We offer you the following insights courtesy of a great book called “slide:ology” by Nancy Duarte (2008, O’Reilly Media). Duarte Design created the presentation for Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth. This extract is from Chapter 12 and offers a five-point manifesto:
1. Treat your audience as king: they didn’t come to your presentation to see you. They came to find out what you can do for them. Success means giving them a reason for taking their time, providing content that resonates, and ensuring it’s clear what they are to do.
2. Spread ideas and move people: …communicate your ideas with strong visual grammar to engage all their senses and they will adopt these ideas as their own.
3. Help them see what you are saying: …guide your audience through ideas in a way that helps, not hinders, their comprehension. Appeal not only to their verbal senses but to their visual senses as well.
4. Practise design not decoration: don’t just make pretty talking points. Instead display information in a way that makes complex information clear.
Display information in the best way possible fro comprehension rather than focusing on what you need as a visual crutch. Content carriers connect with people.