1. Consistent delivery. PowerPoint is all about consistency, and tools to help enforce consistency, as a tool for focusing content. This allows for delivery of information, within definable and organized parameters.
2. Templates allow you to take advantage of a Pre-Built Slide Library.
A library of slides is an invaluable creation tool. The more Slide Types that can be identified up front, the more streamlined the creation process can become.
3. Templates with a Slide library add Drag and drop slide functionality.
With templates built to the same design allows simple drag-and-drop functionality within the formatted slides that would not be available for slides pulled from templates outside of the RHB template.
4. Easy production of a lesson from scratch.
All of these elements combine to create a workflow that makes it easy to set up a consistent lesson. This is especially true if you are creating a product with multiple PowerPoint presentations, or developing a sales force who need to deliver multiple different presentations on different aspects of a large product line.
5. Slides can be created with Pre-built functionality.
The animations and functionality can be built right in. Complicated animations and reveals can be built once, then repurposed. This amortizes the cost of creating complex (and often very interesting) slides,which makes for better presentations.
6. Creates, over time, a reduction of work.
Again, the more slides you make from scratch, the more you can add to your library. The bigger your library, the fewer slides you need to create from scratch later on. Again to use the example of a sales force, if a salesman builds a new slide for a new product, (or more likely has a staff designer with PowerPoint savvy do so) then that slide can be easily added to a library that can be distributed to all of the sales force. Such a library is easily updated, small and therefore easily (digitally) portable, and distributable.
Showing posts with label PowerPoint training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PowerPoint training. Show all posts
Monday, September 22, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Point of PowerPoint (2 of 5):
Building design consistency
The first big time-saver is to build a usable, and re-usable, template.
If produce one of something, it’s unique. If you produce two, it’s a pair, but not necessarily a consistency. Make three or more of something, and you’ve begun to define consistency, and that's the core of good design. People like consistency, and it’s what PowerPoint was designed for. So, in order to build a solid template, you have to have enough of a volume of the types of slides you'll typically see in order to solidly develop consistency.
A great start toward establishing consistency between more than one PowerPoint presentation, and thereby developing or promoting an identity, is to build a reusable template. A good template can save hours of work, and consistent use of a template facilitates reuse of slides from a slide library.
Consistency in a presentation allows the participant to focus on the content, because the framework for that content is a consistent “box”— a frame that provides context, but by remaining the same, does not call attention to itself. This familiar framework offers a lot of benefits—but first I should address the dangers.
The templates which come standard with PowerPoint most often feel like they were designed by Mondrian, if Mondrian was a colorblind dyslexic. As a result, many “out of the box” PowerPoint presentations are garish, and poorly designed in terms of color selection, based entirely on the template. And as a result, there is a thriving business in the selling of PowerPoint backgrounds, for those without the savvy to create one on their own, with any image manipulation software. But even then, the ability to create a background doesn’t infer the design ability to create an effective one. I’ll get into that in one of the future installments.
With the design issues in mind, once you have an attractive and effective identity created, in the form of a n attractive and workable background, there are still other elements to apply, toward consistency. PowerPoint templates consist of a Master Slide, which have Master Slide styles (including footer styles) , and Notes Page Styles. Using these elements regularly and in the same manner, and using templates that share the same characteristics as a “set,” can help ensure 3 things:
• Consistent placement
Text elements in terms of font choice, hierarchy and placement can be set on a Master Page in the PowerPoint document.
• Consistent identity
Master pages can be set up with text sizes and image placements that assure consistent identity. This includes color and specialized graphic effects beyond the standard templates Microsoft packages with the program. Using the Master Page consistently and exclusively assures that the identity will be consistent.
• Ease of use
A properly built template is easy to create new slides in. This allows the writer to focus on the content, and not the formatting. Of course, the key to this is to have prebuilt formatting in the template that covers 80-90% of the writer’s content needs.
And you’re on your way.
If produce one of something, it’s unique. If you produce two, it’s a pair, but not necessarily a consistency. Make three or more of something, and you’ve begun to define consistency, and that's the core of good design. People like consistency, and it’s what PowerPoint was designed for. So, in order to build a solid template, you have to have enough of a volume of the types of slides you'll typically see in order to solidly develop consistency.
A great start toward establishing consistency between more than one PowerPoint presentation, and thereby developing or promoting an identity, is to build a reusable template. A good template can save hours of work, and consistent use of a template facilitates reuse of slides from a slide library.
Consistency in a presentation allows the participant to focus on the content, because the framework for that content is a consistent “box”— a frame that provides context, but by remaining the same, does not call attention to itself. This familiar framework offers a lot of benefits—but first I should address the dangers.
The templates which come standard with PowerPoint most often feel like they were designed by Mondrian, if Mondrian was a colorblind dyslexic. As a result, many “out of the box” PowerPoint presentations are garish, and poorly designed in terms of color selection, based entirely on the template. And as a result, there is a thriving business in the selling of PowerPoint backgrounds, for those without the savvy to create one on their own, with any image manipulation software. But even then, the ability to create a background doesn’t infer the design ability to create an effective one. I’ll get into that in one of the future installments.
With the design issues in mind, once you have an attractive and effective identity created, in the form of a n attractive and workable background, there are still other elements to apply, toward consistency. PowerPoint templates consist of a Master Slide, which have Master Slide styles (including footer styles) , and Notes Page Styles. Using these elements regularly and in the same manner, and using templates that share the same characteristics as a “set,” can help ensure 3 things:
• Consistent placement
Text elements in terms of font choice, hierarchy and placement can be set on a Master Page in the PowerPoint document.
• Consistent identity
Master pages can be set up with text sizes and image placements that assure consistent identity. This includes color and specialized graphic effects beyond the standard templates Microsoft packages with the program. Using the Master Page consistently and exclusively assures that the identity will be consistent.
• Ease of use
A properly built template is easy to create new slides in. This allows the writer to focus on the content, and not the formatting. Of course, the key to this is to have prebuilt formatting in the template that covers 80-90% of the writer’s content needs.
And you’re on your way.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Point of PowerPoint (1 of 5): Thinking before Inking.
“Think before you ink” is an old expression I picked up in my comic book days, speaking to the fact that a good comic book inker had to be a strong artist, not just a “tracer of pencil lines.” A good inker thinks before he inks, and knows the marks he needs to make in order to make an effective product. And like so many things in comics, that’s an analogy for almost anything. Before a presenter starts building a presentation, essentially putting ink to paper, the thinking needs to be there.
And that thinking needs to answer 2 core questions.
What is the Point?
The “point” of a PowerPoint show is to communicate information. To do this you need to follow some simple rules for visual presentation. You need to build your show with:
• Clear readability
• Clear communication
• Ease of use (and not over-use)
What is the Focus?
The “focus” of a PowerPoint is different from the point, for our purposes. For this, we’ll define the focus as “what do you want the participant to walk away from this with?” There is a specific point to each slide, and to the presentation as a whole. To keep the focus clear, you need to be sure that you:
• Keep the viewers attention. It’s inevitable that in a presentation attention will wander. Viewers of all ages look to understand what the point is, but if the feel they’ve gotten it, their attention will wander. If you hand out a printout of all the slides in a presentation, inevitably there will come a point in each and every slide when the audience member with this in hand, will look to see what the next slide is, even though the speaker hasn’t finished speaking on the current slide. This is a signal that the participant feels he or she has gleaned the point, and is anxious to move on to the next point. This is an area where (when not overdone) animation and imagery can help—in keeping the participant focussed on the slide, and thereby glean more from the content.
• Don’t overwrite the slide. If a slide has several bullets, consider making it two slides. According to a study by the US Navy, the average adults attention span is 18 minutes. Ideally for a PowerPoint presentation, that would be broken down into chunks of about 2-4 minutes per slide. If a slide is overwritten or takes longer than 5 minutes, you can count on having lost your audience’s attention at some point in there.
• Plan the content as more than what is read. Content should introduce the idea, and allow the speaker to extrapolate, or you lose the participant’s attention. The participant can read faster than the presenter can talk. If the speaker is merely reading what is on the screen, and adding nothing, you're going to have a room full of bored participants. You'd have been better served emailing the presentation.
•Give the audience something to look at. I'm not talking about extra bells and whistles, or distracting images, or useless clip art. Give the audience images with impact, that point to, emphasize, and work with the content. A picture really is worth a thousand words, and in an environment where you don't want a thousand words, they are especially valuable. This is where my own area of experience comes in—in creating visuals that highlight the content in a dramatic way, and thereby creates an environment where the participant is more likely to get the point, and walk away with the point securely in pocket.
With those overarching goals, getting into the specifics of “how” can provide some shortcuts to making a PowerPoint presentation simple. effective, and attractive.
And that thinking needs to answer 2 core questions.
What is the Point?
The “point” of a PowerPoint show is to communicate information. To do this you need to follow some simple rules for visual presentation. You need to build your show with:
• Clear readability
• Clear communication
• Ease of use (and not over-use)
What is the Focus?
The “focus” of a PowerPoint is different from the point, for our purposes. For this, we’ll define the focus as “what do you want the participant to walk away from this with?” There is a specific point to each slide, and to the presentation as a whole. To keep the focus clear, you need to be sure that you:
• Keep the viewers attention. It’s inevitable that in a presentation attention will wander. Viewers of all ages look to understand what the point is, but if the feel they’ve gotten it, their attention will wander. If you hand out a printout of all the slides in a presentation, inevitably there will come a point in each and every slide when the audience member with this in hand, will look to see what the next slide is, even though the speaker hasn’t finished speaking on the current slide. This is a signal that the participant feels he or she has gleaned the point, and is anxious to move on to the next point. This is an area where (when not overdone) animation and imagery can help—in keeping the participant focussed on the slide, and thereby glean more from the content.
• Don’t overwrite the slide. If a slide has several bullets, consider making it two slides. According to a study by the US Navy, the average adults attention span is 18 minutes. Ideally for a PowerPoint presentation, that would be broken down into chunks of about 2-4 minutes per slide. If a slide is overwritten or takes longer than 5 minutes, you can count on having lost your audience’s attention at some point in there.
• Plan the content as more than what is read. Content should introduce the idea, and allow the speaker to extrapolate, or you lose the participant’s attention. The participant can read faster than the presenter can talk. If the speaker is merely reading what is on the screen, and adding nothing, you're going to have a room full of bored participants. You'd have been better served emailing the presentation.
•Give the audience something to look at. I'm not talking about extra bells and whistles, or distracting images, or useless clip art. Give the audience images with impact, that point to, emphasize, and work with the content. A picture really is worth a thousand words, and in an environment where you don't want a thousand words, they are especially valuable. This is where my own area of experience comes in—in creating visuals that highlight the content in a dramatic way, and thereby creates an environment where the participant is more likely to get the point, and walk away with the point securely in pocket.
With those overarching goals, getting into the specifics of “how” can provide some shortcuts to making a PowerPoint presentation simple. effective, and attractive.
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