140 likes | 239 Views
One Style Does Not Fit All. Know your audience Know your purpose: Instruct Inform Amuse Convince. 4 Essential Ways to Lose Your Audience. Treat your presentation as: A script to read to your audience A whirlwind of complex details A whirligig of special effects
E N D
One Style Does Not Fit All • Know your audience • Know your purpose: • Instruct • Inform • Amuse • Convince
4 Essential Ways to Lose Your Audience • Treat your presentation as: • A script to read to your audience • A whirlwind of complex details • A whirligig of special effects • An obligation (not a pleasure)
Consistent Look • Use the Slide Master (under View). • Establish color scheme. • Avoid mixing type fonts throughout your presentation so that one slide looks like an 18th century playbill while the next looks likea wedding invitation. “Changed my hair style, so many times now, don’t know what I look like.”—The Talking Heads
Words WordsWords Live presentation: Never read your slides. Perform! PPT as learning object: Record your content with Audacity, then attach audio file to slide. Perform!
Embrace Simplicity • Limit text to essential “telegraphic” points • Rule of thumb: 6x6 • Use graphics sparingly. Focus attention! • Leave lots of white space “Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler”—Albert Einstein (but ignore the hair…)
In PowerPoint (and in life): Words can be your enemy.
Readability No-Nos • Light type on dark background • Serif fonts • Font size unreadable in back row • Cutesy fonts • Optical color disasters
Moderation • Make your fonts big enough to read, but not so big that you seem to shout. • Don’t shout with your colors either—unless of course you need to shout.
Train Wreck Spotting • Light type on dark background, like yellow on purple, which may look good as a football jersey, but awful on a PPT screen. • You also don’t want light on light, dark • on dark (as above). • Serif fonts (even classic fonts like Times New Roman or Garamond which are perfectly lovely). • Font size unreadable in back row. • Cutesy fonts. Cutesy fonts. Cutesy fonts. "This wasn‘t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it” - Dorothy Parker
Transitions • Avoid cheesy cinematic transitions—unless you are being ironic. • Be consistent—generally use the same transition throughout. • Know when to switch transitions—for example, a section break. “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome” —Isaac Asimov
Non-Linear Navigation • Consider creating a navigation page (for example, to navigate to particular sections). • Add an Action to an image that always links to navigation. • Place image on each slide, in the same place. • Use navigation to move back and forth in your presentation.
Try Something New • Ahead • Prezi • Slide Rocket • Whiteboard apps on iPad • Vuvox But that’s a subject for another time… ta-ta for now!