When Constraints Limit and Inspire: Characterizing Presentation Authoring Practices for Evolving Narratives
For HCI researchers and presentation tool designers, this work provides a framework and prototype that reframes constraints from limitations to creative drivers, though the findings are preliminary and domain-specific.
This paper explores how presenters navigate constraints (time, audience, intent) during slide authoring, proposing the CMPA framework and a prototype tool (ReSlide) that treats constraints as design drivers. User studies show ReSlide helps presenters actively use constraints to guide narrative construction and reuse content across sessions.
Authoring presentation slides involves navigating contextual constraints that shape how content is structured, adapted, and reused. While prior work frames constraints as limitations, little is known about how presenters actively reason about them. We conducted a formative study with ten presenters to examine how constraints emerge, are interpreted, and influence authoring decisions, leading to the Constraint-based Multi-session Presentation Authoring (CMPA) framework. CMPA treats time, audience, and communicative intent as key constraints shaping authoring. We instantiated CMPA in ReSlide, a research prototype for constraint-aware slide creation and reuse, and conducted two user studies on (1) single-session behaviors and (2) multi-session workflows. Compared to a baseline tool, ReSlide helped presenters treat constraints as active design drivers that guide narrative construction. The second study further shows how presenters flexibly reuse and adapt content across authoring cycles as constraints evolve. We then propose design implications for future constraint-aware presentation tools.