1. IMS2011 Presentation Guidelines Ch. Calvert1, E. A. Poe2
1Dept of Government, Baltimore MD, USA
2 Dept. of Literature, Baltimore MD, USA
Put your logos only on this title page
Adapted and updated from the IMS2009 Electronic Presentation Guide

2. Purpose of this Presentation
contains recommended guidelines for electronic slide preparation
provides an electronic template
The file you are reading has settings, colors and fonts that make it easy to read
You may edit this file and replace our slides with your presentation
In past years, IMS has allowed speakers to use electronic presentations however they liked. The result was far too many presentations where the slides were unreadable or otherwise deficient, and last-minute delays from hooking up laptops and occasional compatibility problems. We are providing this guide to help you create readable, quality slides for your presentation.
The purpose of this presentation is threefold:
1. It documents guidelines for good practice.
2. This presentation follows the standards and guidelines that it contains. With the obvious exception of the “Bad examples” portion, the slide guide is an example of a presentation that conforms to both standards and guidelines.
3. This presentation may be used as a starting point for your own IMS slides. Simply replace the text and diagrams that you see here with your own information.

3. Typical Presentation Flow
Title slide
Outline slide of your talk
Introduction / Motivation / Problem or Challenge
Details of work
State how your results compare to other reported work.
Conclusion slide
Backup slides if desired
Your first slide must be the title slide. Your company or university logo may appear on the title slide, and only this slide. This is followed by your outline slide, motivation slide, pros & cons, and your detail slides.
Most speakers will use between 40 and 120 seconds per slide, so plan accordingly, and rehearse your timing!
Finally, have one slide that concludes your talk and leaves the audience with the key points you’d like to communicate.
Consider having backup slides in reserve to answer specific questions. If time allows, address questions with your backup slides, located beyond your conclusion slide. (Do not expect to have time to cover backup slides.)

4. Use short phrases, not long sentences
Style Guidelines
Use short phrases, not long sentences
Use Arial (or similar) sans serif font
This line uses Helvetica 24 pt bold
This is Calibri 24 pt bold
The rest of the document uses Arial bold
28 Point or larger for titles
This font is 16 pt. If you use fonts that are smaller than 18 point, people in the back of the room cannot read your slide.
Let your slides highlight your talk, and not be a substitute for what you have to say. You, the speaker, deliver the message and let your slides augment your talk.
Arial and Helvetica fonts are two fonts that project well. If you use other fonts, we suggest you project them electronically to get a feel for what your audience will see.
36 point titles with 28 point supportive text are visible from the rear of the session room. Smaller fonts may be visible at the front of the session room or on your monitor, but NOT from the rear half of the session room. USE NOTHING SMALLER THAN 28 POINT FONT! Larger font is even better.
Make your text large enough so that your audience instantly reads your message. If they have to concentrate to read your slides they will be concentrating on the screen, and not on what you are saying, or they may just walk out on you...

5. Special Fonts or Symbols
Watch out for:
Wingdings
MS Line Draw
Monotype Sorts
Symbol fonts
Asian language fonts
Please embed TrueType fonts
The fonts on the computer where you prepare your presentation will not necessarily all be present on the projection computers. Some authors were surprised to discover that bullet fonts and scientific character fonts displayed differently when loaded on the conference presentation computers.
Problems were especially common with “Wingdings”, “MS Line Draw” and “Monotype Sorts” fonts. Also, some Asian language fonts were problem sources.
If your presentation has special fonts, you can include the fonts in your upload by checking the “Embed TrueType Fonts” box that appears when the “File->Save As…” menu is selected.
Caution: Use of this option increases the size of your presentation file by as much as 5X. Large presentation files take a long time to upload. Use embedded fonts only if necessary.

6. Style Guidelines (cont)
Goal of one slide in 1 to 2 minutes
Each slide should have a title
Limit ~ 9 lines of text
Limit ~ 7 words per line
Slides sized for “On Screen Show”
Slide orientation: Landscape
One of the most common complaints from attendees is unreadable visual aids. If you follow these guidelines you can avoid two of the most common pitfalls:
1. Trying to cram too much information on a single slide. A common mistake is to use reduced font sizes to make room for more words and lines. If you can’t read your lettering from ten feet away from a laptop display (15 feet from larger monitors), then most of your audience will have problems.
2. The second common complaint is bad color contrast. Colors that look good on your monitor do not necessarily view well when projected in the session room. If in doubt choose in favor of higher contrast.
Examples:
White lettering on a black background (while perhaps somewhat dull) is perfectly readable; however, we discourage the use of a black background. We prefer that you use a dark blue background, per the template.
Cyan text on a blue background may look really good on your monitor, but is virtually invisible when projected in a session room.
Rule of thumb: Red text and lines are usually invisible if projected. You would be surprised at the number of color-blind people who simply can’t see dark red colors under these circumstances !

7. Choose high contrast font color
Use dark lines/text on a light background
Foreground: Black, Blue, Red
Background: White
Caution: Yellow, grey or cyan lettering and lines are unreadable when projected
High visual contrast is very important. If your slides are difficult to read, then the audience will concentrate on reading them and not concentrate on what you have to say. Or they may just walk out on you...
We suggest a few tried and proven color schemes that will produce highly visible visual aids.
Every year a few authors ignore warnings about red, orange and light blue. Each year there are negative yellow card comments about the authors who use these color schemes.
Colors that look good on computer monitors do not necessarily project well. The best advice is: Do not use light red, orange or light blue slide lettering under any circumstances ! Other colors, including medium greens or browns are also a common problem.

8. Slides should display without delay
Display Speed
Slides should display without delay
Do not distract the audience with slow transition effects
Avoid use of slow graphics, fonts and special effects
Do not use sound effects
A long talk at IMS (20 minutes total) has about 17 minutes for the complete talk. A short talk (10 minutes total) has about 7 to 8 minutes for the complete talk. Do not waste any of this precious time waiting for your next slide to display. Allow 2 to 3 minutes for a few questions at the end of your presentation. Time slots will be strictly adhered to. Do not abuse your audience by exceeding your time allotment. Practice your presentation several times in advance of giving your talk. Cut your presentation down until you fit within your allotted time, including a few minutes for questions.
Overuse of transition effects not only wastes your presentation time, it distracts the audience. Transition effects are often done poorly and if so they are very irritating. If in doubt, do not use them.

9. Make text readable with large font Use all space in rectangle
Diagram slides
Keep diagrams simple
Easy to view
Make text readable with large font
Use all space in rectangle
No borders
Don’t force the audience to study your diagram in order to understand it. Instead, make it simple so that you can walk them through details.
Keep the diagram uncluttered. Use large fonts to make text readable.
Do not use borders because borders take away space that is better used to make your diagram readable.
In RARE circumstances, animation can make diagrams easier to understand. An effective effect is use of animation to build a diagram piece-by-piece. (But don’t over do it!) With each click of the slide controller another piece of the diagram appears and is explained by the speaker. Be aware that many viewers in the audience find this obnoxious, so don’t use this technique unless you absolutely need to. The following example uses this technique.

10. Presenting Data - Graphs
Use graphs, avoid tables
Keep graphs simple
Eliminate or subdue distracting grid lines
Use large font sizes including axes labels
You do not need to apologize for presenting an “eye chart” if you do not present one.
Simple is best. It would probably be a mistake to take a detailed graph that appears in the proceedings and use it directly in a slide.
Use graphs to summarize relationships.
Make sure that all numbering on your graphs is AT LEAST 28 PT. FONT OR LARGER !

11. Some Bad Examples
The next three slides show examples of bad practices that should be avoided:
poor slide layout
poor color use
Sound and transition effects gone mad
The bad examples that follow are closely patterned after slides that we have seen in previous conferences.
The examples in this document are not as bad as the worst we have seen in actual slide review. Most authors simply wouldn’t believe it if we included some truly bad examples of real slides.

12. (Press the “Enter” key to continue)
This slide has no title. Titles help guide the audience through the talk. All slides except photographs should have a title.
The type on this slide is too small. It’s readable here, but when projected, only the presenter and maybe those in the front rows will be able to read it. Those in the back will be completely lost.
USE OF ALL CAPITAL LETTERS OR ITALICS MAKES THIS BULLET VERY DIFFICULT TO READ
This slide would be easier to follow if indentations were used.
Don’t speak every word on the slide. The audience has already read your slide before you say the words on them. Instead, speak about the items on your slides, telling the story on the slides in a compact manner. You support your slides with your spoken words, and your slides support you with written words, graphs, diagrams, pictures.
This slide has too many words and too many points. Keep your slides under about nine lines.
The text in the “slide” above speaks for itself. Probably no author would combine all the bad practices into one single slide, but a few of the bad practices creep into many presentations each year.

13. Bad Color Usage Poor Contrast ASP ASP ASP PSBM Board 1 Board 2 Board 3
Text too tiny
This slide doesn’t look too horrible on a monitor, but it is really bad when projected. The orange/green/yellow combination in the PSMB box becomes unreadable.
Signal names to the right of PSMB are too small, even near the front of a session room. Note that they’re readable on a monitor, though.
The red 1-point vertical lines provide difficult viewing, as do the light blue board numbers on a dark blue background.
Was the black text on a dark blue background easy to see?
tck
PSBM
tms
tdi
trst

14. How to Annoy The Audience (Press Enter)
Misuse sound
Overuse transition effects
Focus the audience on the graphical elements in your slides, but not on the message contained in your slides
Use every feature PowerPoint has to offer
We haven’t had this at IMS yet because we don’t connect the projection computer to the sound system in the session room.
Examples of run-away transition and sound effects are common outside of IMS, however.

15. Summary Keep your slides simple Use large fonts for high visibility
Use high contrast colors
Present the highlights, not the detail
Contact your topic coordinator if you have any questions. Please route any comments on this slide guide to