Good Presentation Design
While I am not aware of who made the original quote “less is more” it is certainly a powerful statement, and one that many people have difficulty with. It does bring to mind a quote attributed to Leonardo DaVinci that “La semplicità è l'ultima sofisticazione” or in English “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Of course, DaVinci was an artist who knew how to draw and keep an audience. My bet is he would have made a great PowerPoint developer and presenter.
Powerful presentations grab a hold of you and draw you in. They make you want to pay attention so that you don’t miss anything. Effective presentations must be made with respect for the audience in mind. Boring them to death with slide after slide of text and bullet points shows a lack of respect.
Elements of Effective Presentation Design
Some of the main elements of effective presentation design as described by Reynolds (2008) are:
- Presentations must be both verbal and visual.
- Too much information on a slide overloads people’s cognitive systems.
- Slides should be designed to be understood in 3 seconds.
- Slide design and delivery should help people mentally organize and integrate information.
Graphic Design Principles
Reynolds (2010) describes fours primary principles of design that a presentation designer should keep in mind. These are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.
Contrast is basically described as difference, and it is used to help the viewer determine the difference between what is important to look at and what is unimportant to look at. This could be by use of color or shading, but is essentially a way of making the main point stand out.
Repetition is the reuse of design elements throughout a presentation. The subtle use of this principle creates presentations that appear as a consistent product rather than disjointed slides. While some people may think of the basic PowerPoint templates as meeting this principle, those are rather old and tired material that people have seen many times. Remember, we don’t want to bore people!
The principle of Alignment is that “nothing in your slide show should look like it was placed there randomly.” (Reynolds, 2008). Alignment creates unity on a single slide, compared to repetition which is concerned with the entire set of slides. As Reynolds (2008) states “slides that contain elements in alignment look cleaner.”
The principle of Proximity according to Reynolds is “about moving things closer or farther apart to achieve a more organized look.” This principle takes advantage of the human tendency to group similar items that appear near each other into a single unit, while seeing items that are separated from one another as not being part of a logical group.
Summary
Well designed presentations properly delivered can have a lasting effect on an audience. Poorly designed and delivered presentations can put them to sleep. Keeping things simple, clean, and well organized is important. Employing the four primary graphic design principles can go a long way helping to ensure a good presentation, and we must keep in mind that visuals are far better than bullet points. Don’t be guilty of “death by PowerPoint.”
Reference
Reynolds, G. (2008). Presentation zen: Simple ideas on presentation design and delivery . San Francisco, CA: Peachpit Press.
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