Presentation Design

Presentation design is one of my favorite topics, especially after being through several boring powerpoint sessions! Many presenters I have seen tend to use powerpoint as a Teleprompter than as a visual aid. Presentation skills are quite important, it requires lot of talent to keep the audience awake, especially in a dimly lit conference room J

 

Off late, I have been following several blogs on presentation and here are some of few which might be of interest to you:

·         Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds – He covers all aspects of presentation, not just the design of “slideware”. He authored a wonderful book that has the same name as the blog title(I own a copy of that book, my precious J ), the design of the book itself is commendable, I love the photographs in that book! He also makes very good recommendation of TED talks.

·         Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte – Another great thinker and presenter, also has a book by the same name as the blog title. I just happened to lay my hands on the book today afternoon, was surprised to see a bright red colored book is square shaped!

·         I also recommend Extreme presentation method for general presentation guidelines. He gives a 10 step methodology for preparing a presentation, which has some interesting observations. Of those 10 steps, a presenter has to touch powerpoint only from step 8(whereas most of us start our presentation preparation with powerpoint). He also gives a “squint test” principle for slide layout, which is described as follows:

 “A slide passes the squint test if you can tell, even while squinting at it (so that you cannot read any of the text), the basic idea of the slide.  The way to make a slide pass the squint test is to design it so that the page layout itself reinforces the main message of the slide.  “

 

Of course, if you are looking for some guidelines on presenting Numbers in excel, I recommend “Perceptual edge” by Stephen Few. Of course, don’t forget the guru Edward Tufte, his books are a must in any library!