- Keep your purpose in mind. Training colleagues on a new policy, teaching students geometry, and pitching an idea to a client all require a different approach. Your design should reflect your goal. You wouldn’t present 40 slides of text with no visuals to land a design gig, and you wouldn’t present a deck of nothing but artwork for almost any reason (unless you want the audience to focus only on your speech…which begs the question of why you even need a presentation).
- Keep your audience in mind. What knowledge do they already have on this topic, and how much attention do they have to devote to you right now? You don’t want to go over the basics of a concept to a group of experts who will feel you’re wasting their time. You also don’t want to talk above people’s level and leave them feeling frustrated. Your job is to make sure the audience gets as much out of your presentation as possible.
- Be intentional with attention. Decide if your presentation is doing most of the talking or if you are. If you’re planning on speaking a lot, the presentation should support you with charts, graphics, and bullet points. If you’re planning on letting the presentation do most of the talking, or if it’s going to be emailed out or available online, you’re going to want people to understand it without your narration. Therefore, if you’re not talking a lot, have animated elements and bolder design to keep people’s attention on the screen rather than on you. If you want them paying attention to you more than the slides, don’t make your visuals impossible to turn away from. Additionally, use size, contrast, color, and motion to draw their attention to the most important elements.
- Make it as accessible as possible. Please keep in mind that everyone in your audience has different needs. Be mindful of readability (size, contrast, fonts) and use reds and greens sparingly to make your text easier to read for people with color blindness. Caption videos to the best of your ability, and consider recording your VoiceOver for those who don’t view the presentation live.
- Use sensible information hierarchy and make it visually obvious. Have one font size for headings, one for subheadings, and one for regular text. Three font sizes should be enough and you should never use more than four (a fourth may be acceptable for labels on infographics, etc.). With more than three sizes, people begin to be confused about the meaning of the sizes, or whether there is any meaning at all. Think of color the same way. Use a handful of colors that go well together to establish a hierarchy of information. Pay special attention to contrast and readability.
- Have consistent design that respects basic design principles. If you’re not confident about your ability to create consistent design, use one of the themes available on powerpoint or keynote. You can always stray outside the themes when you’re feeling more creative. If you’re creating slides from scratch, leave plenty of white space and use a design grid. Make sure your colors and graphics go well together. Have consistent alignment from slide to slide, and make your transitions and animations consistent as well, so as not to be distracting.
- Strive for quality and impact. Tell engaging stories and/or present important facts with context and analysis. You should be entertaining and educating your audience. Don’t waste anyone’s time.
- Shorter is better. Ten slides or twenty minutes is about the limit for most people’s full attention.
- End with impact. Save an important fact or story for the end and pair it with a Call to Action.
- Get to know the tech specs in advance. If you’re presenting somewhere new to you, scope out the technical situation beforehand. There is almost always a scramble for cables or projector instructions, which can make public speaking anxiety worse. Knowing in advance where everything is and how everything works can take some of the pressure off.
Substance and Style 