When Constraints Limit and Inspire: Characterizing Presentation Authoring Practices for Evolving Narratives

A team from the University of Waterloo (Linxiu Zeng, Emily Kuang, Jian Zhao) has published a paper on arXiv titled "When Constraints Limit and Inspire: Characterizing Presentation Authoring Practices for Evolving Narratives." The researchers conducted a formative study with 10 presenters to understand how constraints like time, audience, and communicative intent shape slide authoring. They discovered that rather than simply limiting creativity, these constraints can actively inspire better narrative construction when properly framed.

To validate their findings, the team built ReSlide, a research prototype that implements the Constraint-based Multi-session Presentation Authoring (CMPA) framework. In two user studies (one on single-session behaviors, one on multi-session workflows), ReSlide outperformed baseline tools by helping presenters treat constraints as active design drivers. Users could flexibly reuse and adapt content across authoring cycles as their constraints evolved. The paper proposes design implications for future constraint-aware presentation software, suggesting a shift from traditional slide editors to tools that actively manage narrative evolution over time. The work will appear at DIS 2026.