I make a fair bit of presentations for class and for work and like many of you always thought my presentations were pretty good, not great, but darn good and I was sure of that.
Well, I had to prepare a presentation specifically about making better designed presentations, and in my research and preparations for this, I came to realize that about 90% of the presentations I have made have been absolute crap.
I am really taking about the visual design of the presentations, mostly tedious bulleted slides, maybe some screen prints, or gasp! Clip Art to tray and jazz things up. I always know what I am talking about (well almost always), but the visual element of my presentations have been sorely lacking.
In developing my new and improved presentation I relied heavily on Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds, and to a lesser extent by some great examples of visual design on SlideShare.
From Presentation Zen I cam to realize that simpler is always better, and really understanding the material is the key to developing and delivering a great presentation. From SlideShare I found dozens of examples of excellent design.
Here is the presentation I gave on 'Effective Use of Visual Aids'. It ran about 30 minutes live, and while I know there is still room for improvement, it is a thousand times better designed than my normal stuff.
The direct link is here, take a look and let me know what you think.
Now do I have time to re-design all my class lecture slides in time for Winter?