2. Delivering effective presentations
How presentations differ from documents
Setting objectives for the presentation
How to guarantee legibility on the screen
Choosing a writing style and a presentation style
Body language, voice, speed (words per minute)
Handling questions
5. Decide why you are presenting
A presentation is a poor way to
transfer information.
Make a presentation to
arouse interest
demonstrate competence
persuade.
Study the interests and needs of your audience.
Shape presentations to suit interests and needs.
6. Seven ways to guarantee legibility
Make all text very large.
Leave enough space between lines.
Ensure strong colour contrast.
Make lines thick and text bold.
Choose well-designed fonts.
Avoid capital letters.
Restrict the amount of text.
7. Make all text very large
Bold, 28 points: Georgia, Verdana, Lucida,
Trebuchet, Arial Narrow
One point = 0.35 mm
Font size relates to height
Differences in apparent size
8. What is font size
96 points
bag bag bag
1 point = 0.35 mm
9. Leave enough space between lines
Line spacing of 56 points
Ascenders and descenders
enorx bf hkl gjpqy
Lines not touching
Lines touching because well-spaced
because too close
line spacing = 28 pt line spacing = 56 pt
10. Ensure strong colour contrast
Yellow on dark blue
Orange, green, purple, light blue
Light text against dark background
For transparencies: dark against light
Colour wheel
?
11. Make lines thick and text bold
Large areas of colour
Medium to thick lines
Bold text for slides, LCD presentations.
1-pt
2-pt
3-pt
4-pt
12. Choose well-designed fonts
Designed for displays / screens
Clear differences between characters
0O1lI
0O1lI
0O1lI
0O1lI
0 O 1 l I
13. Avoid clusters of capital letters
Affects recognition of shapes.
Takes up more space.
Suppresses information.
HELPFUL helpful
14. Restrict the amount of text
Legibility requires space
Large letters = more space
Wide line spacing = more space
Bold letters = more space
Clear fonts = more space
1 + 7 lines for slides / screen shows
15. Choose appropriate writing style
Slides, not text pages
Bullet points
Phrases, not full sentences
Supplement, not substitute
Concrete, not abstract
Specific, not general
16. Choose appropriate presentation style
Formal: more serious tone, less interactive
Informal: lighter tone, more interactive
Pictures to sustain interest
Progressive disclosure
Handouts after presentation
17. Remember requirements of legibility
Too much text = illegible text
Too much text = poor understanding
Too much text = bored audience
Set format ensures limited text
Templates for consistency
18. Condense, condense, condense
49 words or less: “Large blocks of text are
likely to deter a viewer from even
attempting to read the contents.”
On-screen text and subtitling in
television advertisements
ITC Advertising Standards Code rule 5.4.2
Highlights of tables
Simple charts
19. Allow enough ‘hold’ time for reading
Allow 5 words per second (0.2 seconds per word)
Add a ‘recognition period’ of 3 seconds
No. of words Hold time (seconds)
20 07
30 09
40 11
50 13
20. Plan, prepare, practise
Visit the venue in advance; check the set-up;
take back-up copies.
Look up and practise unfamiliar words.
Moisten your throat; sip some plain water.
Rehearse the opening and closing lines thoroughly.
Face the audience, not the screen.
Speak louder but more slowly than usual.
Be ready with a shortened version.
21. Vary your speed (120–200 words/min)
XTML standards are as follows (in wpm, or words
per minute): Extra slow: 80, Slow: 120,
Medium: 180–200, Fast: 300
Audiobooks standard: 150–160 wpm
Slow Martin Luther King: 84–92 wpm
Medium Michael Pollan: 187 wpm
Fast Daniel Gilbert: 195 wpm
Very fast Michael Shermer: 210 wpm
22. Martin Luther King (84–92 wpm) : 1/2
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose
symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree
came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of
Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of
withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to
end the long night of their captivity.
23. Martin Luther King (84–92 wpm): 2/2
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred
years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the
manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One
hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in
the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years
later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society
and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here
today to dramatize a shameful condition.
24. Michael Pollan: 135 wpm
That plants are good for humans to eat probably doesn’t need much
elaboration, but the story of vitamin C, an anti-oxidant we depend
primarily on plants to supply us, points to the evolutionary reasons
why this might have become the case. Way back in evolution, our
ancestors possessed the biological ability to make vitamin C, an
essential nutrient, from scratch. Like other antioxidants, vitamin C,
or ascorbic acid, contributes to our health in at least two important
ways.
25. Daniel Gilbert: 195 wpm
When you have 21 minutes to speak, two million
years seems like a really long time. But
evolutionarily, two million years is nothing. And yet in
two million years the human brain has nearly tripled
in mass, What is it about a big brain that nature was
so eager for every one of us to have one?
26. Michael Shermer: 210 wpm
Hey, I am Michael Shermer, the director of the Skeptics
Society, the publisher of Skeptic magazine. We investigate
claims of the paranormal, pseudo-science, and fringe
groups and cults and claims of all kinds between: science
and pseudo-science and non-science and junk science,
voodoo science, pathological science, bad science, non-
science and plain old nonsense. And unless you've been on
Mars recently, you know there's a lot of that out there.
27. Handle questions tactfully
End clearly and emphatically.
Consult the chair as appropriate.
Repeat the question for the audience;
rephrase it if necessary.
Avoid arguments; as you finish replying, look at
somebody other than the persistent questioner.
28. Atkinson M. 2004
Lend Me Your Ears
London: Vermilion [Ebury
Press, Random House]. 376 pp.
36. Hans Rosling: 187 wpm [1 of 2]
About 10 years ago, I took on the task to teach global development
to Swedish undergraduate students. That was after having spent
about 20 years together with African institutions studying hunger in
Africa, so I was sort of expected to know a little about the world. And
I started in our medical university, Karolinska Institute, an
undergraduate course called Global Health. But when you get that
opportunity, you get a little nervous. I thought, these students
coming to us actually have the highest grade you can get in Swedish
college systems -- so I thought maybe they know everything I'm
going to teach them about. So I did a pre-test when they came. And
one of the questions from which I learnt a lot was this one: "Which
country has the highest child mortality of these five pairs?
37. Hans Rosling: 187 wpm [2 of 2]
And I put them together, so that in each pair of country, one has
twice the child mortality of the other. And this means that it’s much
bigger a difference than the uncertainty of the data. I won’t put you
at a test here, but it’s Turkey, which is highest
there, Poland, Russia, Pakistan and South Africa. And these were
the results of the Swedish students. I did it so I got the confidence
interval, which is pretty narrow, and I got happy, of course: a 1.8
right answer out of five possible. That means that there was a place
for a professor of international health -- (Laughter) and for my
course.
38. Wise men talk because
they have something to
say; fools, because they
have to say something
Plato, a Greek philosopher
(427–347 BC)
