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Explaining emergent technologies (with PowerPoint) March 30, 2009

Posted by Steve Boneham in : HowTo, projects, design, presentation , add a comment

web2practiceicons

I’m working on a JISC project to produce guides to how emergent technologies like social media, RSS and wikis can enhance the practice of staff in research, teaching and administration. One output of this will be a series of icon-based videos explaining the key concepts of these technologies. Unable to find suitable icons in stock image sites, I started to make my own - with PowerPoint. This post is an attempt to justify that and retain some credibility!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming these icons (see sample above) are better than those you’ll find in stock image sites. Those sites are full of professional quality vector icons with stunning use of lighting, shadows and 3D. But that’s the problem. The more striking the design, the worse they look when you mix icons from different sets. You also need a relatively high level of graphic design skills to manipulate them.

In contrast, while PowerPoint is clearly not a graphics app, it has some decent built-in effects that can make even simple geometric shapes look respectable with just a few clicks. Also, for screencasts that are essentially narrated presentations, it made sense to work with them in a presentation tool, then convert to a web video format for delivery.

As PowerPoint is a tool that most people (in our target audience) are familar with, we hope that others might start to make their own resources with them so are looking to release the PowerPoints under a creative commons (non-commercial) licence.

If you’d be interested in using them, please add a comment to let us know.

Death by Powerpoint: Bullets don’t kill people, presenters do July 8, 2008

Posted by Steve Boneham in : HowTo, design, presentation , add a comment

Photo from Chris Young, Netskills. All rights reserved.Like most presenters, I use slideware and templates to help me produce my presentations. Or at least that’s what I thought. On reflection, what I’ve actually been doing is using slideware and templates to help me produce speakers notes. I really should have known better, but PowerPoint just makes it so easy to create bulleted lists that I never really considered another approach - until now…

As part of my research for a presentation skills workshop I’m putting together, I’ve been reading a lot about presentation design. A key theme for nearly all commentators is that slides should be more visual and less cluttered with text, bullets and logos. At first, I thought this was a case of style over substance, but having tried this approach I’ve realised it has a far more significant effect on my presentations.

Before going anywhere near my slideware, I spent more time than usual thinking about the key message I wanted to communicate and how best way to explain it. Garr Reynolds calls this ‘Going Analog’ and I think it’s a great way to keep planning separate from development. Rather than thinking in bullets, I find this helps me think in pictures and stories which help in creating a visual presentation.

Next I fired up Powerpoint for the development, but ditched the template. Now when I click File > New, I get a blank slide, not something that immediately constrains my creativity. Some may argue that the branding and consistency templates bring are important, but I’d say giving a good presentation is the best marketing and templates don’t help with that.

Having done the analogue planning, putting the slidedeck together was pretty simple. Each slide was an full-screen image overlaid with a just few key words or a quote. But this is not just about making slides that look nice. For me, these kind of slides enhance the message and make it more memorable. They also encourage the presenter to do what he’s really there to do - to present. Instead of being tied to the script of a bulleted list, these slides provide a backdrop to a performance in which you have the freedom to talk with passion about your subject, to add personality and to adapt to the unique circumstances of every presentation.

It’s not a new approach, but it’s still not one that I think is used often enough - especially by me! Having tried it though, I’m never going back. Looking to the future, it’s also a style that’s far more effective for online presentations where the audience is even less forgiving.

Photo from Chris Young, Netskills. All rights reserved.