Make your slides stink less

Make Your Slides

tink

ess (a little)

A Very Bad Slide

A simple measurement of slide suckage is based upon the amount of text and visual elements. The worst slides are essentially text, and LOTS of it, like this one. These kind of slides are basically just a word document, turned sideways and put in 20+ pt font. If you have a compelling need to create slides like this, please just print them out and give them to the audience. These aren’t even visual presentations, so why would you even project them? Having said that, it is perfectly fine if your slides START this way as you are developing your presentation. Just don’t let them end this way!

Bullet points

• PowerPoint defaults to bullet points

• May help to reduce text

• Can separate your ideas

• Like posting your main speaking points

Good visual elements engage more parts of the

brain visual, social, emotional, face recognition, imagination The problem is

execution

Clipart is a problem

• Is this slide any better with a “visual” element?

• Clipart is small, cartoony, and usually trite

• Most clipart does not appear professional

• Consider photographic images instead

Image problems

• Small images don’t help much

• Images without emotion don’t help much

Big emotional

images force more parts of the brain to pay attention

Ideally, the image illustrates a concept or a

congruent emotion

Big images prevent stinky slides by encouraging less text per slide

So, why don’t we do this?

We put too much on one slide because

we are trying to deliver a

document, rather than an

emotion or concept

Slides are FREE, use as many as you want!

Is it complicated?

The easiest way is to add images

with white space

But, these usually have to be purchased

You can use any image with a substantial single color component

You can use almost any full screen

image, if you keep your text readable

Let’s use this image as an example

It is not the same dimension as the slide, so we will expand it and crop

Writing directly on the image doesn’t give good contrast

But, we can move to a darker part of the image and use white text

For more contrast, we can bold and add a black “glow” text effect

We can try darkening the picture a bit

Or brighten it, and reverse colors

We can leave a text banner at the bottom

Or use a 50% transparency fill to darken our text area

Or a try a solid color box

Or, we could use a note image.

PowerPoint: Picture tools> format> color> set transparent color> click background color of note image

Finding copyright legitimate images

Advanced search

I want to use an image that is the wrong shape for

full screen landscape. Now

what?

One option: Split the screen between image

and text

Another option: Copy, flip, cut and stretch

First copy the

image

Next, flip the new image to mirror the old one

Now crop the “non background” part of the new image

leaving this “extended

background”

Then stretch the new piece to cover the screen

One option: Split the screen between image

and text

Or, make multiple mirror image copies of the new piece, flipping

each to match the seams, like this

It isn’t photoshop perfect, but it is quick

and easy!

When might you want to use drawings or

clipart instead of a single, large

image?

For complex concepts with

multiple simultaneous

components, you may want to

build your own integrated illustration

Insurance Inc.

Creation or Transfer of New Policy

2010

2011 2012 2013 2014 … Death

Gifts to be used for premiums

Death Benefit

to Charity

Some complex concepts may be easier if seen all at once

Gifts are deductible if donor keeps no rights in the policy

Insurance Inc.

Creation or Transfer of New Policy

2010

2011 2012 2013 2014 … Death

Premium Payments

Death Benefit

to Charity

Visualize changes by change elements from the base slide

Gifts are deductible if donor keeps no rights in the policy

Insurance Inc.

Creation or Transfer of New Policy

2010

2011 2012 2013 2014 … Death

Premium Payments

Death Benefit

to Charity

If you need more room for text, put it on multiple slides

Gifts are deductible if donor keeps no rights in the policy

For intimidating concepts, use illustrations to break it

down into simple components

Example of illustrating an intimidating

concept:

The hemodynamic response function

in functional magnetic

resonance brain imaging

● ●

An fMRI picture of the brain is made up of

thousands of boxes, called voxels, just like me!

● ●

We voxels are small –

usually about the size of one peppercorn

● ●

Inside each of us

voxels are thousands of neurons

● ●

When a lot of these neurons start to fire,

the body rushes in

oxygen to help

● ●

This rush of oxygen comes through the blood and makes me start to

change color

● ●

As my blood oxygen

increases, I get redder

● ●

And redder

● ●

If this keeps going, I will be

totally red from all of the oxygen in my

blood

● ●

But then, if the neurons don’t keep firing, the

body will stop rushing oxygen

to me

● ●

And my color will start to

return to normal

● ●

I can get a bit blue at the end if my oxygen drops too low, right before it

returns to normal

● ●

In 20 seconds after the

neurons fired, I will be back to my normal color again

● ●

This whole color change process is called my

hemodynamic response

“Hemo” means blood. “Dynamic” means change. So, hemodynamic response is my “blood-change” response.

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ● ● ●

● ●

● ● ● ●

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

SECONDS after neurons fire

Blo

od

Oxy

gen

Lev

el

When we model this change with math, we call it a

hemodynamic response function

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ●

● ● ● ●

● ●

● ● ● ●

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

SECONDS after neurons fire

Blo

od

Oxy

gen

Lev

el

To get better, look at great slide

decks and steal their ideas!

Read cool books

View cool presentations

http://www.slideshare.net/ssod

Story

Dialogue

Monologue