Does research exist showing the benefits, effects, potential drawbacks, preferred applications, or best practices of visually interactive presentation? The short answer is: "not much." Despite hundreds of millions of people using presentation software such as PowerPoint, studies on interactivity are scarce at best.
Your best bet for understanding the potential benefits and drawbacks of interactive-style presentation is exploring research associated with other forms of media. The research report available here summarizes countless hours of trolling through existing literature, looking for interactivity-related studies applied to Web sites, databases, e-learning, visual marketing, video gaming, and so forth. The report is now an appendix printed in the full course textbooks, or you can download it below as a free PDF.
Entering information here is optional but appreciated so that we can keep tabs on who is interested in interactive presentation-related research. You never know. We may come looking for you to be a guinea pig in an experiment someday!
