 frames per second, nobody waits on static slides — builds and transitions have to come much faster than in person. His benchmarks: 129 builds over 8 minutes in voice-over (which he still considers slow), 141 over 24 minutes when he's on camera. No formula, only the tempo the narrative demands.
When to go live. only when synchronous presence is the point — influencing, addressing objections in real time, pitching a client, celebrating, rallying a group. Reserve it for situations that merit the coordination cost, and prepare all the more carefully since the audience can neither speed you up nor slow you down.
Key figures
129 builds in 8 minutes of voice-over, 141 in 24 minutes on camera