1Step One

 Be Audience Centered

Why does the audience need to listen?

Actually, the first step is to narrow the topic to one central theme, or big idea. But do this from the audience’s perspective, rather than your own. Keep in mind the needs of the audience, the amount of time you have, the logistical environment and any other relevant concern of the audience.

 

To ensure an audience-centered presentation consider these WIIFM questions:

·   What are the audience’s experiences with the topic?

·   Why are they attending? Do they want to be there?

·   What do they hope to walk away with from the presentation?

·   What are their key ‘trigger’ issues?

·   Are they positive, neutral or negatively inclined?

·   How long do they expect to sit through your presentation?

·   What would turn them off or cause them to lose interest?

2Step Two

Focus on One Main Idea at a Time

What’s the big idea anyway?

Someone once said that an effective presentation looks more like a bullet than a shotgun. In other words, your message should reduce down to one simple statement, or big idea, as viewed from the audience’s perspective. This means your message should be focused. Many presentations lose their impact when too much content is covered, or multiple messages are developed. Your audience will drift or lose interest and your desired outcomes will be compromised. Save yourself and the audience time and make the time to organize so that you focus on the essence of your message.

Ask yourself these questions to help your focus remain on the big idea:

·   Can you say it with two or three words?

·   Are there multiple ideas that can be covered in a different presentation, or can they be subordinated to the central theme of this presentation?

·   Will the audience be able to clearly identify the central theme?

3Step Three

Determine the Purpose

Is the purpose to inform, persuade, or something else?

The best presentations can be summarized in one or two sentences. The rest is supporting evidence and visual illustrations that reinforces your proposition. Informative presentations are often meant to aid in making a decision, which ultimately cause an audience to take action. Begin preparing your presentation by writing a sentence that embodies the overall objective of your presentation. Use a sentence that contains a proposition, an interrogative response, and a key word.

There are three approaches to writing a proposition.

Enabling proposition

The enabling proposition, uses the following form:

“Every __________ can ______________ .” This form can be used to inform, instruct and persuade.  Effective Presentations (Cont.)

Value proposition

Another form of persuasion is the value proposition. A value proposition is used to offer an in depth comparison of two or more options and its structure suggests indirectly that one is better than the other. The interrogative answers the question, why? This method uses the following form:

“___________ is/are a better value than _________________ .”

 

Obligatory proposition

The obligatory proposition is used when the presenter is suggesting the best solution.

 “__________ should/must ______________ .”

 

In summary, the big idea of your presentation should be reduced to a proposition statement. This process will help bring focus and purpose to your presentation.

4Step Four

Appropriately Organize the Content

How should the content be organized?

The body of the presentation can now be organized either directly or indirectly. The direct approach places your main call to action at the front of the presentation and then supports the proposition by explaining why. This outline includes both logical proof and/or illustrations and concludes with a summary. The direct approach works best with informative type presentations when the audience is more positively inclined to you. It is most effective when the audience is rationalistic and is eager to know up front what the presentation is all about.

The direct approach can be summarized like this: Effective Presentations (Cont.)

Direct approach

·   Opening attention grabber

·   Proposition statement (see the above section on how to write a proposition)

·   Logical proof

·   Summary review

·   Memorable conclusion and call to action

The indirect approach works best when you need to persuade and the audience is either neutral or potentially resistant to your proposition. There are two indirect methods to choose from—the problem-solution approach and the reflective approach. The problem-solution approach works well when the audience is unaware that their current course of action is not in their best interest. This is especially true if your audience is being introduced to new technology.

Here is how the problem-solution approach works:

Problem-solution

·   Opening attention grabber

·   Problem—show the audience that the problem is real and is a threat

·   Solution—an enabling proposition works well here

·   Summary review

·   Memorable conclusion and call to action

The reflective approach is similar to the problem-solution approach, but is even more indirect. This works well with educated audiences who will want to review all their alternatives before making a decision. The key to this approach is that you walk the audience through the decision making process, where the decision is between choosing the best of several possible solutions.

Here is how the reflective approach is organized:

Reflective approach

·   Opening attention grabber

·   Problem

·   Establish criteria for a solution

·   Option a (list pros and cons)

·   Option b (list pros and cons)

·   Option c (list pros and cons)

·   Your solution—a value proposition here

·   Summary evaluation of all possible alternatives, making sure that the solution you advocate is the best

·   Memorable conclusion and call to action

In summary, after you have determined the focus of your presentation and have prepared your proposition statement, select an appropriate organizational approach based on your audience’s anticipated reaction to your presentation.  Effective Presentations (Cont.)

5Step Five

Evaluate your Effectiveness

What desired outcome(s) will let me know that the presentation was successful?

The final step to building an effective presentation is to pre-determine some set of measurable criteria by which its effectiveness can be measured. This can be any criteria from audience size to perceived change in attitudes. Make sure the goals you set are realistic and measurable. If your goals are not being achieved, it could be either that your goals are unrealistic, or the content needs reworking.

 

Tips for Creating Templates

Questions to Ask PRIOR to Creating a Template or Presentation Design

1. What will the ultimate presentation be delivered as? Mac, PC, Laptop, Projection?

2. What are the monitor settings or dimensions? (800 x 600, 1024 x 768)

3. How many colors should this be optimized for? thousands, or millions?

4. Is file size an issue? Does it need to fit on a diskette?

5. Is there an existing look and feel for the conference? Existing graphics or logos?

With answers to these questions, here are the considerations to use as you design:

Platforms/Colors

 If the presentation will be presented from a Mac, PC, laptop or Barco projection with MILLIONS of colors, there is more room to design using gradients, detail, and a full range of color. If it needs to be optimized for thousands or 256 colors, set your monitor at this level when you start to design so you can see what it will ultimately look like. If the final platform is a laptop with 256 colors, the presentation will appear darker, and any gradients and details will not look very good. Solid color blocks work better.

General Rules about Slide Projection

1. Don’t put anything important within 1/4 to 1/2 inch of the edge…it can be cut off when projected.

2. Projected presentations look best with a black or dark background and reversed light text.

3. Pastels and light gradients wash out when projected.

4. Colors that do not look good on screen are greens, reds, really bright colors, and neon colors. Readability is critical, so make sure your background and text color contrast well. White and yellow text work well on a dark background.

5. Choose your colors based on the equipment quality. Low light equipment works best with darker text and a lighter background. When using an LCD panel, very dark templates with light text work best.

File Size

If the presentation needs to fit on a diskette, it is best to create as many of the template elements as possible in PowerPoint or the software package. Photoshop images that have to be imported will increase the file size of the presentation, and should be cropped as close as possible.

Transitions

 Use transitions, builds, and animations effectively. Overuse of animations and transitions distract the audience from the message. Use no more than 2 or 3 non-distracting transition effects. Wipes and box in/outs provide nice transitions and draw little attention to the transition itself. A fade through black transition can be effective between major points or before the summary. In general, subtlety and consistency are most effective. (“Random transitions” is the most distracting and least effective.)

Sound Effects

Sounds effects have a rapidly diminishing return, so use them sparingly. Sound effects should make the presentation more impactful, not more irritating. An example of a good use of sound is to add recorded student/teacher comments about work being shown as examples.

Animation

Animation can be a super-effective tool. The reason being that it takes information and breaks it down into smaller elements that can be explained as the presentation is delivered. Again, too much animation is overkill. To animate text, use one animation style and stick with it. Wipe right is effective when animating text. When animating graphics, use the animation feature when there is a logical build to the graphic, i.e., time lines, processes, steps to be taken, etc. Tem Design Guidelines

Designing a Presentation Template

After making thumbnail sketches of template ideas, you can create the template graphics in the presentation software package and Photoshop. A presentation template consists of various “masters or layouts” that can be used as a background for the various types of slides. Here is a listing of typical masters, but may vary depending on what’s needed. 

1. Splash This is projected on screen while people walk in, before the presentation starts.

2. Title This is an introduction master for the title, speaker name, and affiliation.

3. Bullet This is the bulk of the presentation’s background master/layout for the bullet slides. Following are the variations of bullet slide masters: a. 1-line title b. 2-line title c. 1-line title + sub d. 2-line title + sub (Due to PowerPoint’s constraints, it is advisable to create the master/layout to accommodate 1- and 2-line titles and a subtitle.) e. Graphic 1- and 2-line title with subtitle (This is for more complex background masters…where elements or logos may need to be darkened or removed to accommodate graphics.)

4. Demo This background has the word ‘Demo’, for speaker demos during a presentation.

5. Closing Splash Some speakers have tag lines or special logos that they like to use for closing slides.

In PowerPoint: The Title Master and Bullet Master can be created and preset as a default layout. The other master/layouts have to be created as actual slides or picts that need to be copied and pasted from presentation to presentation or slide to slide. When setting type in the masters, use the text anchor control. Usually, the title is anchored to the bottom, and bullets are anchored to the top. A good setting for line spacing is .9 lines, and .2 to .3 lines after paragraph. Template and Presentation Design Guidelines

Designing Graphics and Charts

1. Use storyboards/thumbnails to help solidify concepts and ideas. Draw your original idea, then get even more creative.

2. Don’t “over design”. Simple, yet professional graphics are more effective than overly colorful and “flashy” graphics.

3. When creating charts, follow these simple tips:

a. Guide the viewer to the main point. The main point should be obvious in a chart. (You can use an arrow, animation, highlights, etc.)

b. Use as few chart lines as possible. Clear and simple is the key. Using lots of lines and axes is overwhelming and confusing.

c. Don’t use data points AND axis scales. If the data points are indicated, then using a scale on the axis is redundant.

d. Gradients and 3D effects can enhance a chart without changing the message.

4. For presentations, save the Photoshop files as RGB jpegs.

 

Style/Typography Tips

Titles

Use initial caps (or all caps) for each word in titles, except articles, prepositions of three letters or fewer, and conjunctions. All nouns and verbs should be capitalized; this includes the verbs ‘is’ and ‘are’. If the title wraps to two lines, make the second line the longest, if possible. (Use your judgement as to what looks best.)

Subtitles and Bullets

Use sentence-style capitalization for subtitles and bulleted text. Observe standard typesetting rules for text treatment on slides: Never leave a hyphenated word or a single word on a line by itself at the end of bullet text or a paragraph. On both the Macintosh and Windows platforms, press Shift+Return before the previous word to move it to the final line.

If the introductory text to bullet points includes as follows or the following, it should end with a colon. A colon should not be used if the bullet points following the introductory clause complete a sentence begun in the introductory clause. In this case, do not use any punctuation.

Do not end each bullet in a period, and don’t use semicolons. (Quotes can end in a period.) Slides should have as little punctuation as possible. Bulleted items must be parallel in structure (that is, start with the same part of speech). If one item in a bullet is a fragment, all the items should be fragments.

Spell out the word ‘and’ rather than using an ampersand (&), unless you don’t have room to spell it out. If all bullet points will not fit on one slide, create an additional slide with the same title and continue your bullet points. Use the word ‘continued’ in the title on the following slide(s). Typography Guideline

Orphans

An orphan is a single word of a sentence that is all alone by itself on a bottom line. Please note if the orphan is a pretty long word, and the justification looks completely out of place by moving a second word down, leave the orphan alone. This is a judgement call on what looks best.

Type Sizes and Text Colors

21- to 24-point size is the smallest text size we recommend for a projected presentation. If necessary, 18-point may be used, but inform the speaker that the text will most likely be unreadable to those not in the first 10 rows of seats. Make all point sizes bigger if possible. (In presentation design, bigger is better.) All graphics should be dark enough that white text will contrast and be readable or vice versa. Remember that readability is your goal.

Soft Return

To create a soft return, select Shift + Return. Use a soft return when moving a word or words to another line to prevent an orphan or make a longer second line in a 2-line title.

Hard Return

To create a hard return, select Return. Use this when you want to start a new paragraph or a new bullet. Typography Guidelines (Cont.)

Trademark Symbols

Trademark symbols are used at the first appearance of each product name. Slide presentations are not given legal lines. Also, most slide presentations do not require trademarking.

Numbers Spell out one to ten; use numerals for 11 and up. The same rule applies to ordinals: Spell out first to tenth; use numbers for 11th and up. When numbers under 11 and numbers above 11 (of the same type) are used in the same sentence, the lower numbers follow the higher numbers’ style. Use commas for four or more digits, except for years. When showing a range between numbers, use an en dash. Use an en dash to show the range between consecutive years. T

Punctuation

Commas

Use a series comma (a comma preceding and or or in a list of three or more items).

Ellipses

Use the ellipsis character (…) to produce ellipses; don’t use periods. When an ellipsis falls at the end of a sentence, use an ellipsis character and a period. To create the ellipsis character, see Special Characters.

Em Dashes

House style for a normal dash—to indicate a break in thought or speech—is to use the em dash. Note that there is no space before or after the em dash. To create an em dash, see Special Characters below.

En Dashes

An en dash is shorter than an em dash and is used only to show a range between numbers. Note that there is no space before or after the en dash. To create an en dash, see Special Characters below. Examples: 1994–95 and June 10–15

Hyphenation

 In presentations, do not use hyphens at line endings. Instead, press Shift+Return before the previous word to add it to the next line. Try to never hyphenate or use an en dash with product names.

Quotation Marks

Typographical quotation and apostrophe marks, also known in software programs as “smart quotes,” are curled quotation and apostrophe marks set in the actual font. Many software programs can be set to create typographer’s quotes automatically in Preferences, or use the following keystrokes on the Macintosh:

“ (open double quote) Option+[

” (closing double quote) Shift+Option+[

‘ (open single quote) Option+]

’ (closing single quote) Shift+Option+]

In Windows, create smart quotes using the Preferences setting, if it is available. Keep in mind that if you turn on the Smart Quotes option in the Preferences menu, inch and foot symbols will also be curled, which is incorrect. You must disable the Smart Quotes feature to type the foot (' ) and inch (" ) marks. Note that foot and inch symbols should be in italics. Typography Guidelines (Cont.)

Quotation Marks vs. Italics

Use quotation marks for the titles of articles in magazines or journals and for the names of TV shows. Use italics for the names of books, magazines, newspapers, movies, plays, and CD-ROM titles. Use italics when referring to single letters, words as words, and e-mail and Web addresses to distinguish them from regular text.

Special Characters

The following are some special characters that may be used in presentations created with a Macintosh computer:

™ Option+2

© Option+G

® Option+R

é Type Option+E and then E alone

ü Type Option+U and then U alone

ñ Type Option+N and then N alone

… (ellipsis) Option+semicolon

– (en dash) Option+hyphen

— (em dash) Shift+Option+hyphen

—     

To create these characters in Windows, press the ALT key, and use the numeric keypad to type the character number listed below.

™ 0153

© 0169

® 0174

é 0233

ü 0252

ñ 0241

… (ellipses) 0133

– (en dash) 0150

— (em dash) 0151