Making a good presentation is difficult and time consuming. This article suggests principles for presentations and web pages, to help you get your point across.
1. Graphics. Delete meaningless graphics. Add visual evidence.
2. Presentations. Be concise. Rehearse.
3. Web pages. Do not make it cool. Make it clean.
4. Conclusion: Less is better.
I discuss graphics as its own category, because the same rules apply to writing, presentations, and web pages. Graphics can be abused wherever they are found, but the abuse comes often in PowerPoint.
Graphics come in four types: meaningless, tangentially meaningful, illustrative, and visual evidence. Delete meaningless graphics. Use tangentially meaningful graphics sparingly. But try to have directly meaningful graphics and especially try to have visual evidence on every slide.
1. Meaningless. A meaningless graphic conveys no information.
All graphics in all PowerPoint templates are meaningless. They suggest content that does not exist, giving your audience the sense that you are using hype rather than giving real information.
Meaningless graphics take up visual space and cognitive capacity. They give the reader’s eye a focal point that is not data. Your reader or audience will look at them for the briefest second, checking whether the graphic has any meaning. Meaningless graphics compete for attention with the real data. You want them to look at the real data, but they are busy looking at the meaningless graphics. Meaningless graphics are noise, like a cell phone ringing during your speech.
Here, the slide on the left contains little information. The slide on the right has much more data.
If the image below were used to illustrate the diet problem, the toolbars would be meaningless. Most screen images must be cropped to get rid of the meaningless pixels.
Crop and stretch screen images. Visual evidence explains your point better than the text.
What I call “meaningless graphics” can actually have unintended meaning. For example, using a PowerPoint template, full of meaningless graphics, but without illustrative graphics suggests that you were in a hurry. Above, the Start bar is exposed, which shows irrelevant names of programs on the author’s computer. A screen image of Excel with the Solitaire icon in the desktop may show something about Excel, but your audience may wonder how much time you spend playing Solitaire.
2. Tangentially meaningful. A tangentially meaningful graphic conveys peripheral information, but sheds no light on the data in the current focus or frame.
A repeated related graphic is tangentially meaningful. If you put a corporate logo on every slide, make it small and unobtrusive. But a logo is best only on the first and last slides.
The title bar for a screen image is tangentially meaningful at best. In the Excel screen images above, the title bar “Microsoft Excel – Polly’s diet problem.xls” reminds the reader that the screen is an image from Excel, and shows the file name. However, without the title bar, the reader probably can guess that the screen is from Excel. The file name gives little help, unless the reader needs to access that file. The title bar should be cropped out.
Navigational elements such as buttons, toolbars, and image maps (as in a web page) are tangentially meaningful. They are form, not substance.
· Bullet point dots are tangentially meaningful. At most, they imply a hierarchical structure to the text, “this chunk of data is separate from that other chunk of data.” In text, we provide this hierarchical structure with sentences and paragraphs. You do not need bullet points to show structure. The hierarchy can be conveyed more cleanly with blank space. To show a hierarchical structure of paragraphs, use indents or extra line space between paragraphs.
If you do not believe me that bullet points stink, see Edward Tufte's presentation tips.
Attention-getting is useful in a sea of noise. In the Christchurch phone book, circle your friend’s phone number in red, because that number may be the only useful information on a noisy page. On a road, the advertiser wants you to see his sign. But in your own text, web page, or presentation, the competing elements are your own data, not noise! When you already have your viewer’s attention, you need not get it again. At most, you need only emphasise, but more likely, you need to reduce noise! Get attention by writing concisely and using good placement. Your viewer’s attention is highest at the page’s or sentence’s beginning or end.
Boundary-making is useful to show information structure. In a newspaper or magazine, information does not all flow from left to right and top to bottom, since advertisements break up related text and unrelated stories are adjacent. These unrelated chunks of information are appropriately separated with strong visual elements.
But if you are not in the publishing business, your presentation should be one topic, and the information should flow from left to right and top to bottom. Except for changes in font to outline document structure, you should usually show boundaries with white space. Below, the box around the bar graph is not needed, because without the box we can easily identify the boundaries between the picture and the text.
Please, please, remove boxes around tables, graphs, and images, in all your printed work, in your presentations, and in your web pages. They take up space, which force the real data image to be small. Below, removing the box and the useless legend allowed the true data to be enlarged.
If you must add a line or a box, tone it down by making it thin and grey. In the spreadsheet images above, the lower spreadsheet has a thin grey edge to prevent the white cells from bleeding into the background of this page. In the lower right graph below, the boxes have been removed to show a cleaner image.
After you have added an attention-getting or boundary-making element (and certainly when you are proofreading), question the need for it: “Is it really that much better if I put this in a box? Is bold really useful here?” Most of the time, you are better off spending that effort on careful wording (mainly making it concise) and genuine illustration.
3. Illustrative. Some meaning in the text is translated into a graphic. The graphic gets its meaning from the text. Well-chosen clip art is often directly meaningful. A question or problem can be illustrated as a cartoon character with a question mark over its head. A presentation about supply chain management can be illustrated with a picture of a truck or warehouse. Directly meaningful graphics may humour, but not explain, as with the ironic “search for meaning” below.
To make a directly meaningful graphic, translate the text into a graphic.
We remember pictures better than we remember text. Pictures also help us refer to a particular slide. At the end of a presentation, a listener in the audience may with to refer back to a slide. With a good picture, he might say, “Could you please go back to the slide with the dragon?” Without a good picture, he will say, “Could you please go back to the slide where you were talking something about legends?” With a good picture, recognizing the correct slide will be easier.
So how can you find directly meaningful graphics? First, read the text on your slide. Use the awesome force of your magnificent imagination, and try to think of a picture that describes or relates to the text. If you cannot find something on your own computer, Microsoft Clip Gallery on-line has heaps of art, in spite of our ironic search for meaning above. (In PowerPoint, use Insert, Picture, Clip Art, then click Clips Online.) If you cannot find good clip art, be creative.
Photographs wonderfully provide context and visual richness. Rent a digital camera from the University’s Information Technology Services, and take an afternoon to get photos for your presentation. Get pictures of the front of your client’s building, of you with your client at his office, and of other related sites, objects, or people. The photos do not have to be professionally done; snapshots look real. These photos will literally show your audience who you are talking about and what you are talking about, providing your audience with a sense of context.
Below, the cropped picture on the right shows all the important information in less space.
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Fritz in his office: photos provide context. Photos (as with other graphics) are often improved by cropping. Show the idea, not more than that.
4. Visual evidence. The most powerful kind of graphic is visual evidence. With visual evidence, the graphic itself contains the real information, which is translated into the text. The text gets its meaning from the graphic, and only interprets the graphic. You know it is visual evidence if you can introduce it to your audience by saying, “Let me show you what I mean.”
These graphics are the most difficult to find or create. With visual evidence, a picture really is worth a thousand words. I used the phrase “evidence” to make you think about a legal proceeding. A graphic used in a legal proceeding must be authoritative and convincing. When attempting to convict someone of a crime, a clip art “screen bean” character holding a gun is laughable, but a few frames of grainy video could bring a conviction.
When you think about graphics, try substituting the word “illustration” or “visual evidence” for “graphic.” The word “graphic” suggests that meaningless visuals are somehow useful or entertaining: “My presentation has many graphics,” versus “My presentation has many illustrations.” Look for illustrations and visual evidence, not graphics.
An imported Excel graph can be truly illustrative, if it shows information with sufficient density. You can increase information density by cropping the image to cut out noise. For imported screen images, Excel graphs, and Excel tables, crop the graphic to the smallest essential rectangle. Stretch the picture so the text in the graphic is close to the smallest text in the rest of the presentation. For example, to show an Excel table, crop the menu, scroll bars, toolbars, status bar, etc. I did this in the Excel screen images above. Show only the data, not screen debris.
Do you need PowerPoint? The most memorable speeches did not use it. Did Abraham Lincoln use PowerPoint? Here is a case of child-abuse-by-PowerPoint. Trust me, you don't know better than Edward Tufte. I think Tufte and Norvig overplayed this point, however, so here is my response: The Gettysburg Address in PowerPoint, Raffensperger version.
"There's the old axiom in design that said, `Less is more.' They should have that printed on the outside of the PowerPoint box. It needs a warning label." In fact, there is good reason to believe that bullet points kill.
PowerPoint presentations (PPTs) are often boring. Why? PPTs tend to look alike, because many speakers use the same default templates. PPTs tend to be visually irritating, because many speakers misuse texture, colour, and animation. You can avoid these problems by using a plain template with no texture, only grey-scale colour, and no animation. Unless you are a professional graphics artist, you should not try to create professional graphics. Make it plain.
I plead with you to use a plain template. Please avoid PowerPoint’s meaningless templates. Meaningless graphics crowd the text and illustrative graphics into a smaller space. “I can’t stretch this chart, because I will cover up the template graphic.” This is bad. I prefer that you use a plain template, with a uniform background colour, and no meaningless graphics. If you just take away the meaningless graphic, you have space to stretch the real information!
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PowerPoint templates crowd out the real data.
Overhead pen-and-ink presentations are often interesting. Why? There is no unneeded ink. (Did you ever see a speaker during a presentation draw silly swirls with no bearing whatever on the presentation?) The audience pays attention to the tip of the pen. There is some anticipation – what will he write next? Pen-and-ink presentations allow the appearance of informality and natural improvisation.
Unfortunately, a pen-and-ink presentation forces the speaker to be extremely well prepared, but most of us are too lazy or do not have enough time. The speaker needs good handwriting. The audience cannot receive the notes in advance.
Be concise in your presentation. Reduce the number of words in every line. Reduce the number of letters in every word, without abbreviating.
Write in complete sentences. (I understand that this is controversial.) End each sentence with a full stop. For some reason, using bullet points with incomplete sentences is fashionable, as though we have put the punctuation at the beginning!
If you do not have a local accent, help your audience adjust to your voice by writing a complete sentence at the beginning of your presentation, and then reading this aloud. The audience will feel synchronized or tuned in to your speech. With a foreign accent, speaking slowly in short sentences is critical.
Try to keep each sentence on a single line, with no line break. Writing a complete sentence on one line will challenge your ability to be concise. I will read three lines of text. I glaze over with six lines of text, and that much text is embarrasing for you to read out loud. The solution is to write concisely.
Display text on screen long enough for people to read it and understand it.
Keep text size at least 24 points. Even text that appears in graphics should be 24 points. Use a consistent font, and do not use too much italics, bold, or underscore. If you absolutely must use a smaller font, be sure to give a hand-out in case people cannot read it. But be aware that anything under 24 points can be miserable to look at.
Avoid bullet points. Bullet points are only tangentially meaningful. They use up horizontal space, which can force words on the line to break to the next line. This costs vertical space. The default spacing between the bullet and the text is not always right, so it takes extra time to fix. If you need to show hierarchical structure in the text, use careful line spacing (Format, Line spacing) and indents.
Use the spell checker.
Try to avoid generic meta-language, such as:
Outline
Project background
Simulation
Conclusion
Anyone can write such generic verbiage. Instead, give real information that is unique to your project. Create an outline that only you can give:
Outline
History of SpreadsheetStyle.com.
Simulating user errors in spreadsheets.
How to avoid spreadsheet errors.
Give your audience a head start on the material by putting your outline directly on your introductory screen. This saves you a keystroke at the crucial start, and allows your audience to learn about your presentation before you even begin speaking.
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Verbose Slide 1 Spreadsheet Errors: A Simulation John F. Raffensperger MEM Project 1 October 2000 Slide 2 Outline Project background Simulation Conclusion |
Better Slide 1 Spreadsheet Errors: A Simulation John F. Raffensperger MEM Project 1 October 2000 1. History of SpreadsheetStyle.com. 2. Simulating errors in spreadsheets. 3. How to avoid spreadsheet errors. |
If you use a template with big meaningless graphics, combining slides is harder, because you will probably not have enough space on each slide. Similarly, consider combining concluding slides.
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Verbose Slide 20 Conclusions: Users need better Excel skills. Users should use parentheses in formulas. Do not put constants in formulas. Slide 21 That concludes the Presentation. The End Any questions? |
Better Slide 20 Conclusions: Users need better Excel skills. Users should use parentheses in formulas. Do not put constants in formulas. Questions? |
Animation succeeds in capturing the audience’s attention, but consider whether you want them staring at your tangentially meaningful animation, when you really want them looking at the important points.
Here are some types of animation, from least irritating to most irritating:
Appearing in place with no effect.
Appearing in place with some effect (e.g. dissolving).
Initially moving (e.g. flying).
Moving for a few seconds, then stopping (e.g. swivel, etc.).
Continuously moving (e.g. gif animations in clip art).
My first reaction at seeing animation is usually, “Give me a break!” Animation is usually annoying. Still, I use animation for three reasons.
First, I usually animate paragraphs (what others call bullet points) to appear. This helps me pace the presentation and show the audience clearly which point I am currently discussing. For explaining complex information presented as text, such as a computer program, line-by-line animation helps keep the audience from being confused by trying to look too far ahead before the first part is explained. In short, it forces a step-by-step explanation.
However, some want to see the entire text at once, and they feel the presenter is trying to hide something. So I only use animation when I also give out the slides in advance. This way, I am hiding nothing from the audience.
Second, I animate to illustrate change over time. For example, animation nicely shows how a decision tree is constructed.
Third, I use animation when I need to show a large graphic, but still want to annotate it with text. The graphic appears first, and I explain it. Then the text box with the annotation appears over the graphic. This way, I can stretch the graphic to almost full-screen, and the audience can see the entire graphic, before it is partially covered with explanatory text.
PowerPoint has a facility for printing multiple slides to a single sheet. It stinks. The print comes up too small, and the margins are too large. Instead, use the “n-up” facility found in PostScript printers. (Most University printers have PostScript capability.) Select File, Print, then the Properties button for the printer. Different printer drivers display different options, and in different ways, so you may have to search a bit. Most likely, you can find the right option under Advanced, Printer Features, and Pages per Sheet.
Printed as “4 (Landscape)” allows you to get 8 slides per page, when copied double-sided. If your font is at least 24 points, the text will be at least 12 points. If it is not readable printed, it will certainly be illegible on-screen.
If you want to demonstrate software in your presentation, choreograph it like a ballet. Write down every keystroke on a piece of paper.
Before the audience sees the screen, close toolbars and the Start bar, so the only information on the screen is the demonstration. Show what the audience wants to see, when they want to see it, and nothing more.
Load the program into memory before your presentation starts. Switch cleanly from PowerPoint to your demo with Alt Tab.
Having 24-point font size is as important in a software demonstration as in PowerPoint. Your audience will have trouble understanding if they cannot read the text. If you cannot get the font big enough, consider using cropped and stretched screen images instead.
Rehearse your entire presentation, standing up, in front of your computer. If you stumble over the words in the calm of your own bedroom, you will stumble over them in front of an audience. Repeat a sentence until it comes out clearly.
Arrive early. Tidy up the front. Wipe off marks from the whiteboard. Clear the exits. Learn how to adjust the lights. Practice turning off the data projector.
Make the presentation appear on the laptop monitor, so you do not need turn your back to the audience to look at the screen. When you want to point to the screen, use the hand closest to the screen, when you are facing the audience. This way, you do not twist and turn your back to the audience.
Learn the keystrokes in PowerPoint, so you do not need the mouse. The mouse exposes navigation controls which are meaningless to the audience, and operating the mouse is a fine motor skill which can be difficult when you are nervous. The keyboard, especially the space bar, is easier to hit than a mouse key. Advance a slide by pressing the space bar. To go to a particular slide, you can type a number and the Enter button. To go to the previous slide, press “p”.
Everytime I see someone use the hand-held remote mouse, they fumble. I recommend instead carefully arranging the computer and the projector so that you can simply press the space bar to advance the presentation.
Polish your first three sentences. “Good morning! My name is Bill Clinton. Thanks for coming to this seminar.” Short humour at the start helps get your audience’s attention. “I may sound like I’m from Arkansas, but actually I got this accent by mail order.”
Never admit to nervousness during the presentation. You can feel nervous, but act confident. Stand straight. Do not cross your legs or wring your hands – these make you look insecure. Smile.
Polish your last three sentences. “That concludes my presentation for this morning. Thanks for your attention. Do you have any questions?”
At the end, turn off the projector’s lamp before you take questions and before you escape from the slide show program. Do not show the audience irrelevant screen information. The fan will have to run a minute or two to cool the machine, but when it goes off, the room will be quieter, which will help when you take questions.
Unless you are a professional graphics designer, do not try to make a “cool” web site. Just make it clear and easy to use. The simpler, the better. (It is actually quite a bit of work to make it look clean.) Neophyte web designers put a few sentences on a wildly coloured screen full of meaningless graphics, and force the reader to click to see the next bit of information.
Pay attention to information density. Web page style should be between printed written text and PowerPoint – complete sentences, but concise. Leave off stupid filler text such as, “Project Management is a tool used in the business world to accomplish almost anything.” Is the information scattered across many screens, forcing your reader to click click click? Put information on a few high-density clean pages rather than many low-density pages.
Keep paragraphs short. A reader may be able to wade through a 30-line paragraph on paper, but this is harder on screen.
Skip the pointless “Enter My Web Site” screen. Show me the information immediately.
Go light on the graphics. Refer to the discussion about graphics in the PowerPoint section above. Avoid meaningless graphics, which push real information off screen. Use truly illustrative graphics and visual evidence.
Go light on the fonts. Pick one font (such as Times Roman or Verdana, but not both). Most major firms have switched to sans serif fonts, such as Verdana. Pick no more than three or four styles – two sizes, bold and italic, all of the same type.
I hate frames. They take up too much screen space, forcing the real information into a small box, which puts less within the eye span.
Start hit counters at zero.
All your material must be original. Do not copy material from others.
Look at sites for major corporations. Some of the best web sites are Microsoft, CNN. What fonts did they use? How many and what styles? Do they have white space (or ads, which are the same thing) at left and right? How did they use indents? Do they use phrases like “it is shown that, for the fact, it appears that, what this shows is that,” etc? One measure of information density is the number of options on the first screen. These firms have many options on their first screens, because their sites have an enormous amount of real data.
A good reference book on web style is Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, by Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton, Yale University Press, 1999. They have a web site at http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/contents.html. Another brilliant site is Jakob Nielson’s http://www.useit.com/. Think you have a good excuse for doing things weirdly? See CUBISTS LAUNCH UNNAVIGABLE WEB SITE.
Learn how to use cascading style sheets (CSS). CSS allows you to control the style of your web pages more easily, to give them a consistent look, and to control spacing. The style of my web site is controlled by a cascading style sheet, mygaramond.css. Feel free to view the HTML source and download mygaramond.css to learn how it is done. The Internet has many good tutorials. Here is one from the people who invented the technology, written by Dave Ragget, Adding a Touch of Style.
Simple and plain are usually best, but getting there takes a surprising amount of work. Do not try to make your presentation or web site look cool. Instead, get the information across as cleanly and simply as possible. In the end, this will be right.
28 Mar 2001 jfr