CHRISTINE LIU: OK.
Confession time.
I do not get slide decks.
You know, PowerPoint, or Google Slides,
all that presentation stuff.
When I have to make one, or many, for work,
it's a bundle of emotions.
I have to figure out, like, how to jam all this information
into slides.
I'm not a designer, so I'm freaking out
that it, like, looks ugly.
I think we are intimately aware of what
makes a bad presentation.
You know, the horribly garbled visual metaphors,
like that, and that one.
Barbarically misaligned text and images.
Oof.
And we can all agree, the worst sin of all,
reading exactly verbatim copy from the slide.
Oh my goodness, their eyes aren't even leaving the screen.
I'm going bananas.
Make it stop.
Look.
All the information that we're asked to present,
it could theoretically be in an email.
But we are being asked to present it, not write and send
it.
So, in essence, I have to put on a good show.
You know, a presentation is a show.
The question is, how do I transform just a slide
deck into a great show?
[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]
DAN ZEDEK: I think a really excellent presentation is one
where I feel really engaged.
I learned something, but I also feel engaged with the speaker.
I'm both taking stuff in, but also leaning forward
in my seat a little bit.
CHRISTINE LIU: I talked with Dan Zedek.
He's a professor of journalism and media innovation
at Northeastern University, and he's also
been design director for a lot of publications.
My biggest fear is that I see the blank,
I know I have to do a presentation,
I see the blank document, and I just
feel like I'm filling in boxes, while also having this anxiety
that what I'm doing is a waste of time
and I'm just going to bore everyone.
DAN ZEDEK: As somebody from a design background,
I frequently deal with this perception
that people can't draw.
They're not designers.
They have a good eye, but they're not visual.
And, really, the real sweet spot for designers
is understanding content, and how to organize content,
and how to organize information, and that's really most of it.
You know, a beautiful presentation,
or one that has beauty to it, but isn't well-organized,
is much worse than one that is relatively simple visually,
but is well-organized.
CHRISTINE LIU: So what other sins are there,
common mistakes, that you see all the time?
DAN ZEDEK: Well, I think one of the common mistakes
comes from people feeling insecure
about their visual talent, and they tend
to sort of overload things.
Too many photos.
Irrelevant photos.
Too many colors.
Too many typefaces.
I mean, keeping it simple is always better,
because it adds clarity.
And I would say that another sin that I see frequently
is a slide that's just up there for, like, five or six minutes.
And, you know, your mind wanders, frankly.
CHRISTINE LIU: How long is too long for anyone
to expect to pay attention?
DAN ZEDEK: This is a scary answer, because there actually
has been some research on this.
People's patience is about six or seven minutes, actually,
which is way shorter than your presentation is going to be.
So then you get back to pacing.
How far is it between big points?
If I asked a question at the beginning of the presentation,
how long before I answer it?
Ideally, every slide should be up there
for, ideally, 30 seconds, but no more than a minute.
So, if you have a slide that takes four or five
minutes to talk across, that's a sign
that you probably have a big idea, which could be broken
down into smaller pieces.
CHRISTINE LIU: So, I have another question.
Am I supposed to bring some of myself into this presentation
and have personality, or is it just stick
to the facts, data, clear, organized, done?
DAN ZEDEK: Well, I think it should be all of you, in a way.
There's many different parts of you.
There's a part of you that is authoritative.
There's a part of you that's organized.
There's a part of you that's engaging.
There's a part of you that's funny.
Even if all you're transmitting is
your passion for the subject, all those things
are personal traits, also, and you can sort of figure out
the proportions based on your audience, in a way,
and what it is you're trying to get across.
CHRISTINE LIU: How much does the audience
and who's in the audience change or affect
the way you design the visuals of the presentation, if any?
DAN ZEDEK: I think who's in the audience is maybe
the key question, actually, because it's not just that you
want to get some information across,
but you want to get it across to specific people.
So you need to understand why they're there,
what they're hoping to get from it,
and, also, some of their background
and cultural background.
CHRISTINE LIU: I just want to emphasize that.
The audience is key.
You want to make sure you know what the audience expects out
of your presentation, and you want
to read the room, or virtual room.
You know, if there's a key stakeholder there,
and their style is they love to get to the point,
you might want to get to the point.
OK.
I just created a new presentation file,
and I'm just looking at a blank slate.
Where do I even start?
DAN ZEDEK: I often start with, literally,
an outline, written in a text edit, or some other way,
and then I start putting that into slides,
without any visuals, just to see what I have,
and how the pacing is working out, and what are my, sort of,
key points.
CHRISTINE LIU: Then how do you get from there
to not just dumping in text?
DAN ZEDEK: So your top-level points,
which are sort of the takeaways, those probably
should be text in the slide, as well, because you
want people to read those short phrases and remember them.
But the secondary things, those are
places where you don't want to put the text up there.
You want to think about a visual or a graphic
that echoes and amplifies, rather than just merely
repeats it.
CHRISTINE LIU: OK.
Let's dig into that a little more.
The design.
All right.
I think I have good taste, but I definitely
don't have visual vocabulary or a skill set.
So we have a text outline.
Then how do I just bring it to life?
DAN ZEDEK: Well, color and animation
are incredibly powerful.
And, you know, paradoxically, the less
you use them, the more powerful they are.
So I see a lot of slideshows where
people have these really crazy animations between slides.
They pivot.
They spin.
They twirl.
They explode.
All those sorts of things.
Animations can be something really simple,
like a red underline on an important concept,
or it can be a chart that unfurls from left to right.
It doesn't need to be really fancy or complex.
It should always be driven by the content.
CHRISTINE LIU: This is super important.
So your animations, graphics, colors,
they must be in service to your content.
Otherwise, they're going to be irrelevant.
I just want to verbally underline that.
Actually, can we get that on the screen.
There you go.
DAN ZEDEK: I do my presentations, typically,
with one color, like, black and one more color, maybe two,
sometimes, but that's a lot already.
You know, if you're just using black and red,
or black and yellow to highlight something,
you're making a really strong impression.
And I try to use color consistently.
So if I'm using yellow, for example,
to highlight an important word, I'll
use it all the way through the presentation
in the exact same way, so you're making a mental association
for the viewer.
Oh, when that little yellow thing comes on,
that's something I should pay attention to.
CHRISTINE LIU: OK.
To recap, this is going to be a little meta,
but I'm going to build a presentation, based
on Dan's points, that will illustrate how
to make a better presentation.
It's going to be a show.
BRB.
DAN ZEDEK: Don't be scared.
You know, listen to your audience.
You know them.
You know this topic.
You'll make it work.
[INSTRUMENTAL ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYING]
CHRISTINE LIU: OK.
Ugh.
I'm so nervous now.
All right.
Here we go.
From one friend to another, how to build a better presentation
deck.
And, yes, I just committed the first sin.
Oh, I can't do this.
I'm going to give you five really easy, practical tactics
for making your already decent deck even better.
So, one is just get started.
Don't worry about the images or anything.
Just create a text outline.
You can see what I did here.
I just kind of wrote it out, the story,
how I want to present my ideas, and just focus on them.
Next, you want to think about pacing.
So you don't want people to be staring at your slide for more
than one minute.
You want to aim for that sweet spot of, maybe,
30 seconds to a minute.
If you find yourself going over, that's fine.
Just either shorten your presentation
or make more slides.
That's easy.
Next, you want to think about your images and any visuals
that you're using.
Is it really serving and supporting
the content and ideas that you're trying to build?
If not, or if you're on the fence, less is more.
You do not want reams and reams of copy on your slides.
This is not about scripting.
This is about putting words that will help guide your audience
and create that impact.
Everything else, leave it in the speaker's notes.
And then, lastly, think about who's in the audience.
What's going through their minds?
Why would they be interested in listening to you?
So give them the answers that they
need, giving it in a way that resonates with them
and connects with them.
OK.
This is the most important thing to remember,
at the end of the day, which is, they want you.
Don't be scared.
They're inviting you to bring your ideas, and expertise,
and your voice to the stage, right?
So what could be a friendlier invitation than that?
Just let your ideas shine and be yourself.
OK.
There you go.
So I gave the presentation.
I think I did a solid job, and I started with a template,
but I modified it, and I tried my best.
But, you know, I want to hear your thoughts.
Was it clear?
Did the visuals work?
Was the pacing OK?
Like, how did I do?
Let me in the comments.
If you're still watching, one, thank you.
But, two, I'm really curious.
Like, what do you want me to explore?
Like, what problems do you have at work?
I'd love to solve them.
Please leave a comment.
I love to hear your thoughts.
And if you have any other ideas, throw them my way.
All right.
Peace out.