Pitches, Guidelines, Makeovers, & Tools

This week I submitted a workshop proposal called "User-Friendly Presentations: Pitches, Guidelines, Makeovers, & Tools" - and I think this sets the stage. The elevator pitch is a short 30-second summation of what you offer or what your organization does. Design guidelines such as those outlined by Durso and colleagues (in HFES's EID, '11) or by Dave Paradi's ThinkOutsideTheSlide are useful for designing user friendly presentations that the target audience can enjoy and remember. Participants will then learn how to do slide makeovers by applying what they learn to improve their own slides. Then we'll overview useful tools beyond PowerPoint such as a Color Contrast Calculator, PechaKucha, SlideShare, Ignite, and Prezi.

EXAMPLE MAKEOVER #1

The slide is a great example that was improved by identifying the purpose which is that the Huckleberry Trail is for adults and kids. A new version of the slide demonstrates both the need to have one purpose and shows a better use of images and text. The long quote should be eliminated, and if essential moved to a new slide and read aloud or summarized. The new version of the slide also includes an image with no image reflection. The title is straight-forward text with no shadow used. The slide uses a large, readable font and a lighter background to provide a high color contrast between the black font and the light blue.

EXAMPLE MAKEOVER #2

The original slide here shows a table that could likely be read in a printed report but that is an unreadable when presented on a slide. The details are unnecessary. The purpose of this slide appears to be to show the cost of the orange line and three of its components. The slide on the right shows how this same information can be reconfigured to be much more clear to the audience. The slide also uses a large, readable font and a lighter background to provide a high color contrast between the black font and the light blue.