For my previous slide make-over, I gave a slide deck presented by the Coast Guard at a Web 2.0 workshop. This facelift targets a deck presented by the EPA at the same workshop. The issues were different this time and unfortunately, the "Greenversations At A Glance" slide deck was typical of what I see on a regular basis. Not only are the slides text-heavy, but they're also very content-rich. Too rich, in my opinion.
As you can see, there's a lot to read. The audience can't possibly be expected to read all this and absorb what the speaker is trying to share. The story was important and of great value. It's just too bad the slides hurt her efforts.
Below is my effort at redesigning the deck.
As you can see, the deck shrank in half from 22 slides to 11. Much of the content on the slides were details that didn't need to be on slides. Even coming up with visual metaphors for each slide or each chunk of content on the slides would have been too much. The presentation is what she was up in front saying to us in the audience, not her slides. I'll address each of the new slides and what I did and why I did it. As always, please feel free to add your comments below.
- Title Slide - I decided to follow a similar path on the title slide that I took with the Coast Guard make-over. The difference here is the title and subtitle are moved up to take advantage of extra space and take advantage of the rule of thirds. For this deck, I used Keynote's "Showroom" template. I did tweak it a little bit, though, to make it more appropriate for the subject material and to try to avoid the "I've seen that before" that you get when using built-in templates. The green line ties in with the environmental theme of the Greenversations blog. I added a reflection to give it a little more thickness without overdoing it.
- Agenda Slide - For this and subsequent slides, I carried on the line from the title slide. The agenda items, rather than being bullets in a list, were instead represented by conversation bubbles. This too was an attempt to reinforce the theme of the blog. The agenda items are brought in one at a time, allowing for commentary and for the focus of the audience to be squarely on what the presenter is addressing at the moment.
- Slide 3 - In this slide, you can see an alternative approach to the standard and unimaginative slide title. Instead of having slide-specific titles, I brought the conversation bubbles from the agenda slide to the bottom of the slide and adjusted the opacity to keep the focus on the content and not the bubbles. For the "Why?" slide, I decided to focus on her message of putting "a human face on the big blank box (government)."
- Slide 4 - This slide focuses on the organizational structure that they have for managing their blog. Though crude and simple, this reinforces the message better than a few slides of text.
- Slide 5 - When it comes to the important message of encouraging bloggers to reply to comments on their posts, a simple, straight-forward photograph accomplishes this. A little bit of text in a caption reinforces this.
- Song of the Coqui - Easily my favorite slide in this deck, this replaces slide 10 in the original deck. Using a photograph that goes to the edges and shows the face of the frog has far more impact than the embedded photograph looking down on the frog's back. The commentary was distilled down to concise points that minimizes reading. Again, the details will be in what the speaker's saying.
- Weekly Features Slide - This slide needs more work. However, it's a good start at getting away from the text-heavy original. Spacial representations work well for time-based information.
- Flow of the River - This slide's design is similar to the Coqui slide for visual consistency. Though the image isn't the one she talked about in her presentation (the original was way too small), that's not as important as having a visual to reinforce what she is talking about.
- Policy & Legal Slide - Here, I'm going for humor. I'm not going for the laughs (or chuckles) at the beginning of the presentation, but rather at about the 10 minute mark when the brain starts struggling with paying attention to the current presentation. This little shift in gears grabs the audience's attention anew, buying the speaker more time to get through the talk. Now, humor isn't something that should be used haphazardly. If the joke isn't relevant, then you can easily lose your audience.
- Comment Policy Slide - This is one of those slides where I'm using a bulleted list without bullets. A list works for what she's trying to get across, but if you can, avoid using bullets themselves. This keeps the slides clean and you avoid those lethal bullets.
- Last slide - Here, the audience gets to see the blog with the contents of two slides condensed to one slide and three "bullets."
All photographs are credited in the slide notes. For the subject matter of the presentation:
As I mentioned earlier, please feel free to comment on my slide make-over and/or suggest alternative approaches in the comments area below.
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.
