A randall powerpresentations
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This document provides tips for creating effective PowerPoint presentations. It begins by discussing how the author used to create overly wordy slides with lots of text and clip art but has since learned to simplify. It then provides guidelines such as using fewer words, larger font sizes, images, and simplicity in design. Specific tips are given for techniques like using transparency effects and animation. The goal is to provide salient information visually in a way that enhances understanding and makes the content stickier for the audience.
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A randall powerpresentations
- 1. Power Presentations for Berkeley-Columbia MBAs Andrew Randall October 12, 2007
- 2. Confession: I Was a PowerPoint Junkie § My PowerPoints used to be full of § Text § 14 point font, to squeeze in as much information as possible onto each slide. § I would frequently use full sentences so I wouldn’t forget what I wanted to say. § Detailed diagrams § Cheesy clip-art § Cool animations § I was not alone: they were just like those of § My colleagues § Almost everyone else in the entire world § Then I saw a presentation by Steve Jobs and started to read a bit more about the theory behind good (and bad) presentations § Apparently, this might not be the only way to do things “PowerPoint has allowed an endless expanse of dimwit ideas to be dressed up with graphical respectability” – Wall Street Journal, 6/20/07
- 3. “PowerPoint is like an outdoor light that attracts moths, and then destroys them…” – Paul LeRoux & Peg Corwin, Visual Selling
- 5. PowerPoint: Killer App?T U E S D A Y , A U G U S T 3 0 , 2 0 0 5 By Ruth Marcus Did PowerPoint make the space shuttle crash? Could it doom another mission? Preposterous as this may sound, the ubiquitous Microsoft "presentation software" has twice been singled out for special criticism by task forces reviewing the space shuttle disaster. Perhaps I've sat through too many PowerPoint presentations lately, but I think the trouble with these critics is that they don't go far enough: The software may be as much of a mind-numbing menace to those of us who intend to remain earthbound as it is to astronauts. A17
- 6. “The Columbia Accident Investigation Board found that the distinctive cognitive style of PowerPoint reinforced the hierarchical filtering and biases of the NASA bureaucracy”
- 8. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof must one remain silent” – Wittgenstein Substance
- 9. Structure Content for Stickiness Substance Structure
- 10. “Good ideas often have a hard time succeeding in the world” Think: SUCCESs
- 17. Use the Slide Sorter View as Your Storyboard
- 18. Style: Strive for Simplicity Substance Structure Style
- 24. Track Record of Successful Transitions § 680x0 to PowerPC (1994 – 1996) § Radical new RISC architecture § Team did a great job (even though I wasn’t here!) § Successfully migrated entire product line in less than 3 years § Mac OS 9 to Max OS X (2001 – 2003) § “Brain transplant” § Classic mode emulation for back-compatibility enabled smooth transition § Combined Mac simplicity with rock-solid UNIX operating system – the most advanced operating system on the planet § World’s most successful new operating system introduction – 10 million users by 2004 § Now we’re migrating to Intel processor architecture § Great performance and power consumption § Will enable us to deliver more insanely great products § Set for success – proven we can do this before § In fact, we’ve been running OS X on Intel internally for some time!
- 26. Typography (Fonts) Simple Elegant Sans Serif Different Appropriate
- 27. Guy Kawasaki’s Font Size Rule Minimum font size Age of oldest audience member ½ = ×
- 28. Carefully Chosen Words and Images Promote Understanding Substance Structure Style Specifics
- 30. Readers: 230 – 800 words per minute • This is my first text bullet and it’s very interesting • It’s even got a sub-bullet • This is my second bullet and it adds a new thought • This is the last bullet on this slide (phew, I kept it short!) • This is my first text bullet and it’s very interesting • It’s even got a sub-bullet • This is my second bullet and it adds a new thought • This is the last bullet on this slide (phew, I kept it short!) Speakers: 160 words per minute Your Audience Can Read Faster Than You Can Talk
- 31. Cognitive Science Provides Theoretical Support: The Modality Principle Visual Verbal
- 32. Bad Reasons for Verbose Slides “I’m giving them as handouts to refer to later” “I won’t remember what to say” “My audience needs all the details on the slide” “My company always does PowerPoint this way”
- 39. If the design should be as simple as possible, why add images at all?
- 40. Picture Superiority Effect 8.6 11.2 12.4 Words Pictures Words + Pictures K. Mills & H. McMullan, A Study Of Short-term Memory Recall Of Pictures, Words, And Pictures And Words Presented Together, 2006
- 41. “When emotions are considered above everything else, don't be afraid to add more ornament.” – John Maeda (MIT Media Lab)
- 42. According to the UN, more than a billion people do not have access to clean water
- 43. “The goal of making messages ‘emotional’ is to make people care.”
- 45. Strive for Subtle Sizzle Substance Structure Style Specifics Sizzle
- 46. Tip #1 – “Smoked Glass” Overlay
- 47. 68% of Seniors Find Love Online68% of Seniors Find Love Online
- 48. Tip #1 – “Smoked Glass” Overlay Rectangle shape Format " AutoShape § 50% black fill § No border White text
- 49. Tip #2 – Image Fade
- 50. Overall Impressions • Generally positive • Building design connects audience with modern art • Facility poorly maintained • Staff does not appear to understand mission
- 51. Tip #2 – Image Fade Overlay rectangle shape Format " AutoShape § Fill Effects § Background color § From 0% to 100% transparency Adjust size to image
- 52. Tip #3 – Photo “Objects” Can purchase online (e.g. photoobjects.net) “Set transparent color” on picture toolbar May need to edit/crop first in Photoshop
- 53. Tip #4 – Formatting Charts 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
- 54. Tip #4 – Formatting Charts 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
- 55. Tip #4 – Formatting Charts 3D vs. subtle 2D shading Explore options Minimize ink (Tufte)
- 56. Do You Even Need Axes? 20 27 40 64 1st Qtr 2nd Qtr 3rd Qtr 4th Qtr
- 57. Treat Animations Like …
- 60. Relate
- 61. Copyright © 2007 MetaSwitch, a division of Data Connection • Proprietary and Confidential • All Rights Reserved. 61 MG3510: Industry-Leading Hardware Design " Compact form factor " Low power (1500W), high capacity cooling " 2 x 6:1 redundant universal card slots 1 2 3 4 5 6 71 2 3 4 5 6 7 17” 12U 17.2”
- 62. Copyright © 2007 MetaSwitch, a division of Data Connection • Proprietary and Confidential • All Rights Reserved. 62 MG2510: Same Power, Even More Compact " Same carrier class design in more compact chassis " Lower power (800W) " 5:1 card slots 17” 7U 17.2” “The MG2510 establishes a new benchmark for rack-space efficiency” – Current Analysis
- 63. Copyright © 2007 MetaSwitch, a division of Data Connection • Proprietary and Confidential • All Rights Reserved. 63 Universal Gateway Architecture The industry’s only single blade universal gateway Integrated digital signal processors for media server functions on every channel Reduces spares, increases flexibility and scalability
- 64. Other Mini Tips Keyboard shortcuts, e.g. § Ctrl-Shift-P § Ctrl-Shift-F § Underlined menu letters Draw " Align or Distribute Format " Line Spacing
- 65. Tools of the Trade Remote pointer NXPowerLite Photoshop
- 66. Consider Using Keynote “Cinema-quality presentations for everyone”
- 67. Further Reading + Seth Godin’s “Really Bad PowerPoint: www.ispi.org/pdf/BadPwrpt.pdf
- 68. Thank You… Now Go Make Beautiful PowerPoints!
- 69. But You Know It’s Not Over Until The Obligatory Dilbert Appears…
- 70. Copyright © 2007 Andrew Randall | andrew@krak.org
Editor's Notes
- I must admit here to not being a formal expert. I’ve done some reading, I’ve had a fair bit of practice, but I’m no Tetlock… so I’ve put this presentation together with the goal of sharing what little I have learned, not necessarily in communicating the very latest academic findings. Note: I’m not going to talk about public speaking technique – I really think there are many others better than I to address that topic.
- "It is easy to understand how a senior manager might read this PowerPoint slide and not realize that it addresses a life-threatening situation," the Columbia Accident Investigation Board concluded, citing Tufte's work. The board devoted a full page of its 2003 report to the issue, criticizing a space agency culture in which, it said, "the endemic use of PowerPoint" substituted for rigorous technical analysis. But NASA -- like the rest of corporate and bureaucratic America -- seems powerless to resist PowerPoint. Just this month a minority report by the latest shuttle safety task force echoed the earlier concerns: Often, the group said, when it asked for data it ended up with PowerPoints -- without supporting documentation. (Washington Post)
- Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen. Don’t even begin a presentation unless you have something useful, contentful to communicate to your audience. If you’re invited to give a talk at a prestigious conference about something you are totally ignorant of, either ramp up very quickly or decline.
- Once you’ve got something you want to communicate, you need to think about how you’re going to structure it – in a way that people will be impacted by it and remember what you had to say. In other words, you want to make your message sticky…
- - The CORE, not DUMB-DOWN If everything is important then nothing is important. If everything is priority then nothing is priority. You must be ruthless in your efforts to simplify — not dumb down — your message to its absolute core. We’re not talking about shallow sound bites here. Every idea — if you work hard enough — can be reduced to its bare essential meaning. For your presentation, what’s the key point? What’s the core? Why does (should) it matter? For your visuals the mantra is: Maximum effect, minimum means.
- SURPRISE PEOPLE MAKE A “GAP” – then fill it You can get people’s interest by violating their expectations. Surprise people. Surprise will get their interest. But to sustain their interest you have to stimulate their curiosity. The best way to do that is to pose questions or open up holes in people’s knowledge and then fill those holes, say the authors. Make the audience aware that they have a gap in their knowledge and then fill that gap with the answers to the puzzle (or guide them to the answers). Take people on a journey of discovery. (The Discovery Channel’s MythBusters is about the only thing I can watch on the virtually unwatchable boob-tube these days as the TV program does a wonderful job of posing questions and then answering them, often in quite unexpected ways.)
- Use natural speech and give real examples with real things, not abstractions. Speak of concrete images not of vague notions. Proverbs are good, say the authors, at reducing abstract concepts to concrete, simple, but powerful (and memorable) language. For example, “kill two birds with one stone.” Easier than saying something like “…let’s work toward maximizing our productivity by increasing efficiency across departments,” etc. And the phrase “…go to the moon and back” by JFK (and Ralph Kramden before him)? That’s concrete. You can visualize that.
- If you are famous in your field you may have built-in credibility (but even that doesn’t go as far as it used to). Most of us, however, do not have that kind of credibility so we reach for numbers and cold hard data to support our claims as market leaders and so on. Statistics, say the Heath brothers, are not inherently helpful. What’s important is the context and the meaning of those statistics. Put it in terms people can visualize. “66 grams of fat” or “the equivalent of three Big Macs”? And if you showed a photo of the burgers, wouldn’t that stick? There are many ways to establish credibility, a quote from a client or the press may help, for example. But a long-winded account of your company’s history won’t help. In Japan especially, having a well-known trusted business partner or some big-name customers help establish credibility. The Heath brothers outline many good examples of credibility in their book..
- People are emotional beings. It is not enough to take people through a laundry list of talking points and information on your slides, you must make them feel something. There are a million ways to help people feel something about your content. Images, of course, are one way to have audiences not only understand your point better but also to feel and to have a more visceral and emotional connection to your idea. Explaining the devastation of the Katrina hurricane and flood in the US, for example, could be done with bulletpoints, data, and talking points, but images of the aftermath and the pictures of the human suffering that occurred told the story in ways words alone never could. Just the words “Hurricane Katrina” conjure up vivid images in your mind today no doubt. We make emotional connections with people not abstractions. When possible put your ideas in human terms. “90 grams of fat” may seem concrete to you, but for others it's an abstraction. A picture (or verbal description) of an enormous plate of greasy French fries stacked high, a double cheese burger (extra cheese), and a large chocolate shake (extra whip cream) is visceral and sticky.
- We tell stories all day long. It’s how humans have always communicated. We tell stories with our words and even with our art. We express ourselves through the stories we share. We teach, we learn, and we grow through stories. Why is it that when the majority of smart, talented people have the chance to present we usually get streams of information rather than story from them? Great ideas and great presentations have an element of story to them. But you see storytelling everywhere in the workplace. In Japan, for example, it’s a custom for a senior worker (sempai) to mentor a younger worker (kohai) on various issues concerning the company history and culture, and of course on how to do the job. The sempai does much of his informal teaching trough storytelling, though nobody calls it that. But that’s what it is. Once a younger worker hears the “story” of what happened to the poor guy who didn’t wear his hardhat on the factory floor one day he never forgets the lesson (and he never forgets to wear his hardhat). Stories get our attention and are easier to remember than lists of rules.
- How do you do that in practice? One key to getting the right structure is to plan the structure of the story before filling in the details. You can’t just sit down and create powerpoints – put together a story board first. A key element of this is to think of your presentation in terms of “chunks”, for example my little “pyramid” device does that – it chops up the presentation into separate sections the audience can handle (hopefully).
- REMOVE EXTRANEOUS DETAIL Why? Yes, there’s the “Zen” aesthetic, but it’s also been proven by psychologists that people learn better when extraneous detail is not present. In PowerPoint, “more” is not always “better”. Remove anything you can to get to the essence of what you want to present. If in doubt, cut it out.
- Compare with Steve Jobs – who is the master of the powerful keynote presentation. In fact, if you’ve not seen him go to Apple’s website or youtube and just watch him present.
- Jobs is so assured of his material, that at times he will even talk to a blank slide. Just look how powerful that is – all the energy and attention is focused on him, speaking.
- So now we’re going to have a little exercise. Imagine you have just joined Apple’s communications department. Apple is about to announce the migration to Intel processors, having used Motorola for many years. You know that you’ve got the track record from previous technology transitions to justify that you can do this. How would you put that slide together? I’m guessing in most of your companies, you’d create something like this… (show of hands!) Now look how Steve Jobs presented it.
- As you can see, by making his slides simpler, Jobs ensures the focus is on what he has to say – we’ll come back to this point in a minute when we talk about how to choose the specifics of what goes on a slide.
- Another key aspect of Style is how text is presented. For on-screen presentations, legibility is key – for this reason, serif fonts are to be avoided. Please also avoid Comic Sans and Arial – they are so widely used (and abused) that they just don’t look elegant. Be different but classy. If you have to use standard Windows fonts, try Verdana, Trebuchet – or better, go for Lucida Sans, or Gill Sans (which has a slight “serify” feel to it). Also make sure you’re not cramping text – a key element of good design is spacing.
- Clearly a key aspect of legibility is font SIZE. Rule of thumb: 30 point Except for my counter-example slides, I’ve not used any font < 30 points in this presentation
- So, this phenomenon is well know. I shouldn’t have to tell you “don’t just read your slides” (although from the number of people who do exactly that, it’s certainly worth repeating). However, I’m here to tell you something a bit more controversial: even if you don’t exactly read your slides, you shouldn’t have many words on the slide. By “many” I don’t mean 4 to 6 key bullet points, each of 5-10 words, I mean you should have at most a handful of words.
- Dual channels is the concept that people have separate information processing channels for visual material and verbal material. The visual channel handles information presented to the eyes (such as illustrations, animation, video, or on-screen text). The verbal channel handles information presented to the ears (such as narration or nonverbal sounds). The constraints on our processing capacity force us to make decisions about which pieces of incoming information to pay attention to, and the degree to which we should build connections between selected pieces of information and our existing knowledge. ---------- Limited capacity is the concept that people can pay attention to only a few pieces of information in each channel at a time. When an illustration or animation is presented, the learner is able to hold only a few images in working memory at any one time. These images reflect portions of the presented material rather than an exact copy of the presented material. When a narration is presented, the learner is able to hold only a few words in working memory at any one time. ------------- A screen full of text overloads the mind’s visual channel: Research finding: People understand a multimedia explanation better when the words are presented as narration rather than on-screen text (the Modality Principle).
- Yes, this approach means that your slides won’t have all the details on that you are used to. That’s fine – put them in notes, in a handout, wherever – but they’re not a supporting visual to an effective talk. For the final point (“my company”), try doing it differently – yes you might get pushback, but you might also get a sigh of relief when you give the first enjoyable presentation the company has ever seen. Of course you need to know when and how to choose your moment, but there are scientific principles underlying these suggestions – and recall what we said at the beginning about the real impact of bad Powerpoint to the business bottom line.
- No clip art!
- Background image from this PowerPoint template has too much salience itself and competes with the chart in the foreground.
- Here the contrast is better between the background and the foreground, but the sand and beach ball are not compatible with the message. The background image (also a PowerPoint template) may be appropriate if the chart was comparing sunburn cases or days spent at resort holidays, etc. Still, you could find a better image elsewhere rather than using a tired template.
- A background photo of a cell phone user in Japan or South Korea may work. This photo does not make for great contrast, however. Contrast can be helped by placing a dark transparent box behind the chart…..
- … and contrast can be helped still further by adding a Gaussian blur to the background image.
- I prefer to keep slides quite simple when displaying charts, graphs, or tables. A white background can make for good contrast with dark text and other elements (nothing has more contrast than black and white) and works well when your room is relatively bright. In a dark room, however, a white background may be overpowering.
- So there are actually two good reasons (at least) – aside from adding some entertainment value
- This is a well-recognized psychological fact (since research in the 60s): People remember what’s shown to them in picture form better than words alone. Immediately after being shown a slide, they will remember text & pictures the same. But 30 seconds or more later, recall is much better with pictures, and even better with words and pictures. Conversely, images and words that conflict dramatically inhibit recall.
- (John Maeda photographed at TED 2007)
- Note: only works for solid backgrounds (e.g. white) More complex situations will require Photoshop
- Warning about transparent colors in image (Photoshop or quick trick – use rectangle underneath)
- This is the default format Excel produces
- This is after changing a small number of options
- Subtle shading can look good Overlooked options Data Series (gap) Axis (offset) Remove ink (think Tufte!) 3D data/area borders area fill gridlines (axes?)
- In addition to removing the axes, you see in this one I’ve also introduced a little animation. Which brings us onto that thorny topic…
- Animations are powerful. Animations are exciting. They add spice. But, like Tabasco, if overused, they destroy the dish. Used well, animations can support your message. Like bold font, they can draw attention to a particular aspect of the slide. Or you can use animations to literally communicate a dynamic concept with moving pictures. But over-using them, or using them inappropriately, will destroy a presentation more quickly than any other technique.
- NXpowerLite for example compressed this presentation from 18Mb to 7.