10 DOs and DON'Ts for Technical Presentations

Designing a Technical PowerPoint Presentation

When using PowerPoint or other presentation software for a technical presentation, your primary concerns should be: How technical should this presentation be? Can I make this information clear and concise? A technical presentation, in my view, is the most difficult type of presentation to make. Your audience may include highly skilled individuals as well as those who are not as familiar with the concepts or terminology. You will need to address both learning styles.Audience analysis is an important skill in itself and should be one of the first items on yourpresentation checklist. Tips for Designing Technical Presentations

The DOs 1. Keep the fonts consistent in both style and sizethroughout the whole presentation. 2. Use common fonts that are available on every computer, such as Arial, Times New Roman or Calibri. This way, there will not be any surprises if the computer used for the presentation does not have the unusual font you chose installed, and therefore substitutes another font. 3. 4. 5. 6. Include relevant photos and graphics such as simple charts or diagrams. Consider whether the audience can understand the information presented or if you need to simplify the chart / diagram for clarity. Make sure that graphics are of good quality so the information is easily deciphered at the back of the room. Make labels on charts large enough to be read at a distance. Use heightened contrast on your slides. Consider creating the same presentation in two formats -- one presentation with dark text on a light background, and a second, duplicate presentation using light text on a dark background. This way, you are ready for either a very dark room or very light room to present in and can choose the suitable presentation accordingly. 7. 8. 9. Keep the number of slides to a minimum. Present only what is necessary and don't overwhelm the audience with too much information. Technical information is hard enough to digest. Allow time for a question period at the end of your presentation Know everything about your topic so that you are prepared for any question that arises, even if the question was not

covered in the material you presented. 10. Have detailed handouts ready to give out after the presentation. This allows for the audience to later reflect on the presentation and the information is ready at hand for any necessary follow-up.

The DON'Ts 1. Don't confuse the audience with disorganized slides so that the purpose of the presentation is not crystal clear. 2. Don't overwhelm your audience with busy slides. Think of that old clich -- "less is more". 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Don't use small images or small text on your slides. Think about those people at the back of the room. Don't use script type fonts. They are notoriously difficult to read at the best of times, let alone on a screen. Don't use more than three or four related points on each slide. Don't use a fancy background. It may be pretty or even on topic, but the text will be difficult to read. Keep to a subtle backdrop for the information. Don't add pictures for the sake of decoration. Make sure there is a point to be made and that information is obvious to the viewer.

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Don't use sounds or animations unless they are to emphasize a point. Even then, it is risky as they can detract from the main focus of the presentation. Don't use acronyms unless all members of the audience are familiar with them.

10. Don't include more than four or five items on a chart. Even though Excel charts can be made to show great detail, a slide show is not the place for this information. Stick to important facts only.

It always sucks to show up to a conference with a slide deck that looks lovely with lots of pictures and evocative hipster stock photography all nicely formatted for a 4:3 ratio (1024x768 pixels is common) and then find out their projectors are 16x9 and run something like 1280x720 pixels. Nobody wants to be THIS stretchy guy:

It is true that some people have a genetic inability to see that 4:3 content has been uncomfortably stretched to fit a 16:9 screen. We have a name for these people. They are called "Bad People."* As an aside, there are few sadder technical things than 4:3 content stretched across an expensive 16:9 widescreen HDTV. From electronic stores to hotel lobbies, airport status displays to caf menus. Make it stop. What's the easiest way to convert your 4:3 slide deck to 16:9 in a pitch and still have your images look nice? There' s a number of ways on the internet but they all involve "math" and "ratios" and "thought." Nonsense. Too hard. Here's what I do.

STEP 0 - SWITCH TO 16:9 AND SEE BAD IMAGES.

Click Design | Page Setup and switch from 4:3 to 16:9. Other folks say to enter in custom numbers and do multiplication. Hang in there, this is easier.

At this point, all your images WILL be stretched out.

STEP 1 - FIX IMAGE RATIOS WITHOUT MESSING UP THEIR SIZES

Here's the trick. Right click on an image and select Size and Position. From this dialog, click in the Height box. Now, just click up once and down once. As long as the Lock Aspect Ratio checkbox is checked, just changing the scale by 1 step and then switching back will fix your image. You can do it with your keyboard even faster.

Here's trick #2. You don't need to close the Size and Position dialog. It's modeless. You can leave it open and go from slide to slide quickly changing your images. Just click the image, click Height, then up/down, then do another image. Repeat until it's all done. It'll take just a few seconds per slide.

This trick will fix all your image ratios, but expect to do one more pass to make sure that you're using all the space afforded by this new widescreen layout. Regardless of how you images are sized you might want to make some tweaks to the layout and spacing of your text and images. How to you switch your slides from 16:9 to 4:3? Exactly the same steps except adjust the ratio in Step 0. Hope this helps someone.