Sacred Cow #10: Web Site Addresses Are Helpful
PowerPoint's been around longer than the World Wide Web easily by a country mile. When use of the Web became popular, URLs started invading slide decks. Sometimes they were inserted so the audience could write them down later, or if the slides were abused as handouts, the thought was they could be copied into the browser. Some presenters used them to launch demos of Web sites.
The problem with putting URLs in your slides is that though the intent may be noble, the end result is the opposite of what was intended.
Take, for example, the slide deck I made over recently:
On the second slide, we have a list of URLs. The intent here is that the audience could either click on the links when they received the electronic copy after the presentation or they could copy them down (and possibly visit them) while he was talking. Instead, what we, the audience were presented was a distraction. They were a visual distraction that took our attention away from the important points, even if they were in mind-numbing bullet points. If any of us had the wherewithal to copy them down or even go to those sites on our phones or laptops, then we're even more distracted. There would be no hope at all for our paying attention to the presentation.
If the intent was for the speaker to click on those links and demonstrate the sites, then it's an invitation to disaster. Granted, there are plenty of examples where the web page launched successfully, but this practice is just inviting Murphy to make a grand entrance. Rather than clicking on a link on your slide, instead have the page already loaded in your browser. That way, the audience won't have to wait for any HTML, graphics, Flash, or any other components to load. If you lose your Internet connection, you'll at least have something to show. Another thing to consider when launching links from within your slide is that it takes time for your computer to switch to your browser, open a new window (or tab), and start the page load process. Granted, it may take only a few seconds, but that's enough time for your audience's attention to be commandeered by something else. You also want them to be focused on you, not what your computer is or is not doing.
So, what to do? Leave the URLs and links out of your slides. Instead, put them in your handouts. The purpose of your slides is to function as a visual aid, and not a detailed information resource. That's the purpose of your handout.
Top Image credit: frankfarm, used under a Creative Commons license.
When Murphy Pays A Visit
If you're like me, you probably watched Apple's WWDC Keynote when the video was posted. I had already followed the major announcements earlier in the day, so I took the opportunity to watch Phil Schiller's much improved performance and marvel at the visuals on the screen.
Watching this video, I also saw something I didn't expect. Murphy got up on stage, not once, but twice during the iPhone 3.0 demos. He may have ruined the demos, but the presenters (and their assistants) saved their presentations.
The first incident was during Pasco's demo of their Spark application, presented by Wayne Grant. Wayne and Apple's own Scott Forstall attempted to demonstrate the "Balloon Burst" experiment in Spark, using some equipment connected to an iPhone. There was an equipment failure and they couldn't complete their demo.
The second incident was a demo of Midi Mobilizer by Line 6 and Planet Waves and was presented by Marcus Ryle. During his presentation, the application failed to produce the appropriate sounds for the selected amplifiers.
In both of these presentations, the presenter did not let Murphy completely take over. Instead there three things I noticed in common in their reactions:
- Show Good Humor - In both cases, they didn't let the mishaps get to them emotionally. Instead, they took the incidents in stride and even laughed a little. Keeping a good sense of humor helped them stay in control at times when the audience might otherwise get restless.
- Don't Immediately Give Up - Both presenters reaffirmed their commitment to their audience by not throwing in the towel the moment something went wrong.
- Move On - Eventually, if it just won't work, move on. Don't dwell on the mishap and just move to the next part of your presentation. If you have practiced your presentation enough, then this is made easier, since you'll know where to go next.
These obviously weren't the first mishaps to occur in an Apple keynote. Steve Jobs himself has had to deal with temperamental computers and software as you can see in the video below. He handles the situations quite well with the exception of the camera that failed to work.
How have you successfully handled an interruption by Murphy?
Displaying More Complex Data
I'm going to take a brief break in the sacred cow series to address something that came up in my 9-to-5. It was one of those situations where it was clear there was a need for a better solution, but it wasn't obvious exactly what that solution was. This did not involve presentation slides, but it is no less relevant to similar situations that happen to involve slides.
I was asked to review a report on an evaluation of some solutions against a list of criteria. At the end was a chart much like this one to the right. (The data in this and all following examples are not the same as what I encountered (for hopefully obvious reasons), but should be similar enough in concept to be illustrative.) As you can see, even when you click on the chart to see the full-sized version, it's unreadable. The story that the chart is trying to tell isn't at all obvious and it takes far too much effort just to read it, data point by data point. There had to be a better way.
Remembering what I learned from Edward Tufte, I suggested that perhaps this is a situation where a data table would actually be more appropriate. However, I also added that we might want to use some color to help convey the story rather than make the reader make heads or tails of 64 numbers that look similar enough to visually blend in together.
What I got back was something like this. By this time, we didn't have time to continue to tackle the problem and it was a valiant effort on their part, but this too had its problems. On the positive side, there was good color contrast to visually separate the values qualitatively. However, what hurt this design was how the text was unreadable in some colors. Changing the text colors in the red and green cells only probably would not have helped the readability either. There was also the issue, in my mind, of too many qualitative distinctions. The scale wasn't logical, but adjusting the scale with the four qualities intact didn't improve things either.
Since there was no more time to make modifications, this is what we were left with. What I did do, though, was to tackle this problem as an academic exercise.
The first changes I made were to change the number of quality distinctions from four (Great, Good, OK, Bad) to three (Good, Acceptable, Poor) and try to make the text more readable. To make the numbers easier to read, I got rid of the colored cell backgrounds and instead applied the color to the text. To keep the reader from getting lost in the data, I used alternating shading for the rows, a subtle, but effective technique. What I had now was better, but still could use improvement.
The next change I made was simple, but yet yielded a much easier to read data table. I split the categories up into groups of four. This could represent groupings of categories or it could merely be a visual break; a chunking of data, if you will. Breaking data up into manageable chunks makes it easier for the reader to consume and remember the data you're providing.
Now, this seemed to be a workable solution. I then asked myself what other ways I could realize the same or better effect. At this moment, I remembered the well known and higly effective tables that are found throughout Consumer Reports magazines. Sometimes they contain data and sometimes they just contain symbols. These symbols could take the place of the colored text to provide a more meaningful table. This next version contained my variation of this technique. I created symbols similar in concept to those in the famous magazine and placed them along with the data, which are now in a simple black typeface.
My next thought was, "What if the raw data is not necessary for this given audience? What if the high-level meaning or importance of the values needs to be conveyed and not the values themselves? What we have now is a table with just the symbols and no data, save for the total values at the bottom. Now, instead of giving the reader a whole lot to read and consider, we're giving them what's important to them: the simplified significance of the values.
You can, of course, apply the chunking of the data to these symbols as well. These symbols are information to be consumed just as the raw data was.
The lesson from this whole exercise was that you should always consider and reconsider how you display your data. Consider an approach that is different than what you would normally take. Put yourself in your reader's or audience's shoes and don't stop improving it until it has the effectiveness that you would expect it to have.
Sacred Cow #9: The Audience Cares
We've all heard it before. "They want to hear what you have to say." So often, little effort is put into preparing a presentation because it's just assumed that because the audience is there, they'll be hanging on every last word you have to say. In many instances, that's a dangerous assumption to make. If you're speaking at a seminar or conference where the attendees paid to be there, then it's probably a safe assumption that the audience does care about what you have to say. However, if it's a meeting at your place of employment, be it a committee meeting or a status meeting, chances are, it's safe to assume the attendees would rather be somewhere else.
Unfortunately, this often isn't considered. Whether it's organizational narcisism or general lack of empathy for the audience, presentations are often developed as simple rote regurgitation of facts. There's no attempt to engage with the audience or make it meaningful for them. The message, inadvertent or not, is that the speaker does not value them or their time.
If the audience is there against their own free will, then that's already one strike against you. If you fail to gain their attention, that's strike two. Send a message that you don't care and it's strike three.
Show empathy. Understand why they're there. You may be a member of the committee. Thus, it's probably quite obvious to you why they're there. However, consciously remind yourself of this when you're preparing your presentation. Having a genuine understanding of where your audience is coming from and how they value their time in this meeting is crucial for establishing true empathy for them.
Give your message real meaning. Why does what you have to say even matter? Why should your audience even bother listening to what you have to say for the next fifteen minutes? Give them a reason to not sit there and mindlessly doodle while they wait for you to shut your trap.
Offer real value. If, at the end of your fifteen minutes, they don't have something of value to take away with them, then you have just wasted their time. The value can be in the form of a call to action for them or the group to follow through with. It can be in the form of a message they can apply to their lives, projects, etc.
If your audience isn't there because they chose to be there, then don't make the assumption that just because you care about what you will be talking about, they will too.
Top Image credit: Jeremy et al, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #8: The Laser Pointer Is A Useful Tool
We've seen these people. They're all over the place. In some organizations, it's institutionalized. What I'm concerned about is the laser pointer. Not everyone uses them, but I don't see anyone standing up and pleading for these people with frickin' lasers in their hands to stop. It seems, at least in my stomping grounds, that it's just accepted that laser pointers, being presentation tools are wholly appropriate. I've had one offered to me after making quite clear (politely) that I do not use them because I don't use "Reading Rainbow" slides.
It's not malicious. They don't know they're harming their presentation. They think they're being helpful. However, except for the extremely rare occasion, they're not.
One of the reasons people use these devices is to make sure people can see what it is they're talking about. If you need a pointing device to emphasize some text, then you've got way too much text. If you need a laser to point out an element in a diagram or chart, then it's way too complicated. Use of laser pointers is most often a symptom of a greater problem; namely the slides are not designed appropriately as visual reinforcements. Unfortunately, laser pointers don't help. The audience is still going to be overwhelmed by excessive or excessively complex slide content. The small laser dot just forces them to try to concentrate on yet one more thing, which brings me to my 2nd point.
In a normal bad slide situation, you basically have 2 points of interest competing for attention:
- the presenter
- the slides
Your brain can only pay attention to one thing at a time, so this is already a nearly impossible task for the audience. When you introduce a laser pointer, you double the points of interest competing for attention.
- the presenter
- the laser pointer
- the little red dot
- the slides
While trying to listen to the presenter (1), you're looking at the presenter's (2) hand with the laser pointer to gain an initial visual reference for the location of the little red dot (3) as they address the content on the slide (4). Occastionally, the audience will go back to the hand (2), especially in cases when the little red dot (3) is moving around a lot. Asking anyone to be able to follow along and remember the message is just asking too much.
If you feel compelled to use a laser pointer, stop. Evaluate your slides. Are the diagrams complicated? If so, simplify them. Are they text heavy? If so, reduce the text so that no more than 3 seconds is required to absorb the message of the whole slide. You should even consider using something more visual. The written word is a terribly inefficient form of communication. Text is recorded by the brain as a complex visual, specifically as a sequence of shapes, and then processed by the verbal section of the brain. That's twice the effort of a visual alone, or even the spoken word (verbal) alone.
So, please, put that laser pointer down and back away.
Top Image credit: Ushlambad, used under a Creative Commons license.
Breathe
This last week, I got to give a presentation in the office. Time to get the conference room set up was short, but the slides were ready and I had practiced ahead of time. It was one of those days where there were back-to-back meetings with other responsibilities keeping me running around.
It happens. It goes with the territory.
Well, when it came time for the presentation, I was scrambling to get the laptop set up, the virtual machine launched, and everything else that needed to be hooked up hooked up. Desptie all this, there was a good reason to not abandon the slides. There were some key visuals in there, that if not used, would have made comprehension of the material much, much more difficult.
After I got everything all set up and configured, I was already 5 or so minutes late in getting started. As soon as I was sure that everything was set to go, I started with my presentation.
Big mistake.
With the adrenaline pumping from the effort to get set up as quickly as possible, I dove right into the talk without giving myself a chance to catch a breath. I was a few words per minute slower than John Moschitta in the famous FedEx commercials. OK, that's a bit of an exageration, but you get the idea. If I had taken just ten seconds to catch my breath, my pace would have been more measured and would have conveyed the confidence and authority that I needed.
Ten seconds out of a twenty minute presentation in a fourty-five minute meeting.
If circumstances out of your control force you to rush to get set up, invest in a brief pause to catch your breath and relax. You don't have to look like you're doing it. You can also use it as a moment to get your audience to get quiet to listen to you.
Image credit: dlemieux, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #7: All You Need Is An Afternoon
"Get your presentation, complete with slides done this afternoon. You need to present tomorrow morning."
I'm sure we've all had this thrown on us. Slap something together and deliver it. PowerPoint's easy to use, so why would you need more than an afternoon, right? How about a whole day to make a slide deck "more attractive?" It's this perceived efficiency of PowerPoint as a tool that feeds this particular sacred cow.
As Miracle Max said in The Princess Bride, "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles."
Jan Schultink has a good post on quick slide make-over tricks. There's some very good ideas in there. However, it's one thing to make slides attractive and another thing all together to make them effective. Deadlines be damned, I strive for effective slides first and foremost. Pretty slides are of no use if they don't help your presentation.
Take, for example, a deck full of bullet points, excessive text, and overly-complex, yet information-sparse (as opposed to dense) diagrams. You can readily make those slides more attractive, but to make them effective, you need to understand the presentation. You need to know which of the points and ideas in the slides are those that actually need to be driven home. You need to know what the salient message in those diagrams are. You need to know this information if you're going to not only redesign the slides, but also architect the information in an effective way.
Doing it right requires more than just better scheduling of your own time. It requires a change in the office culture. Management needs to understand the difference between attractive, yet effective slides and attractive distractions. Management needs to learn that slapping together some bullet points together is not enough. They need to learn that old assumptions about PowerPoint slides have been discredited. Management needs to learn that practices that they employ, such as last minute slide design assignments, simply because that's just the way it's "always" been done make it a sacred cow. As we know, sacred cows are better off dead...and on my plate.
Image credit: Aeioux, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #6: The Audience Wants A Detailed Agenda
We’ve all seen slides like this. It’s your standard title and bullet list slide. The title is “Agenda” and below it is a detailed list of each topic that will be discussed. Oh, don’t forget the Q&A at the end.
Why do we see these slides all the time? They’re not really helpful. They encourage us to read and not listen. Many times, they practically tell the story or enough to give you a false impression of what the story actually is. What we have here is the sixth sacred cow of presentation slides: The Detailed Agenda.
This qualifies as a sacred cow because the only reason people seem to waste our time with these slides is because that’s the way it’s always been done. That, as we know, is what defines a sacred cow. And like all sacred cows, this too needs to be turned into hamburger before the charcoal goes out.
Now I’m not suggesting that you ditch your agenda slides. It’s important to let the audience know what you’re going to be talking about. A couple effective ways I have seen this done is when Steve Jobs tells us he’s going to show us 3 cool new products. There’s no slide saying this or even what they are. He will, however, have each product introduced by a big number (1, 2, or 3), followed by the product or a series of suspense-building slides (think the intro of the iPhone). The beauty of this is that the agenda is simple and memorable. By not using slides, it helps build suspense. Alternatively, you can tell your audience the three things you will be talking about and proceed. This works if they’re simple, logical, and almost obvious.
If you are going to put your agenda on slides, try an approach that doesn’t turn your audience off just as you’re getting started. Stay away, if you can, from the unimaginative agenda = title + bullet x (n). Of course, it should be visually consistent with your deck’s overal all design as well as be content-appropriate. In the embedded slide deck below, consider the following possibilities:
Conversational Style. Instead of just saying “Agenda,” try something like, “What we’re going to talk about today.” Being rigid and stand-offish can alienate your audience and discourage them from giving you the attention you want. This is a time to focus their attention on what you want to share with them.
Pie Chart. Yeah, this is a bit off the wall, but go ahead and create a pie chart with the pie values being the amount of minutes you intend to spend on each section. The pie slices give a visual representation of how much time you intend to spend on each topic, which would be more effective at facilitating storing this information in memory than using text alone would be. Don’t display the values, but rather the labels. Make each pie slice come in one at a time. Oh, and despite how bad 3D charts are for data, this is a time where you should feel free to go 3D.
Call-outs On A Timeline. Create a line across your slide that represents the intended length of your presentation. At the appropriate times along the timeline, insert call-outs for each topic. Again, bring them in one at a time. Because time is linear, this is by far more effective than the pie chart approach and infinitely more effective than simple bullets.
Blocks On A Timeline. Another timeline-based approach is to take boxes and add them to the timeline one after the other, each representing a topic.
There is no one way to share your agenda, but displaying a detailed or even a simple, yet unoriginal agenda slide does you no favors. Get creative. Try any of these ideas or come up with your own creative way to let your audience know quickly, simply, and effectively what you’ll be talking about.
Image credit: xcode, used under a Creative Commons license.
Sacred Cow #5: If the Audience Is Technical, They Want To See Detailed Diagrams
This sacred cow is roaming the halls where I work. It's old. It's loud. It smells. It's abusive. It's obnoxious, and it rudely disrupts nearly every technical presentation I have to sit through. Unfortunately, we're not unique in our suffering. This parasitic bovine is present everywhere you have technical people. Fortunately, there are treatments for this affliction if you know where to look. This is a sacred cow that must die else the brain rot that follows it will infect management, sales, and, oh... too late.
Well, rather than letting the technical community continue our sacred cow herding, we can be good citizens and slay this beast. Trolling SlideShare for some good examples of bad examples, I came across a gem. Complicated diagrams, despite protests from worshipers of this sacred cow, do not enhance the presentation. They do not aid comprehension. In truth, they harm and inhibit comprehension. Slides such as the example to the right can introduce what's called "map shock," a form of information overload. The Information Design Handbook by Jenn & Ken Visocky O'Grady describe this as:
"...also sometimes called visual shock, is a phenomenon experienced by individuals when encountering complex maps, diagrams, or pictorial representations. Information processing stops as the person tries to orient themselves to the overwhelming quantity of data. Users describe a sense of being lost, and of not knowing where to start, often accompanied by a physical and sometimes even audible, reaction."
(p.75) emphasis mine
All too often, people delivering technical presentations are doing this to their audience while expecting them to retain this information. It's just asking too much of the audience, no matter how technical they are. Even though the audience may be technical, the same guidelines that many of us who are passionate about great presentations write about still apply. We may have different aptitudes, but we all have brains that all operate under the same principles. Attention is attention. Retention is retention.
If you absolutely need to get that message across with a diagram that, by its very nature, is technical, try applying these guidelines:
Build it slowly. Rather than overwhelming your audience with all of that complexity at once, gradually build it one piece at a time. Don't display the next piece until you're ready to talk about it.
Keep it simple. Keep each build stage simple enough that someone in the audience can absorb it quickly (3 seconds or less). Ask yourself, "Would this work on a billboard?"
Consider the folks in the back of the room. Don't forget the people in the back. If there's text and they can't read it, you're not helping them at all. They're either going to ignore you as they try to figure it out or give up and lose out on this important visual.
It is important, right? If it's not important for the comprehension of your message, leave it out. Otherwise, it's just noise.
Take it easy with Visio. Copying and pasting visio drawings into your slides may be the easy way out, but rarely is doing the right thing easy. If you can't draw your diagram within your slideware itself, take several snapshots of your diagram in each logical build stage. Don't just throw up a fully completed diagram unless your purpose is to observe first-hand the effects of map shock.
Observing these principles will require extra time and effort, but the results are worth it. Educate those around you. Let's put a long overdue end to this sacred cow.
mage credit: Automania, used under a Creative Commons license.
Other Pages
