1. Business Communication Today
Chapter 17
Enhancing Presentations with Slides and Other Visuals
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Chapter 17 ̶

2. Planning Your Presentation Visuals
Visuals can improve the quality and impact of your oral presentation by creating interest, illustrating points that are difficult to explain in words alone, adding variety, and increasing the audience’s ability to absorb and remember information.
For all the communication power of visuals, however, don’t make the mistake of thinking that your visuals are a presentation. Remember that your message is the presentation, not your visuals; your visuals are there to help support and clarify what you have to say.
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Chapter 17 ̶

3. Selecting Types of Visuals to Use
Business
Presentations
Prezis
Transparencies
Flip Charts
Slides
Chalkboards or Whiteboards
Other Visuals
You can select from a variety of visuals to enhance oral presentations, each with unique advantages and disadvantages:
The biggest advantages of Prezis are flexibility and a more dynamic look and feel than conventional slide shows. Potential disadvantages of Prezi include fewer design options, the chance of confusing viewers as the presenter jumps between topics, and the possibility of viewers feeling dizzy or even getting motion sickness if zooming is overused.
An electronic presentation or slide show consists of a series of individual slides. Electronic presentations can be easy to edit and update; you can also add multimedia elements or record self-running presentations. However, the linear nature of the presentation can be a disadvantage.
You can create overhead transparencies using nothing more than a marking pen, and they don’t require the latest computer or projection equipment. On the downside, they are limited to static displays and are impossible to edit.
Chalkboards and whiteboards are effective tools for recording points made during small-group brainstorming sessions.
Flip charts are great for recording comments and questions during your presentation or keeping track of ideas during a meeting.
Be creative when choosing other visuals to support a presentation. For example, a sample of a product or type of material lets your audience experience your subject directly. At times, the best strategy will involve a combination of visuals, such as electronic slides to present ideas and a flip chart to record audience feedback.
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Chapter 17 ̶

4. Verifying Your Design Plans
Review the Plan
Check the Style
Keep It Simple
Use Time Wisely
After you have chosen the medium or media for your visuals, think through your presentation plan carefully before you start creating anything. Then, make sure the message drives the visuals, not the other way around.
Next, make sure your presentation style is appropriate for the subject matter, the audience, and the setting.
When you’re making design choices, let simplicity be your guide. Doing so has several advantages. First, it takes less time to create simple materials. Second, simple visuals reduce the chances of distraction and misinterpretation. Third, the more complex your presentation, the more likely something will go wrong.
Finally, use your time wisely. Presentation software in particular can eat up hours and hours of time you probably don’t have. Based on your audience and situation, decide up front how much sophistication is good enough, then stop when you get there. Use the time you’ll save to rehearse your presentation and get a good night’s sleep before the big day.
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Chapter 17 ̶

5. Choosing Structured or Free-Form Slides
Perhaps the most important design choice you face when creating slides is whether to use conventional structured slides or looser free-form slides that many presentation specialists now advocate.
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Chapter 17 ̶

6. Using Structured Slides
Advantages
Fast and Easy
Creation
Standalone
Sense
Complex Data
and Ideas
Structured slides have the advantage of being fast and easy to create; you simply choose an overall design scheme for the presentation, select a template for a new slide, and start typing your information. Also, because more information can usually be packed on each slide, structured slides may be more effective at conveying complex ideas or sets of interrelated data. Finally, structured slides can be more effective as standalone documents that people can read on their own, without a presenter.
Given the speed and ease of creating them, structured slides can be a more practical choice for routine presentations, such as status updates for projects.
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Chapter 17 ̶

7. Using Structured Slides
Disadvantages
Text-Heavy
Slides
Audience
Effects
Repetitive
Appearance
The primary disadvantage of structured design is the mind-numbing effect of text-heavy slides that all look alike. Slide after slide of dense, highly-structured bullet points can put an audience to sleep, particularly if the presenter puts too many bullet points on a slide, writes the bullet points as complete sentences, or simply reads the bullet points to the audience.
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Chapter 17 ̶

8. Using Free-Form Slides
Advantages
Offer Complementary Information
Prevent Cognitive Overload
Identify Priorities and Connections
The goal of free-form slide design is to overcome the drawbacks of text-heavy structured design by fulfilling three criteria for successful presentations:
Providing complementary information through both textual and visual means
Managing the amount of information delivered at any one time to prevent cognitive overload
Helping viewers process information by identifying priorities and connections
Given their ability to excite and engage, free-form designs are particularly good for motivational, educational, and persuasive presentations—particularly when the slides will be used multiple times and therefore pay back the extra time and effort required to create them.
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Chapter 17 ̶

9. Using Free-Form Slides
Disadvantages
Time Consuming and Demanding
Additional Speaker Responsibility
Hard to Present Complex Subjects
Free-form slides have several potential disadvantages. First, effectively designing slides with both visual and textual elements is more creatively demanding and more time-consuming than simply typing text into preformatted templates. Second, because less textual information tends to be displayed on screen, the speaker is responsible for conveying more of the content of the presentation—which can present a problem for novice speakers or speakers not entirely comfortable with the material. Third, if not handled carefully, dividing information into such small chunks can make it difficult to present complex subjects in a cohesive, integrated manner.
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Chapter 17 ̶

10. Designing Effective Slides
Microsoft’s PowerPoint software holds a curious distinction in the business world: virtually everyone seems to use it, and virtually everyone seems to hate it. This is an exaggeration, to be sure, but enough people have grown weary of monotonous slide presentations for “death by PowerPoint” to become a common complaint. However, the problem isn’t the presentation software. It’s just a tool, and it can be used well or poorly.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

11. Designing Slides Around a Key Visual
Structuring
Organizing
Explaining
With both structured and free-form design strategies, it is often helpful to structure specific slides around a key visual that helps organize and explain the points you are trying to make. For example, a pyramid suggests a hierarchical relationship, and a circular flow diagram emphasizes that the final stage in a process loops back to the beginning of the process.
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Chapter 17 ̶

12. Selecting Design Elements
Colors
Type Style
Typeface
Artwork
As you design and create slides, keep the audience in mind:
Color. As a critical design element that can grab attention, color emphasizes important ideas, creates contrast, and isolates slide elements. Contrasting colors increase readability, whereas colors closer in hue, such as brown on green or blue on purple, decrease readability.
Artwork. Electronic slides have two layers or levels of graphic design: the background and foreground. The background is the equivalent of paper in a printed report; generally speaking, the less your background does, the better. In the foreground, artwork can be either functional or decorative. Functional artwork includes photos, technical drawings, charts, and other visual elements containing information that’s part of your message. Decorative artwork simply enhances the look of your slides.
Typefaces and type styles. When selecting typefaces and type styles, follow these guidelines: avoid script or decorative fonts, use san-serif fonts, and use one or two typefaces per slide. Use boldface type, but avoid italics and all-capitalized words and phrases. Include extra “white space” between lines of text, and be consistent with fonts, type styles, color, and sizes. Finally, choose font sizes (usually at least 30 points) so that they’re easy to read from anywhere in the room.
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Chapter 17 ̶

13. Maintaining Design Consistency
Obtain a Clean, Professional Look
Slide Masters:
•Color Choices
•Font Styles
•Design Elements
Predefined Layouts:
•Titles
•Graphic Art
•Bulleted Text
Audiences start to assign meaning to visual elements beginning with the first slide. Consistency of design gives the presentation a clean, professional look. Fortunately, most electronic presentation software programs can help with this challenge. By programming your design selections into the software’s special slide master, the color choices, font styles, and design elements are included on all the slides in your presentation.
Another good way to achieve design consistency is to choose a predefined layout from your software. Each layout contains placeholders for specific slide elements such as titles, graphic art, or bulleted text.
The less work your audience has to do to interpret your slide designs, the more attention they can pay to your message.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

14. Creating Effective Slide Content
With some design fundamentals in mind, you’re ready to create the textual and visual content for your slides. Watch out for information overload. When slides have too much content—textual, visual, or both—particularly for several slides in a row, viewers can’t process the incoming information fast enough to make sense of it, so they eventually tune out.
Keep slides clear and easy to grasp, and pace the flow of information so your audience can connect your ideas from one slide to the next.
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Chapter 17 ̶

15. Writing Readable Content
Choose Key Words and Short Phrases
Highlight Key Points
Summarize Content
Preview Content
Signal Major Shifts
Illustrate Concepts
Create Interest
One of the most common mistakes is putting too much content on slides. Doing so causes several problems:
Overloading the audience with too much information, too fast
Taking attention away from the speaker by forcing people to read more
Requiring the presenter to use smaller type, which makes the slides even harder to read
Choose words and short phrases that help your audience follow the flow of ideas, without forcing them to read in depth. So, use your slides to highlight key points, summarize and preview your message, signal major shifts in thought, illustrate concepts, or help create interest in your spoken message. If the audience can benefit from additional information, provide those details in handouts.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

16. Writing Readable Content
Problems with Too Much Text on Slides
Overloads Audience with Information
Takes Attention Away from Speaker
Requires Small, Hard-to-See Type Size
One of the most common mistakes is putting too much content on slides. Doing so causes several problems:
Overloading the audience with too much information, too fast
Taking attention away from the speaker by forcing people to read more
Requiring the presenter to use smaller type, which makes the slides even harder to read
Choose words and short phrases that help your audience follow the flow of ideas, without forcing them to read in depth. So, use your slides to highlight key points, summarize and preview your message, signal major shifts in thought, illustrate concepts, or help create interest in your spoken message. If the audience can benefit from additional information, provide those details in handouts.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

17. Writing Text-Slide Content
•Present One Concept or Idea
•Limit Text to Four or Five Lines
•Avoid Too Many Text-Heavy Slides
When writing content for text slides, keep your message short and simple:
Limit each slide to one thought, concept, or idea.
As a rule, limit content to four or five lines with four or five words per line.
Don’t show a large number of text-heavy slides in a row.
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Chapter 17 ̶

18. Writing Text-Slide Content
•Write Short Phrases
•Limit the Use of Sentences
•Use Parallel Grammar for Lists
Write short, bulleted phrases rather than long sentences.
Use sentences only when you need to share a quotation or other text item verbatim.
Use parallel grammar when listing items.
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Chapter 17 ̶

19. Writing Text-Slide Content
•Prefer the Active Voice
•Include Short, Informative Titles
•Support Text with Visuals
Use the active voice.
Include short, informative titles.
When combining visuals with text, the more information the visual can convey, the less work the text must do.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

20. Creating Charts and Tables for Slides
Reduce Details
Shorten Numbers
Highlight Key Points
Keep It Simple
Limit Data Shown
Adjust Size and Design
Detailed images that look fine on the printed page can be too complicated for presentations. Don’t force the audience to study your charts and graphs in order to get the message. Follow these guidelines:
Reduce the detail. Eliminate anything that isn’t essential to the message. If necessary, break information into more than one slide. If a deeper level of detail is helpful or necessary, hand out printed visuals that people can review during or after the presentation.
Simplify. For example, if a bar chart is segmented by week, don’t write “Week of 12/01,” “Week of 12/08,” and so on. Use the “Week of” label once and then just include the dates.
Shorten numbers. If doing so doesn’t hide essential details, you can round off numbers and then label the axis to indicate their value. Limit the amount of data shown. Line graphs look busy when they have more than two or three lines, and tables are difficult to read if they have too many rows or columns.
Highlight key points. Use arrows, boldface type, and color to direct your audience’s eyes to the main point of a visual. Summarize the intent of the graphic in a clear title.
Adjust the size and design. Modify the size of a graphic to accommodate the size of a slide. Leave plenty of white space so that audience members can view and interpret content from a distance. Use colors that stand out from the slide’s background and choose a typeface for labels that is clear and easy to read.
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Chapter 17 ̶

21. Adding Animation and Media
Functional
Decorative
Transitions
Builds
Hyperlinks
Multimedia
Today’s presentation software offers many options for livening up your slides. The key is to use only those special effects that support your message.
Functional animation involves carefully-controlled motion that is directly related to your message. Decorative animation, such as having text fly in from off-screen, doesn’t add any functional value and can distract audiences.
Slide transitions control how one slide replaces another. Subtle transitions ease your viewers’ gaze from slide to slide; distracting transitions should be avoided. Builds control the release of text, graphics, and other elements on individual slides. Builds can make key points appear one at a time rather than having all of them appear on a slide at once, thereby making it easier for you and the audience to focus on each new message point.
A hyperlink lets you jump to another slide in your presentation, to a website, or to another program. Using hyperlinks is also a great way to build flexibility into your presentations so that you can instantly respond to audience feedback.
Multimedia elements offer the ultimate in active presentations. Using audio and video clips can be a great way to complement your textual message. Keep these elements brief and relevant, to support your presentation not to replace it.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

22. Completing Slides and Support Materials
Just as you would review a written message for content, style, tone, readability, clarity, and conciseness, apply the same quality control to slides and other visuals.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

23. Reviewing the Slides Consistent Audience-Centered Readable Simple
As you look over your presentation for the final time, make sure that all visuals are:
Readable. Can text be read from the back of the room? Does the text stand out from the background?
Consistent. Are colors and design elements used consistently?
Simple. Is each slide and the entire presentation as simple as possible? Can you eliminate any slides?
Audience-centered. Are the message and the design focused on the audience?
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Chapter 17 ̶

24. Reviewing the Slides Concise and Clear Grammatical Fully Focused
Operational
Clear. Is the main point of a slide obvious? Easy to understand? Can the audience grasp the main point in just a few seconds?
Concise and grammatical. Is text written in concise phrases? Are bulleted phrases grammatically parallel?
Focused. Does each slide cover only one thought, concept, or idea? Does the slide grab the viewer’s attention in the right place? Are arrows, symbols, or other techniques used to draw attention to the key sections of a chart or diagram?
Fully operational. Have you verified every slide in your presentation? Do all the animations and other special effects work as you intended?
With your slides working properly and in a clear, logical order, you’re just a few steps away from being ready. Now is a good time to think about a backup plan. Consider having backup equipment on standby, loaded with your presentation, and ready to go. At the very least, have enough printed handouts ready to give the audience so that, as a last resort, you can give your presentation “on paper.”
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

25. Creating Navigation and Support Slides
Title Slides
Agenda/Program Slides
Navigation Slides
At this point, you’ve created the slides that will deliver the content of your presentation. You can enhance your presentation with a few additional slides that add “finish” and provide additional information to your audience.
Title slides. Make a good first impression on your audience with one or two title slides, the equivalent of a report’s cover and title page.
Agenda and program details. These slides communicate both the agenda for your presentation and any additional information that your audience might need.
Navigation slides. To tell your audience where you’re going and where you’ve been, you can use a series of navigation slides based on your outline or agenda. This technique is most useful in longer presentations with several major sections.
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Chapter 17 ̶

26. Creating Effective Handouts
Complex charts and diagrams
Articles and technical papers
Case study materials
Recommended resources
Copies of presentation slides
Handouts are any printed materials you give the audience to supplement your talk. They’re an integral part of your presentation strategy.
Your presentation should paint the big picture, convey and connect major ideas, set the emotional tone, and rouse the audience to action (if that is relevant to your talk). Handouts provide supporting details that audience members can consume at their own speed, on their own time. Possibilities for good handout materials include:
Complex charts and diagrams. Charts and tables that are too unwieldy for the screen or that demand thorough analysis make good handouts.
Articles and technical papers. Magazine articles that supplement the information in your presentation make good handout materials, as do technical papers that provide in-depth coverage of the material you’ve highlighted in your presentation.
Case studies. Summaries of business case studies can make good supplemental reading material.
Recommended resources. Lists of websites, bloggers, and other online resources related to your topic can be useful.
Copies of presentation slides. In many cases, audiences like to have print versions of the slides used by a speaker, containing the speaker’s comments about each slide and blank lines for note taking.
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Chapter 17 ̶

27. Distributing the Handouts
The Content of the Handouts
The Nature of Your Presentation
Your Preferences as a Presenter
The timing of the distribution of handouts depends on their content, the nature of your presentation, and your personal preference.
Some speakers like to distribute handout copies of their slides before the presentation begins so that the audience can take notes on them. Doing so can be risky, however, particularly if you’ve organized your talk with the indirect approach, because the audience can read ahead and reach the conclusion and recommendations before you’re able to build up to them yourself.
Other speakers simply advise the audience of the types of information covered in handouts but delay distributing anything until they have finished speaking.
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

28. Business Communication Today
Chapter 17
Enhancing Presentations with Slides and Other Visuals
Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶

29. Copyright © 2016 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter 17 ̶