Presentation Design: Avoiding Death by PowerPoint

Katherine Ognyanova (Katya)

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Origin:

Eastern Europe

Bulgaria

Sofia City

(София Град)

Education:

B.Sc. Computer Science

MA Virtual Culture

PhD Comm.

Professional:

Journalist(print & online)

Research Assistant,USC Annenberg

Confession:

I am

notthe best of

public speakers.

Katherine Ognyanova: Katya

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Edward Tufte, father of information design:

Power corrupts.PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.

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The Rules of PowerPoint Design

What’s in a good presentation?

3 factors:

Your purpose. Your audience. Your style.

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Define your purpose.

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Know your audience.

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Sometimes, this will work.

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Working with text.

As I go through this slide, I want you to pay attention to the text on thePowerPoint behind my back.

Text is an important part of your presentation. I won’t go into details ontypography and font selection – if you’re interested, you can look that uponline. Focus on two key things: consistency and usability. Do not mix fonts:unless you know what you’re doing, it’s best to stick to a single fontthroughout your presentation. Pick one that’s appropriate for the contentand easy to read. Avoid using Comic Sans. It does not make you look cool.

Use a font size that’s big enough to be comfortably read by people sitting inthe back of the room. Use bolding and color for emphasis. Make sure thereis a good contrast between the font and background colors. Use line spacingand paragraph spacing to improve readability.

Now, did you finish reading that text way before I was done saying the wordsout loud? Yeap. People can read faster than you can speak.

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If you use slides as cue cards…

…you’re doing it wrong.

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Working with color.

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Do not do this to your audience:

Really, don’t.

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Get some help instead.

colorblender.com

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Working with animation

Use sparingly – or don’t use at all. Animation often does more harm than good.

Use for continuity, to make consecutivepoints or avoid information overload.

Use to reveal the answers to your questions when engaging the audience/teaching.

PowerPoint SmartArt objects like this one are quite easy to animate.

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Information Design

Garr Reynolds

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Bad charts are worse than no charts.

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Simplify: information, colors, dimensions.

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Avoid too much information.

Use color for emphasis.

Avoid 3D effects.

Graphs and Charts

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Information Overload

thisisindexed.com

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Chart Design: Keep it Simple

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Say NO to bad flowcharts.

Distribution centre

District 11 District 12

Director

Field group Lab group

Flow controls

Projects

Cpmm Office

Products – outcomes - global

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If really necessary, use SmartArt.

Subtitle 1(goes here)

Point 1.1here

Point 1.2here

Point 1.3here

Subtitle 2(goes here)

Point 2.1here

Point 2.2here

Point 2.3here

Subtitle 3(goes here)

Point 3.1here

Point 3.2here

Point 3.3here

Big Title Right Here

Subfield ATitle

Subfield BTitle

Subfield CTitle

Subfield DTitle

Subfield ETitle

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Working with Images

Quality matters.

Bigger is better.

Match colors, styles.

Align carefully.

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Using Images: An Example

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Using Images: An Example

Recolor: set transparent color

Flip: sulky lady now faces text

Shadow: pick a realistic one

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Using Images – Contd.

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Using Images: Go Big or Go Home!

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Using Images: Go Big or Go Home!

My message goes here!

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Oh no: Too many images!

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A reasonably lookingmulti-image messwith a Polaroid effect.

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Know your slides.

Spend time rehearsing. And again. And again.

If you really need notes, use Presenter View.

Content is King.

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Presentation Zen - Garr Reynolds (www.presentationzen.com)

Further Reading:

Presentations that matter - Alexei Kapterev (www.kapterev.com)

Duarte Blog - Nancy Duarte (blog.duarte.com)

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Credits: Images & Design Elements

psdGraphics (www.psdgraphics.com)

PresentationLoad (www.presentationload.de)

iStockPhoto (www.istockphoto.com)

DeviantArt (www.deviantart.com), Faquarl

VladStudio (www.vladstudio.com)

Jens Dige/Rockphoto (www.gorockfest.com)