Dazzling Yet Effective:

Presentation Graphics Tips

 

 

To produce successful, professional-quality computer slide shows, consider the following tips:

 

• Always plan your presentation on paper. Analyzing your audience, and specifying objectives and content should be included in the planning process.
• Give an attractive, forceful title for your presentation.
• Summarize your points. Use phrases. Avoid the use of complete sentences. Presentations include oral explanations, so don't copy your oral text on the slides. The same transparency rules apply: no more than five or six lines per frame; no more than six words per line.
• The simplicity rules for charts and graphs also apply. Avoid using too many elements, lines, segments, colors, and textures. Show trends rather than detailed date. Reserve detailed data for audience handouts or articles for publication.
• Don't include more than one graph or chart in each slide. If you need to " explode" a pie chart beside another one, limit it to one in each slide
• Avoid using all caps for large blocks of type as they are hard to read. Use upper and lower case instead. It is acceptable to set headlines or major headings in all caps.
• Type size should reflect the importance of the various ideas in a slide. Headlines should be larger than body copy.
• Limit typefaces, type sizes and weights to one or two and retain these throughout the presentation.
• Use simple block typefaces and sans serif typefaces. Sans serif typefaces are those with the same thickness at all points. Helvetica is an ideal font. Fancy or ornate types should be avoided.
• Avoid Hyphenation. Hyphenated lines interrupt the continuity of the thought.
• Check spelling and numbers. Avoid grammatical errors.
• Use bullets and numbers to organize ideas in list format. Bullets are the dots, check marks, or other shapes that delineate topics or introduce items in a list. Use them to give list items equal importance. Use numbers to list items if the order of importance or chronological order is important.
• Do not use dashes or asterisks as bullets.
• Have phrases in bullet lists written in parallel grammatical construction. For instance, use the same verb tenses, save voice for verbs, same cases, and same number (singular or plural).
• Avoid superimposing words over graphics as this impairs readability.
• Use boldface or italic type instead of underlining. Avoid excessive underlining.
• Start each heading in the same place on each slide.
• Make line lengths in a text frame approximately equal to one another.
• Use (but don't overuse) repetitive patterns in subdued shades to give the impression of texture.
• Develop a logo or an institutional identification segment for use in your presentations and include this in your opening frame.
• Use builds, or reveals, or progressive disclosure slides to give visual variety and to help the audience absorb the information one step at a time. Make the last item in the list brighter or of a different color than the others.
• Grab viewer's attention with drop shadows but use them sparingly. Drop shadows can be colors other than black or gray. The deeper the shadow, the closer to the audience the object appears to be. The general rule is to make the shadow a darker shade than the original.
• Use color sparingly. Limit colors to two or three on a contrasting background.
• Use distinctive color contrasts between the text and background. For example, use blues or blacks for backgrounds and whites or yellows for letters, bullets, or numerals. Superimposing dark-colored typeface on a dark background or a white-colored typeface on a pale background reduces the legibility of the letters. A simple guideline is to use bright colors for foreground and dark colors for background.
• Use bright colors for the most dominant message. Similarly, use brighter colors for the message and not for accompanying graphics. Remember the lighter or brighter colors (colors high in saturation and luminance) tend to accentuate or emphasize.
• Plan the color scheme for the whole presentation before choosing colors for individual elements.
• Consider the type of output when selecting colors. Colors displayed on the monitor may not necessarily look the same when seen on the large screen projection display, a film recorder, video recorder, plotter, or color printer. What you see on the screen is not what you see on the other output devices.
• When creating printed handouts for your slides using the same presentation software, use dark type on a white background.
• Use heavier, darker colors at the bottom of the frame when including ramps or gradation effects (grading of color from black to solid color or through shades of a color).
• Use adequate margins for each frame. One guideline is to leave equal margins at the top and sides and a slightly larger margin at the bottom.
• Be aware of the positive and negative connotations of colors and the emotional response that may be evoked by certain colors. For example, it is widely accepted that red connotes deficits and financial failure.
• Avoid placing red and green next to each other. The combination may cause eyestrain.
• Color should be used discriminately in graphs and charts as it can affect interpretation of the data, even if correctly presented. For example, darker colored bars make them appear more important than those in lighter colors.
• Use brighter colors to highlight the most important element in a chart.
• Place labels of graphs and charts horizontally rather than vertically to relieve the audience from tilting their heads while reading.
• Place footnotes in graphs and charts in the lower left corner using the smallest legible font size. Do not use bright colors in a footnote or secondary data as they will make the footnote appear to overpower the primary foreground information.
• End your presentation gracefully with one or two closing titles.
• Start and end your presentation with a black frame.

 

 

Reprinted with permission from the September 1994 edition of Tech Trends. Copyright 1994, Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

Contributor: Richard H. Hughes from the Dudziak-McClintock Business Technology Center can be reached at [email protected]

Last modified: February 23, 1998