Structured presentation: with POWERPOINT

1. Structured presentation:with POWERPOINT lessness ( “FÅP”: First-year Project Course, ITU, Denmark) Claus Brabrand [ brabrand@itu.dk ]

2. Outline Introduction & History Content & Structure Semantics & Consistency Form (tips’n’tricks) • Images • Text • Fonts • Colors • Themes • Animations Presentation (rehearse + live talk) 1 [~Inventio/Dispositio] 2 [~Elucutio] 3 [~Elucutio] 4 abc Fnt <T> [~Memoria/Actio] 5

3. History • Purchased by Microsoft for $14,000,000 USD • (July 31, 1987) PowerPoint was invented by Robert Gaskins in early 1987under the name “Presenter” for company Forethought, Inc. Robert Gaskins

4. Version History (archeology) • PowerPoint 1.0 • Black’n’White only! (for ”Overhead projector”) • (Mac: Apr. ’87) • PowerPoint 2.0 • Now also in color (for work with ”color 35mm slides”) • (Mac: May ’88; Win: May ’90) • PowerPoint 3.0 • Added video-out (for use with ”video projectors”) • (Win: May ’92; Mac: Sep. ’92)

5. Ubiquitous • PowerPoint is everywhere • Guestimate: • ( US population) • After today’s lecture… :-) 300,000,000 users 34

6. (Popular) Related Tools • OpenOffice.org (aka. ”OO.o”) • Free Software (LGPL) based on ”StarOffice” by Sun • Beamer (for use with LaTeX) • i.e. good for mathematics:

7. Outline Introduction & History Content & Structure Semantics & Consistency Form (tips’n’tricks) • Images • Text • Fonts • Colors • Themes • Animations Presentation (rehearse + live talk) 1 [~Inventio/Dispositio] 2 [~Elucutio] 3 [~Elucutio] 4 abc Fnt <T> [~Memoria/Actio] 5

8. MESSAGE Content ~ Kind of Talk • Which kind of talk?: • (different ”conventions and appropriateness’es”) • Research talk ”conservative” • Lecture • Debriefing • Project presentation • … • Advertizing talk (aka. ’sales pitch’) ”fancy” Warning: PowerPoint often tends towards ”sales pitch”! (may distract from message)

9. MESSAGE Note on ”Fancy Effects” ”The fancy effects offered by today’s presentation software should be used only when they contribute more to the message than they distract from it.” -- Robert Gaskins”Powerpoint at 20: Back to Basics”Communications of the ACM, 50(12), 2007

10. (Know your) Audience • Prerequisites: • Educational level • Language & tone (~ type of audience) • Technical skills (terminology, abbreviations, …) • Essentially: ”know what your audience knows” • i.e., ”empathy” • Mediators of Change (if applicable): • Who’s minds are you trying to change? • …and will they ”take” your message?

11. Focal Point of Presentation • Be aware: • PowerPoint tends to ”steal the focus”: • May be perfectly okay (in some situations) • Just but be aware of it! Presenter-oriented (~ teacher-centric) Audience-oriented (~ student-centric) vs. Monologue (one-way communication) Interaction (exchange of ideas) Warning: PowerPoint often tends towards this one…!

12. Audience Concentration • Experiment: • Fitted students with pulse readers (during lecture): pulse readings: Warning: No long ”talks” without breaks or variation!

13. On Simplicity Advantage: PowerPoint promotes simplicity! (due to space constraints) ”Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem” "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best” -- ”Occam’s Razor”, 14th century (Paraphrased from Latin) ”La semplicità è l'ultima delle sofisticazioni” "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” -- Leonardo da Vinci, (Translated from Italian) "La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien à ajouter, mais quand il ne reste rien à enlever" "Perfection is achieved: not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove” -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Translated from French)

14.                         Correlation is not Causation …but NOT TOO simplistic! ”Everything should be made as simple as possible, but notsimpler than that” -- Albert Einstein “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both trueand sufficient to explain their appearances” -- Sir. Isaac Newton Warning: PowerPoint often tends towards (over-)simplification! ”Empirically observed covariation is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for causality.” vs. Example from: [Tufte, 2003 ] (Possibly shortest ’true statement’ of phenomenon.) (Grosly over-simplistic!)

15. Structuring your Talk • Recall the 5 canons (from classical rhetorics): • Inventio • Disposito • Elucutio • Memoria • Actio Advantage: PostItsTM”promote” simplicity! (due to space constraints) …is how this presentation got organized

16. 1 Point: One point per slide

17. Make Structure Explicit • Use outline:(aka. roadmap) • Usually (recommend following structure): • Introduction ”say what you are gonna say”, • Body (part 1, 2, …, n) ”say it”, • Conclusion ”then, say what you’ve said”. a ”progress indicator” may help even further Advantage: Audience can follow the explicit structure (where are we, what next, ..)

18. Chronological: First, we did …; Then, we tried …; Hereafter, we …; … Final Solution Final Solution Initial problem Initial problem (Usually) Don’t useChronological Structure Post-Processed: • The Problem is …; • The Solution is …; • ProblemSolution …; Advantage: Easier to present and follow (demonstrates reflection) Warning: Usuallya bad idea for projects (lots of ”irrelevance”)

19. Inductive Structure: Other ways of Structuring Deductive Structure: Introduction Introduction “Build-up” Solution Solution “Break-down”

20. Outline Introduction & History Content & Structure Semantics & Consistency Form (tips’n’tricks) • Images • Text • Fonts • Colors • Themes • Animations Presentation (rehearse + live talk) 1 [~Inventio/Dispositio] 2 [~Elucutio] 3 [~Elucutio] 4 abc Fnt <T> [~Memoria/Actio] 5

21. CONTENT CONTENT “Decod Content + FORM e” e” “Encod Form vs. Content • Form and Content are not independent: usually Form Content but also! ”A good ’encoded’form guide ’decoding’ of the content”:

22. Differential Importance • Use [de-]emphasis to ”encode” importance: • Bold, Italics, or emphasis color ”for emphasis” • e.g., This is really important • Gray or Parentheses ”for deemphasize” • e.g., (this is not as important) • Standard Color (e.g, black)for ”the rest” • e.g., this is of standard importance Advantage: Helps the reader tremendously! (but use consistently)

23. Semantic Coloring • Use colors to ”encode” content information: • Blue for some concept • Green for some other concept • Purple for some third concept • You can do this…: • Globally for entire presentation • Locally for one slide/section (caution of ”mix-ups”) (e.g., server) (e.g., client) (e.g., application) classApplication { Client user; Server db; Application(Client c, Server s) { this.user = s; this.db = c; db.addClient(user); register(db, user); ... Warning: Your ”color scheme” will affect overall aesthetics and ”look-and-feel” (caution)

24. Consistency • Be meticulously consistent: • Pick a(ny) convention (and stick with it)! We employ two data-flow analyses to construct a graph […] We instrument the compiler with an interprocedural data flow analysis that extracts […] In Sections 4 and 5, the two parts of the data-flow-analysis are […]

25. Outline Introduction & History Content & Structure Semantics & Consistency Form (tips’n’tricks) • Images • Text • Fonts • Colors • Themes • Animations Presentation (rehearse + live talk) 1 [~Inventio/Dispositio] 2 [~Elucutio] 3 [~Elucutio] 4 abc Fnt <T> [~Memoria/Actio] 5

26. Images • Use relevant images whenever possible: • Improves appearance (if used appropriately) • Makes a presentation ”less boring” • Helps association (if used appropriately) • May be used as (psychological-)anchors • i.e., ”recall” of content/thoughts/discussions/emotions/... content thoughts ”Red/black-tree” e.g., association discussions emotions (Many people ”store” lots of things effectively /w images)

27. PrtScr Ctrl Ctrl V C Ctrl V vs. Tips’n’Tricks • Locating/creating images: • Inspiration: [ images.google.com ] • Use digital camera: • Incorporating Images: • Set transparent color (in ”Picture Tool Bar”) e.g., [PrtScr] ; Paint ; <paste> ; [select area] ; <copy> ; PPT ; <paste> Unfortunately only one color

28.  Tips’n’Tricks (cont’d) • Align Images !!! • (makes slides look more solid & stable) • Constant space invariants • (…same thing) • Moving images precisely • [Alt] + mouse • [Ctrl] + keys • PPT ”window zoom” (for further increased precision) DEMO ”SELECT” + ”DISTRIBUTE H/V”

29. Tips’n’Tricks (cont’d2) • Set ”same height” • (for horizontally aligned images) • Set ”same width” • (for vertically aligned images) • Compress images • (to save space)

30. Tips’n’Tricks (cont’d2 ) 2 • Use arrows to direct attention: • (or crossreference) • Use highlighting to emphasis relevance: class Application { Client user; Server db; Application(Client c, Server s) { ... db.addClient(user); register(db, user);

31. Modality redouplication: vs. not see not hear TEXT ”Less is more” Text abc • Avoid / limit ”text-only-slides”: • Uninspirational (…and boooooring!) • Avoid ”full sentences”: • many will read 100% • i.e., not concentrate on you • Avoid ”orphans”: • Lone word on a newline In fact (generally):

32. Bullets! • Use with great caution!!! ”Bullets don’t kill people, people kill people” -- NRA (National Rifle Association, USA) Warning: Sequencing is uni-dimenstional! Warning: Hierarchical info structures have to be”linearized” (= flattened) A list can either (be ordered)…: • chronologically(e.g., earlylate); • alphabetically (e.g. ’A’’Z’); • logically (e.g. firstlast); xor • priority-wise (e.g., highlow) Warning: we loose structural information! Warning: we loose inter-dependencies! i.e. one order only (at same time)!

33. FOnts • Two (very different!)font design goals: “No area is so small that you cannot spend your whole life researching it.” -- M. Schwartzbach (oral communication) Designed to be read on paper: Designed to be read on screen: vs. • e.g.,: • Tahoma(Carter, 1994) • Verdana(Carter, 1996) • Trebuchet(Connare, 1996) • e.g.,: • Times Roman(Morison et al., 1931) • Helvetica(Miedinger, 1957) • Arial (Nicholas & Saunders, 1982)

34. Sans ou Avec Serifs? • ”Serif” Fonts: • Usually best on paper • ”Sans Serif” Fonts: • Usually best on screen • Online font readability test: population avg.: my scores: [ http://edtechfm.sdsu.edu/bhoffman/type/font/intro.htm ]

35. Font Usage • Size: • Always: • (for quite obvious reasons:-) • Quantity: • Maximum: • Use monospace fonts (e.g., ”Courier New”)for code / programming fragments Otherwise: Use bold or ”wide fonts” (e.g., ”Arial Black”) ”font size ≥ 20” ”2-3 fonts/presentation” Application(Client c, Server s) { this.db = s; this.user = c; super(); }

36.  R2 +G2 + B2 Colors (cont’d) • Lots of ”bad combinations”: • Note: often poorly reproduced on projectors • Caution with |RGB|-difference (contrast): • In general, Maximize this (approximation): • for any adjacent colors (R1, G1, B1) and (R2, G2, B2) • where (R = |R1-R2|, G = |G1-G2|, B = |B1-B2|) ”Red on Orange” ”Blue on Green” ”Black on Blue” ”Yellow on White”

37. Colors • Caution with colorblindness! • Red-Green colourblindness:7–10% of (male) population (i.e., statistically 2-3 of the ” s” among you in class) ”Ishihara” (color test plate): Should say ”74” (”21” or nothing, if colourblind) Illustration by: E. W. Scripture, 1895 “Thinking, Feeling, Doing”

38. THEMES <T> • Themes are convenient • BUT: be careful • Some are very very very frequently used!!!

39. Animations • Animations can make presentation more live • BUT: be careful • Many different • Inconsistent use • Overly fancy  Chaotic / Amateur’ish

40. Outline Introduction & History Content & Structure Semantics & Consistency Form (tips’n’tricks) • Images • Text • Fonts • Colors • Themes • Animations Presentation (rehearse + live talk) 1 [~Inventio/Dispositio] 2 [~Elucutio] 3 [~Elucutio] 4 abc Fnt <T> [~Memoria/Actio] 5

41. Rehearsal: Test equipment beforehand Get to know room Avoid CO2drinks before talk (Auken) Rehearse slide transitions Presentation flow Plan (dynamic) skip points Get to know personal pace #slides/minute Incremental uncovering (aka. ”striptease” ~ OHP) Disable ”menu on right click” (in Tools>Options>View) Live presentation: Use all Mathias’ advice …from BRPO Speak loud & clearly Use ”presenter” Use keys ”b” / ”w” …for focus on you # + <return> …to jump to particular slide # Cultural differences Denmark vs. Germany Subject differences Science vs. Humanities Presentation (recap)

42. Small Exercises • Reflect: • How did I make the Title slide? • (i.e., the first slide of this presentation)? • Synthesis: • Try out each of the Image Tips’n’Tricks • (in succession) • Analyze: • Does this presentation ”take its own medicine”? • Where? Where not (and how could it be improved)? • Apply: • Improve your slides • e.g., your BPRO presentation(s)

43. Exercise (for next week!) • Prepare a group presentation on; either: • A) ”IT Jobs” – different perspectives: • Skills, competences, & personalities (offered and sought) • Team and team-work • ”Job Index”-like sites • IT job sector vs. other sectors • Statistics, analyses, & comparisons • B) ”Evolution” – different perspectives: • Historical: Darwin, Beagle, Galápagos, Finches, Mendel, .. • Biological: genes, selection, mutation, recombination, … • Psychological: Evolutionary psyc. [Pinker, Dawkins, ...] • Religious: ”Evolution vs. Intelligent Design” • Ideological: human self-image, memetics, …