Presentations
Presentation is the practice of showing and explaining the content of a topic to an audience. Any time you explain to someone your work it is in fact a presentation.
Typical presentation situations
The basic situation is the following: you have to tell someone about your work.
You have a report to make, either in front of an audience, or even to one person only – your boss, or sponsor. You want your presentation to make an impact, you want it to be convincing, attention catching and memorable.
Here is a non-exaustive list of similar situations: conferences, workshops, work meetings, seminars, professional congresses, project progress reports, project proposals.
Presentation forms
A presentation can take the form of a paper, a sequence of slides (written ot printed on film for old time slide-projectors), a printed handout, a leaflet, presenting your company or project, an Internet site, presenting your department/company/project, a computer file, prepared with a specialised program (like Microsoft PowerPoint), to be projected onto a screen or wall, or to be handed out on a CD or DVD.
Presentation tips
Keep an eye on the following tips when preparing a presentation:
The simpler the better
Never forget, that your audience came to hear you, sense your emotion, get informed by you and your message. You do not want to distract them by unnecessarily complicated, busy, or too full slides. Never include anything in the slides which is not needed to tell the story.
Your slides should have plenty of “white space” or “air”. Resist the temptation to fill empty areas on your slide with unnecessary graphics (like logos) or text boxes. The less “noise” your slides contain, the more powerful your visual message will be.
Less bullet points and less text
Sometimes the best slides are with no text at all. True, they might be virtually meaningless without your narration, but do not forget that slides are meant to support and not replace you.
Many people think that handouts can replace the actual performance, but they can at best serve as a memory refresher. Therefore, if you need to communicate your point to people who were not there, it is far better to prepare a written document which highlights your content from the presentation and expands on that content. A detailed, written handout as a takeaway from the presentation is much better than a mere copy of your PowerPoint slides. Consequently, when you have a detailed printout to be handed out after your talk, you need not fill your slides with much text.
Avoid excessive animation
Use object builds and slide transitions sparingly. Some animation is good, but keep it simple, and above all do not feel obliged to use it on every slide, or the audience may get bored very quickly. Use no more than a few different transition effects and not between all slides.
Use high-quality graphics
Use high-quality graphics including photographs. Simply stretching a small, low-resolution photo to make it fit your layout will deteriorate the quality.
Avoid using popular clip art. They have seen it a million times, it seems cheap, and it might ruin the professional look of the presentation. Anyway, use ready made images carefully.
In general it is good to use images of people, since the slide will communicate on a more emotional level. If an image is important, do not add much text to the slide, and if it is not, you might consider pushing it aside, reducing its visiblity and/or size.
Consistent but not ready-made
Obviously, your presentation should have a feel of visual consistency, but using a ready-made template will impair the unique look and feel you aim for. Take the time and spend some imagination on designing your own templates, or buy some.
Use charts, and make sure the type is appropriate
Leave all unnecessary details away. Charts can save you lots of text, but you must take care to choose the type carefully:
Pie Charts are used to show percentages. Limit the number of slices to 4-6 at most. Increase visibility of the most important slices by color or by exploding them.
Vertical Bar Charts show changes in quantity over time. Limit the number of bars to 5-7.
Horizontal Bar Charts are used to compare quantities.
Line Charts demonstrate trends.
In general, tables are good for side-by-side comparisons of quantities. However, they do not appeal to the intuition. If you want to show that your values are significantly higher than the competitiors, you are better advised to employ a bar chart. If, however, you do not want to boast with your values, the table will do.
Use colors well
Color appeals to the emotions. The right colors can persuade and motivate the audience. They can increase interest and improve comprehension and retention. Cool colors are good for backgrounds, and warm colors are good for objects (like text) in the foreground.
An important factor when you choose the color scheme is to consider the environment of the presentation beforehand. Will it be a a dark room or a well lit room. In the former case light text on dark backgrounds works well, but dark text on a light background will be the better choice for most environments.
Fonts matter
Choose fonts deliberately and use them consistently. There are two general families of fonts: serif (e.g., Times New Roman) and sans-serif (e.g., Arial). Sans-serif fonts are generally better for on-screen presentations. Try to use the same fonts consistently for all slides, and avoid using more than two different fonts, e.g., the normal and the bold font of your choice. Make sure your smallest texts can be read from the back rows.
Use video and audio
Use video and audio if and when appropriate. Using video and audio clips illustrates your points better. Moreover, it catches the attention of your audience. This does not apply to the sound effects, however. Try to avoid them. They feel cheap.
Consider your slides from a bird’s eye view
People percieve informaiton better when it is presented in small chunks (popularly around 5-7). Consider the sequence of your slides to get an idea of how your presentation is progressing. You may decide to break up one slide into a few other slides or, conversely, you might decide to combine a few slides into one new slide. Consider your entire presentation from the point of view of your audience.
