BEYOND POWERPOINT:
PRESENTATIONS 101
Jen Riehle
Design, Education & Outreach, OIT

PRESENTATION GOALS
To convey information and promote understanding
To engage audience and keep them focused
What are we here to learn? Effective Presentations

Moonlightbulb
TO BE
MEMORABLE
All the awesome information in the world doesn’t matter if people don’t focus and remember
you.
So how do you be memorable?

OK, HOW DO I DO THAT?
1. Preparation
2. Preparation
3. Preparation
Ok, that’s not helpful.

OK, HOW DO I DO THAT?
1. Preparation - CONTENT
2. Preparation - AUDIENCE
3. Preparation - PRESENTATION
Know your content inside and out
Understand your audience and the likely question; context is also important (type of event,
location, time of presentation, etc.)
This will help you establish IF you need a slidedeck and if so, 1 and 2 will ensure the best
possible presentation

Nic McPhee
SO WAIT, WE
DON’T HAVE TO HAVE SLIDES!?
Nope. Not always the time or place. Or maybe it’s a really simple one with only a couple
slides with goofy pictures.
So why do we have slideshows almost always?

THE RIGHT STUFF
What do you need to present?
Lots of visuals?
Lots of interaction?
Easy access? Reusing the presentation?
Consider both your audience and yourself
What is going to work for you and your audience? How much time do you have? What’s their
level of expertise?
So why WOULD use a slideshow?

Yay, Presentation!
Presentation tools allow us to better organize and share
our content with the audience
Presentation tools allow us to demonstrate the critical
concepts of the presentation in visual ways
Presentation tools are more engaging and keep the viewers
involved throughout the presentation
Presentation tools allow us to easily share parts of the
content with users after-the-fact
People expect presentation tools so we need to have
something when we show up!
No contrast; serif fonts are harder to read on screens

Ok, this is better, right?
• Presentation tools allow us to better organize and share our
content with the audience
• Presentation tools allow us to demonstrate the critical concepts
of the presentation in visual ways
• Presentation tools are more engaging and keep the viewers
involved throughout the presentation
• Presentation tools allow us to easily share parts of the content
with users after-the-fact
• People expect presentation tools so we need to have something
when we show up!
(san-serif, high contrast)
No style, bright in dark rooms (better a dark background in a dark room and vice versa),
LOTS of text in a small font

WHY DO WE NEED
PRESENTATION TOOLS?
Organize presentation content
Use visual aids to convey key messages
Keep participants engaged
Share presentation content easily
Manage participant expectations
Why does this slide work?
Good contrast and color, useful heading, san-serif font, short and to-the-point bullets

MOST ANNOYING THINGS ABOUT
PRESENTATIONS...
4% 2%
8%
41%
13%
Speaker reads slides
Poor font choices
Bullets too long
Too much flying slides and text
32% Overly complex diagram and charts
Annoying use of sounds
“Poor font choices” - illegible fonts, poor color contrast or too small
Others? Which do you hate the most?

MAKING YOUR SLIDES WORK
FOR YOU
Using the tools
Presentation interaction
Sharing the slides
If you are going to have slides, use the right tools in the best way

USING THE TOOLS

CHARTS AND GRAPHS
1. 2. 3.
EXPLAIN HIGHLIGHT DISCUSS
Explain what’s Highlight the key Discuss the
being displayed; concepts relevance
make sure it’s
legible!
Use colors! Apply borders and
shading!

OUTLINE VIEW
Nice for having the content at your fingertips

NOTES VIEW
Nice for keep track of key messages without putting all the content on the slide

HANDOUTS
Slides per page
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9
Outline view
Notes view
Exporting
Don’t forget to check on background color print options!
This can encourage people to stop listening - they have all the info already, right? - makes it
that much harder to engage them. Don’t put everything in the slides.

EFFECTIVE IMAGES
Stefan
Great way to grab attention and make your point but can be scary to use.
- You need to know your content REALLY well. No bullets to fallback on.
- No context (without slide notes) on handouts.

PRESENTATION
INTERACTION
(AKA, “WAKE UP!”)

WHO’S THIS?
Who is this? Stephen Colbert

WHO’S THIS?
And this? Bill Gates

ANNND...
Steve Jobs
Why’d I do that? In this case it’s because they’re all great public speakers. Every now and then
it’s good to make sure people are awake.
Ask their opinion, get feedback, stop and stretch - whatever you need, depending on length
of presentation

SHARING YOUR
PRESENTATION

SHARING YOUR PRESENTATION
Think about intellectual property
Include notes. Or don’t. Your call.
Format of the presentation
creative
commons!
Are you ok with anyone use this with attribution?
One way to mitigate free-for-all usage is not including your notes
Sharing in a non-editable format (pdf)

SHARING YOUR SLIDES
Formats
As a PDF
As a JPG
As a native file (.PPT, .PPTX, .KEY)
Emailing the presentation
Putting it online
Slideshare.net
PDF means no one can edit it; ppt or key mean other can modify
Email may be tough if it’s in a proprietary format
Online is easy
Sharing on something like slideshare is contributing to shared knowledge - awesome!

APPLICATION OPTIONS
PowerPoint
Keynote
Google Docs
Prezi
Beamer
PDF
Beamer- open source for Windows, Mac, Linux- requires knowledge of mark-up language
Prezi- web-based and free, but there is a Pro version

STILL PAYING ATTENTION?

PRESENTATION STRATEGIES
Have notes
Multiple copies of slides, in multiple locations, in
multiple formats
Keep a copy of your fonts
Practice!

HATE PUBLIC
SPEAKING?
Stefan
I’m sorry.
1. Practice! You’ll feel better the better you feel about the content
2. Make your slides fit your personality so you’re comfortable with them- have fun!
Get started - things go more smoothly once you’re in the groove.

IN CONCLUSION
PREPARE! PRACTICE!
Use the right tool(s) for your audience
Back-up your presentation; make it available in case
of emergency
Consider sharing your presentation
Recap your important messages

THANKS FOR YOUR TIME!
Questions?
Jen Riehle
jen_riehle@ncsu.edu
@ncsumarit