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Use design to communicate that you
know your listeners
Creative Techniques
By Jennifer Rotondo
It's no secret that to
engage audience members, you must first understand who they
are. Are they friendly? Tough? Serious? Lighthearted? Bored?
Should you use humor or stick to the facts? These questions
shouldn't be ignored. The answers will dictate not only your
content but your design.
Begin by
asking yourself who the majority of the audience represents.
Are they technology people who will require exact numbers and
figures? Or are they marketing people who need the overall
picture?
Also consider your
personal relationship with this audience. How well do you know
them? Is this the first time you've met?
If you know and get along well with the audience,
you may want to begin with some humor. A good quote or a
tasteful cartoon can be a great way to get things rolling.
With a new audience or one that you know is serious, it's
always better to emphasize professionalism. Forget about any
antics and keep the presentation focused and straightforward.
After you understand who will be
attending, you can assemble the right presentation. To design
with your audience members in mind, you need to take time to
choose colors, fonts and images that convey an understanding
of them and their business. Use your design to keep pace with
the time allotted for the presentation, to anticipate
questions and even to provide more detail if necessary.
Personalize the presentation
Customizing a presentation to a
client or to attendees shows that you care enough to research
who they are and what they're about. Let's say, for example,
that you're presenting to a vice president of marketing and
her staff. For this audience, it's important that you study
the company's past marketing campaigns to get a feel for its
style. Your presentation should acknowledge that style and
include content that shows you've done your research.
From a design standpoint, you can
use some nice touches to personalize slides. An up-and-coming
Internet firm, for example, warrants a presentation that's
flashy, upbeat and laden with multimedia. A long-standing
financial institution, in contrast, calls for classic style
with little room for bells and whistles. Other nice touches
include placing the company logo into the template or using
the company colors. Show them you've done your research and
know who your listeners are. The ultimate goal in your design
is to indicate that you understand their market, product and
mind-set.
The pace clock
Time is a precious commodity in
presenting. While delivering a message, a presenter must speak
fast enough to hold attention, but not so fast that the
audience becomes lost or confused.
The audience will have an effect on your pacing.
For instance, a technical audience will demand a presentation
that speaks at its level and pace. In this case, design slides
to skim the basics and jump into the meeting's specific
points. If your audience is not familiar with the topic,
however, the basic-information slides should be rich in
detail. Be aware of which aspects your audience already knows
and which will take more time to explain.
Another good rule is to keep your presentation
shorter than the audience anticipates. In a 30-minute
presentation, keep the main talk to 10 or 15 minutes and make
your point in the first three minutes. This gives you plenty
of time for questions and more personal communication.
Attendees will be impressed if the presentation ends when you
said it would. Such punctuality shows you respect your
attendees' schedule and realize they are busy people.
Secret slides
Another way to show attendees you've
done your homework is to anticipate their questions with
secret slides. I almost always design extra slides that are
not included in the main presentation. Using such hidden
slides gives you the advantage of having lots of detailed
information on hand in case you need it. After I've gone
through the initial slides, I may use these secret slides in
the Q & A period to address more specific questions.
When you design hidden slides, use
the same template you used for the initial presentation.
Hidden slides can be placed anywhere within the presentation.
To hide a slide, select it and go to SLIDESHOW, then HIDE
SLIDE. In the slide sorter view, hidden slides will appear
with a gray box around them but will not appear in your
slideshow.
When you wish to
access a certain hidden slide, right-click with the mouse or
remote and select GO from the menu, choosing either BY TITLE
or SLIDE NAVIGATOR. The hidden slides will appear in either
menu with parentheses around the number. Be sure to label
these hidden slides proficiently so you will find them easily.
Basic content rules
Considering your audience also
involves knowing some basic rules for electronic design. After
all, you don't want your listeners paying attention to an
annoying color or straining to read too many bullets in a
small font. You want them to focus on the subject at hand.
Design your presentation with the following advice in mind:
Follow the 8 x 8 rule.
Use no more than eight lines of bullets and no more that eight
words per line.
Keep your
text short. This allows you to personally elaborate during
the presentation.
Use a
parallel sentence structure. Decide to start all bullet
points with a noun or start all with a verb, and use your
choice consistently. If you begin with verbs, keep them in the
same tense.
Use graphics and
visuals. Some information is better represented visually.
Working your audience research
into slide design may take more preparation, but the result is
a more polished presentation that adds to the power of your
content. After all, the better you understand your listeners'
needs and concerns, the more likely you will be to frame your
message in a way that will get a great response from them.
Jennifer Rotondo
is a Microsoft Certified Expert, Advanced PowerPoint trainer,
author of several books on presenting and president of
Creative Minds Inc., which specializes in professional design
of PowerPoint presentations, multimedia and Web sites. Contact
her at 770.421.2476 or jennifer@creativemindsinc.com, or visit
www.creativemindsinc.com.
Originally
published in the January 2002 issue of Presentations
magazine. Copyright 2002, VNU Business Media.
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