Presentation
Introduction
When someone wants to explain or illustrate a topic to someone, a very popular way of doing it is to do a 'presentation'
The traditional way of presenting information to people was to stand at the front of a room armed with a set of notes or prompt cards and to speak clearly and slowly.
How is it used?
Software features
Who uses it?
Multimedia
Images
Animation and transitions
Making it look good
Advantages
Disadvantages
Sales people often have to give presentations to customers, clients or managers.
Most medium to large sized companies have a human resource department who will be involved in training new employees or providing training schemes for existing employees.
Presentation software is regularly used as a training tool.
Teachers often use presentations so that students have a concise set of notes to copy from the board.
Students are also regularly asked to create presentations about a topic they have been studying. They may be asked to show their presentations to the rest of the class.
Presentation software is regularly used during conferences. Speakers will project their key points onto a large screen whilst they talk about the subject.
We tend to think of presentations being made by a person who is going to stand in front of an audience.However, this isn't the only way for a presentation to be seen.
A presentation can be set up to run continuously on a screen. Passers by can stop and watch for a short while.The presentation usually loops automatically back to the beginning once it has finished.This can be used when you want to give people information. For example, the Post Office use this method to inform people about their products whilst queuing.
Slides from a presentation can be printed onto acetates and used with an overhead projector.This method is becoming less common now as most businesses and schools use projectors linked to a computer.
The slide show can be printed out in handout form. This puts between 2-6 slides onto one page. Handouts are often given to the audience so that they can make their own notes whilst the speaker is talking and to give them something to take away after the presentation.
What is it about presentation software that has made it such a popular choice?
The software is incredibily easy to use. Even a novice can produce a reasonably good looking presentation with only a few minutes training. :
There are a large selection of different layouts available. Each slide can have a different layout. One slide can have bullet points to the left of an image, another slide can have a main title and bullet points underneath, another one can have a graph or a hierarchy diagram.
The software comes with a large range of ready prepared templates. The text simply needs to be typed onto the page.
There are also a huge number of professionally designed templates available to purchase fairly cheaply from the Internet.
A 'master slide' is available so that you can set up things which you wish to appear on every page such as a footer or page numbers or a title.
You can choose text styles to apply throughout your presentation on the master slide.
The software comes with many different animation effects which can be used to add emphasis to presentations.
It also has a large selection of slide transition effects that can be used when changing from one slide to the next.
Video
Text
Sound
Sticking to text allows the speaker to keep the audiences' attention on them rather than distracting the audience with what is happening on the screen.
The bullet points act as a prompt for what they need to talk about and enable the audience to keep track of what is being covered.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Images can add visual impact to a presentation. They can also help to illustrate the point that you are trying to make.
They help to break up a lot of monotonous text and give the audience something to focus their attention on.
Video can be a powerful tool in presentations. It can be used to attract the audiences' attention or to show them something that could not easily be described just using words.
You can use existing footage from company archives, videotape libraries or personal collections or you can film your own. If you choose to use existing footage, keep in mind that copyright issues may apply.
Sound can be incorporated into a presentation in many different ways.
You can have quiet music playing in the background throughout the presentation. Appropriate music or sounds can be played at a key point in the presentation such as the sound of a cow mooing whilst you are talking about the benefits of dairy farming. Voice narration can be used during the whole presentation or for certain parts.
Sound can add a different dimension to a presentation. However, it is important not to allow the sound to distract the audiences' attention from the main speaker.
Animation effects
Slide transitions
Custom animation is often added to a slide show. It can be used to delay the appearance of bullet points on the screen. This can help to keep the audience focused on what is being talked about at that moment rather than letting them read ahead and not listen properly. They can also be used to add dramatic effect or visual interest.
The key to using animation successfully is to pick one or two effects and stick with them throughout the presentation; using too many can be
confusing, can frustrate your audience, and can leave your presentations looking unprofessional.
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As with custom animation, the rule 'less is more' applies and it is wise to stick to just one effect throughout the presenation.
You can set the slide transition to different effects such as 'fade', 'blinds', 'checkerbox'. This can be set up on every slide so that the transition is consistent throughout the presentation, or it can be set up on particular slides only.
However, it is difficult to get automatic timing just right, some people read fast, some much more slowly. They can lead to frustration if some are kept waiting for the next slide for too long whilst others find they haven't read everything before the slide switches.
You can set your presentation to be timed so that it moves automatically to another slide after a certain length of time. This effect is used for informative presentations which are just left running for people to view as they walk past.
Slide transitions can be set up to govern how you move from one slide to another.
Action buttons or hyperlinks can also be used on slides to help you navigate through the presentation.
Hyperlinks can also be used to help you access a relevant website.
Keep it simple
Make text large enough
This is easier said than done. Try to stick to only a few font colours, one for the heading, one for the main text and one for highlighting key points.
Try to stick to bullet points, large paragraphs of text should not be included if at all possible.
The temptation is to use 12-14 point since you can read that on your screen whilst you are typing. However, project this up onto a whiteboard and the audience will be unlikely to be able to read what you have written.
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Presentation software is incredibly easy to learn how to use.
It is supplied with a large library of background templates and custom layouts
Multimedia can easily be added to the presentation
Presentations are easy to edit
Presentations can be easily output to different formats e.g. interactive whiteboard, digital projector, handouts
Excellent for summarising facts
Great for showing graphs/charts/diagrams to an audience
Can create a set of handouts for people to write on whilst presentation being given
Allows you to face your audience and make eye contact rather than facing the screen.
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It is difficult for the audience to take notes while the presentation is taking place, otherwise they lose concentration
Audiences are often happy to sit placidly and not interact with the presenter
Not good for presenting certain kinds of information such as complex maths equations
It is all too easy to make a very bad presentaiton with too many animation effects and too much text, images
Presenters often just read from the presentation which is boring for the audience.