4. Creating Effective Presentations

1. 4. Creating Effective Presentations Seminar II 241-702, Semester 2, 2009-2010

2. Overview Planning Your Presentation Writing Your Presentation Designing Your Presentation Presenting Your Presentation A Home Slide (explained later)

3. Overview Planning Your Presentation Writing Your Presentation Designing Your Presentation Presenting Your Presentation

4. Planning Your Presentation Audience Purpose Topic Presentation Management

5. Planning Your Presentation – Audience Who is your audience? a manager, supervisor, thesis committee member? What does the audience want? Aim your talk so everyone can understand it Don't underestimate your audience! find out their knowledge / background

6. Planning Your Presentation – What Your Audience Wants A presentation is more than just reading slides Have slides with enough information, but not too much An interesting presentation will keep people awake

7. Planning Your Presentation – Purpose Why are you giving the presentation? e.g. To inform:“My aim is to inform the audience about the role of shaders in gaming.” e.g. To argue:“My aim is to persuade the audience of the need for bigger penalties for illegal downloading.”

8. Planning Your Presentation – Topic How do you break the topic down? Follow the structure of your report e.g. lit. review, experiments, results Leave out details / sub-sections Don't add material which is not in the report

9. Overview Planning Your Presentation Writing Your Presentation Designing Your Presentation Presenting Your Presentation Back to the Home Slide

10. Writing Your Presentation The Shape of a Talk Information Sub-Home Slide

11. The Shape of a Talk Introduction Slide: contains presentation title, presenter name, e-mail, supervisor, date Overview Slides: Use several hierarchical levels of overview slides if necessary State main points of presentation Use a Home Slide Project Statement Middle and Conclusion see next few slides

12. The structure of a good talk: start broad, get specific, and end broad

13. The structure of a good talk: start broad, get specific, and end broad Start with the big questions and get more specific

14. The Home Slide Include a “home slide” that you come back to at each major transition ('episode') in your talk.

15. The structure of a good talk: start broad, get specific, and end broad The middle is the meat of the talk…

16. …but talks are delivered to audiences with limited attention spans Audience attention curve

17. The structure of a talk: start broad, get specific, and end broad The middle is when the audience falls asleep

18. The structure of a talk: start broad, get specific, and end broad After going into depth, come back to your home slide to make transitions Nontechnical General technical Specialist

19. Use your home slide build a theme over time and let the audience to catch up home slide Nontechnical General technical Specialist

20. Organizing the Middle • Follow the structure of your report: • e.g. literature review, sections on experiments, results • Leave out lots of detail/sub-sections • the audience can read the report • Do not add things which are not in the report.

21. The structure of a talk: start broad, get specific, and end broad Focus now on conclusions

22. Audience attention increases as you signal the end of the talk – so have a strong end! Audience attention curve

23. The structure of a talk: start broad, get specific, and end broad End with the most specific conclusions then build back out to the “big picture”

24. Organizing a good talk • Your introduction should start broad then get specific

25. Organizing a good talk •Your introduction should start broad then get specific • Think of your talk as consisting of episodes

26. Organizing a good talk • Your introduction should start broad then get specific • Think of your talk as consisting of episodes • Use a home slide to make transitions effectively

27. Organizing a good talk •Your introduction should start broad then get specific • Think of your talk as consisting of episodes • Use a home slide to make transitions effectively • Your conclusion should start specific but end broadly

28. Concluding • Tell audience that you’re about to finish • Summarize main points • Specific → general • Say something that the audience will remember • Answer questions “Tell ’em What You Told ‘em.”

29. Writing Your Presentation The Shape of a Talk Information Sub-Home Slide

30. Information – Selection Present essential information: not too little Information on slides should be self-explanatory and complete A confusing sentence, or unexplained image, is not useful information

31. Information – Grammar Avoid abbreviations and acronyms not obvious to the audience Eliminate personal pronouns or articles when it makes sense Use whole sentences or fragments, but be consistent Limit punctuation marks Use present tense when possible

32. Information – Slide Density Write a maximum of 2 lines per bullet, if possible Limit to 6 bullets per slide Avoid long sentences Keep slides simple, so they can be understood within a few seconds If a slide contains too much information, split it in two

33. Information – Structure

34. Information – Use Humour Carefully • What is funny to you may not be funny to someone else • Humour can confuse / upset • But,... humour can make the audience relax

36. Information – Clarity • Avoid jargon • Use clear and simple visual aids • Be well organized • e.g. set up the computer beforehand • Let me catch up if I fall asleep in the middle • Don’t go over time

37. Overview Planning Your Presentation Writing Your Presentation Designing Your Presentation Presenting Your Presentation Back to the Home Slide

38. Designing Your Presentation Templates Format Font Visuals Sub-Home Slide

39. Templates Choose template carefully Background images and busy templates distract from the presentation content Text should contrast strongly with background Dark text on a light background are easy to read both on the projector and on handouts Choose a color scheme and template that will not empty the laserprinter toner when you print the handouts

40. Templates (cont.) Use Powerpoint's slide master feature to make a consistent and simple design template Change slide master settings at View – Master – Slide Master Make changes to the fonts, sizes and look of master slide as needed page numbers, headers (group logo), footers

41. Templates – color • Avoid red-green combinations because many people are red-green color blind. Lots of people can’t read this – and even if they could, it makes your eyes hurt. 41

42. Other colour combination can be equally bad. 42

43. View your slides in grayscale to ensure that there is adequate color contrast in each slide. 43

44. Designing Your Presentation Templates Format Font Visuals Sub-Home Slide

45. Format Use font, size, and color consistently in titles, text and bullets Use the same transitions and animations throughout all of the presentation Use only basic animations and transitions fancy animations are distracting and become annoying quickly transitions should be quick and unnoticeable

46. Designing Your Presentation Templates Format Font Visuals Sub-Home Slide

47. Font Use font size 24 - 48 point to make sure slides can be read from the back of the room Font size under 20 is nearly unreadable from a distance Use basic serif and sans serif fonts since fancy fonts can be hard to read DON’T WRITE TEXT IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, IT IS DIFFICULT TO READ Becarefulwithcolors Use colors for emphasis but plan well

48. Font (cont.) Use as few different fonts and sizes as possible Use sans serif fonts for a clean look and readability Use font size to indicate hierarchy Make the font size of titles larger than text Use a smaller font for sub-bullets or body text

49. Designing Your Presentation Templates Format Font Visuals Sub-Home Slide

50. Visually stunning images