Ch 15 & 16 – Presentations

Purpose of a presentation

• The goals of a presentation are to either

  • Inform

  • Persuade

• The goal of communication is to increase common ground between the presenter and the audience

• Get the audience to understand and embrace your idea

Structure of a presentation

• Introduction – Guess what?

• Body – Prove it!

• Conclusion – So now what?

Introduction – Guess what?

• Get the audience’s attention

• Establish credibility

• Preview presentation

Body – Prove it!

• Present your main points

• Connect ideas

• Hold the audience’s attention

Conclusion – So now what?

• Restate your main points

• Provide a clear wrap up

• End on a strong note

The opening and closing are the

most important parts of the presentation

4 building blocks for opening a presentation:

• Attention

• Benefit

• Credibility

• Direction

Attention – 3 ways to get attention

• Presenting facts

• Asking questions

• Telling stories

Benefit

Some type of benefit needs to be emphasized for the audience

Credibility

Professionalism in design enhances credibility

Direction

• keep your audience on track with structure/specific direction for the presentation

• Define your main idea and purpose

• Organize with points/subpoints

• Identify your major points throughout the presentation

• Plan natural transitions between sections

• Prepare bibliography or source notes

• Choose a compelling title

• Process of perception:

  • Exposure

  • Attention

  • Interpretation

Exposure –

stimulus factors

Attention –

individual factors

Interpretation –

situational factors

4 building blocks to closing a presentation

• Announce – direction/information

• Benefit

• CTA – call to action

• Deliver a “clincher” to tie everything back to the attention getter

PowerPoint Design – The status quo

• PowerPoint is almost 30 years old now

• People still use the same presentation tactics, which is not a good thing

Death by PowerPoint

• Do not have too much text and do not resort to reading through the slides

• Slide limits can vary depending on the requirements of the presentation

• It’s better to limit oneself to 1 message/idea per slide

• Limit yourself to 6 objects per slide, or you will create visual noise

Design Tips

• Bullet points should not be more than 6 words long

• Font size should be legible but simultaneously not so big that it doesn’t match other design elements

• Background should not be something distracting

• Make sure everything is aligned along the same margins

• Make use of whitespace to enhance the clarity of content

• Frame content properly so it looks polished and professional

• Color contrast can make or break the design of your presentation

  • You can use different methods to emphasize graphics/bullets you want to focus on

  • Size can also be used for emphasis

Using visuals and animation

• Visuals increase attention

• Increases chances of retention

• Do not use low-res or badly cropped visuals

• Use functional artwork

• Visual dissonance

• Do not overuse animations

Use functional artwork –

visuals that contain information to help explain your message

• Example of functional artwork

Visual dissonance –

• when elements within a visual composition clash or create a sense of discomfort for the viewer

• visuals that are overly decorated or colorful can be distracting/confusing

Do not overuse animations

In most work presentations, animations are considered unprofessional

Delivering your presentation

• Should you memorize your speech?

• Pay attention to your body language

• Do not keep yelling stuff like ‘next slide’

• Speak to your audience, not the screen

• Don’t just read through, but interpret your slides and elaborate on them

• Overcoming anxiety

Should you memorize your speech?

Pay attention to your body language – the SOFTEN model

• Smile

• Open stance

• Forward lean

• Tone

• Eye contact

• nod

Do not keep yelling stuff like ‘next slide’

• Either do it yourself or

• Rely on discreet visual cues

Overcoming anxiety:

• Focus on:

  • Your message

  • Friendlier audience members

• Visualize your success

• Do not panic if something doesn’t go according to plan