To prop up the debate a bit, I invited a colleague with a little more first-hand experience with both technologies to provide support to the counter-argument.

Thanks to her, here are 32 reasons a PowerPoint slide deck is nothing like a bra.

1. I wear a bra every day, but could do without daily PowerPoint.
2. Personally, I think most other women would benefit more from a bra than PowerPoint too.
3. You can’t buy a PowerPoint slide deck off the shelf.
4. There’s no such thing as a Push-up PowerPoint deck.
5. There’s no such thing as a Miracle PowerPoint deck, not even from Nancy Duarte or Garr Reynolds.
6. You can’t improve a bra, but you can improve a slide deck.
7. You can’t give away your slide deck to someone who would fit it better.
   

   “Nobody ever asks for a copy of my bra after a meeting.”

8. Bras don’t have annoying transition effects like “window blinds“, “newsflash”, and “fade out”.
9. Bras don’t have annoying sound effects.
10. It’s never a surprise when someone pulls out a PowerPoint slide deck in a business meeting.
11. People will fall asleep in front of a PowerPoint slide deck.
12. No one anticipates the Victoria’s Secret PowerPoint catalog.
13. A bra works perfectly even if there’s no projector, screen, or laptop in the room.
14. Nobody ever asks for a copy of my bra after a meeting.
15. A PowerPoint slide deck is completely useless when exercising, while a bra is only somewhat useless.
16. You can’t craft a bra to suit your purpose.

    “Your employer will likely issue you a standard slide deck in corporate colors.”

17. Bras might be persuasive or motivational, but are rarely educational.
18. The Rule of Thirds says a slide contains four “power points”;
    human anatomy says a bra contains two “power points”.
19. Death by PowerPoint is an overused cliche.
    Death by Bra is not (yet).
20. 40 point bold text on a slide deck is acceptable.
    On bras? Not so much.
21. Only one Nobel Peace Prize winner uses PowerPoint, but nine wear bras. (An inconvenient truth or fiction?)
22. You can’t use the same slide deck all day long, day after day.
23. Slide decks don’t transition well from day to evening.
24. Teenagers know how to use bras, but adults still have trouble with PowerPoint.
25. Your mom will usually buy your first bra for you.
26. With bras, only teen-aged girls pad them with useless fluff.

    “Bras might be persuasive or motivational, but are rarely educational.”

27. It’s socially acceptable for men to use a slide deck, as long as it’s a good one.
28. PowerPoint slides look best when projected on a flat surface.
29. Guy Kawasaki has no 10-20-30 rule for bras.
30. Establishments that outlaw bras are labeled “trashy.”
    Companies that outlaw PowerPoint are labeled “forward-thinking.”
31. Your employer will likely issue you a standard slide deck in corporate colors.
32. A laser pointer rarely accompanies a bra.

Can You Add One?

What differences did we miss? Or maybe you’ve got a similarity to add to the debate?

Send in your suggestions, or add them in the comments.

Similar Articles You May Like... Book Review: Multimedia Learning by Richard E. Mayer PowerPoint Design Wish List: 8 Modest Proposals Why Pausch, not Obama, is Best Communicator of 2008 The 7 Deadly Sins of Public Speaking How to Improve Your Slides with the Rule of Thirds Interview with Nancy Duarte, Author of slide:ology

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Linda Wu works as a Research Analyst in Vancouver, Canada. When not staring at code on her computer, she likes to think and write about ways to improve technical communication.

Other speaking sins are so grave that when you commit them, your speech or presentation is certain to fail. This article reveals the seven deadly sins of public speaking.

Deadly Sin #1: Sloth

Sloth, or laziness, is committed by speakers who fail to prepare.

Speaking in public, whether formally or informally, is an essential activity that requires effort. Yet, the majority of people expend no effort to improve their effectiveness as a speaker. Tragically, they are content to drift from one frustrating presentation to the next.

You can avoid sloth in a number of ways:

• Enroll in a public speaking course
• Read public speaking books
• Read public speaking blogs
• Join Toastmasters or another local speaking club
• Study great speakers
• Hire a speaking coach

(By reading this article, you’re making the effort to improve. Sloth has no claim on you!)

Failing to prepare for life by improving your speaking skills leads to a chain of excuses, characterized by…

Deadly Sin #2: Envy

Envy is characterized by a false belief that great speakers are simply lucky to have been born with natural speaking skills.

You’ve heard the excuses from your colleagues, haven’t you?

• “She’s so lucky! She’s a natural speaker!”
• “Hmph! It’s so easy for him to speak in front of people.”
• “No, I couldn’t deliver the proposal. I’m not a speaker.”

People who are envious of the “natural” skills of others are more likely to apply misguided solutions when confronted by an unavoidable speaking situation:

• They steal stories and anecdotes from others rather than creating original ones
• They copy PowerPoint slides from others even if they don’t quite apply
• They mimic the oratorical style of others and lack authenticity

Because of bad habits like this, speakers suffer from lack of confidence. They know the stories, the slides, and the words are not their own. Nervousness results because they fear being exposed, and this nervousness leads to crazy behaviors like…

Deadly Sin #3: Lust

The lustful speaker attempts to calm their nerves by applying the common (yet terrible) advice to picture the audience naked!

Please don’t picture the audience naked, especially if I am in your audience.

In theory, picturing your audience naked makes them seem as vulnerable as you feel. It may provide a brief lighthearted moment to feed your teenaged appetite, but it won’t help you speak better.

More likely, it will cause an additional distraction and impede your efforts to connect with your audience. Consider this: how easy is it for you to communicate something meaningful to a room full of naked people? Can you inspire them? Impossible.

Nervous speakers who avoid this lustful deadly sin are, unfortunately, still prone to committing another deadly sin…

Deadly Sin #4: Gluttony

Gluttony is exhibited by speakers who believe that more is always better.

More slides, more bullets, more examples, more facts, more numbers, more details, more words — more of everything.

Packing all possible material into your presentation and then speeding through it is flawed, despite your best intentions to provide maximum value. More is (usually) not better. Cognitive research shows that people have a limited capacity to absorb information (see Kosslyn’s Clear and to the Point and Mayer’s Multimedia Learning). Overloading that capacity will reduce their ability to absorb anything at all! Quantity is no substitute for quality.

It is better to focus your presentation on your core message, select only the very best support material (facts, slides, anecdotes), and speak at a reasonable pace. Supplementary material, if necessary, belongs in a handout.

All of this gluttony — too many slides, too many stories, too many details — leads the speaker down a dark and dirty path towards…

Deadly Sin #5: Greed

Greed is the deadly sin of excess, and is committed by a speaker who goes over time.

Does this sound familiar?

• “Oh, is that clock correct? I’m only halfway through…”
• “I haven’t gotten to the good part yet…”
• “Are there any objections to cutting our lunch break in half so I can finish this?”

Speaking for more than your allotted time violates the contract you have with your audience, and that’s never good. People are busy and do not appreciate having their time wasted. Nobody will complain if you finish a few minutes early.

If you go over time, negative emotions begin to fill the room, making you more susceptible to experience…

Deadly Sin #6: Wrath

Wrath, or uncontrolled anger, is committed by a speaker who handles problems in the worst possible way.

As a speaker, you should always remain in control. No matter how bad your presentation is going, keep calm. Don’t let these frustrations provoke you:

• When you make a mistake (even a big one), resist the urge to draw more attention to it by cursing yourself in an attempt to draw pity.
• When an audience member is disrupting the room, resist the urge to “solve” it with sarcasm.
• When the room or venue logistics fail, don’t start blaming the organizers or anyone else. Instead, roll with in and move on.
• When an audience member is heckling you, do not take the bait.

Getting angry — whether at yourself, someone in the audience, or some other factor — is one of the worst things you can do. Your audience will feel uncomfortable and your credibility will be diminished considerably.

Finally, the first six speaker sins are all symptoms of the deadliest speaking sin of them all…

Deadly Sin #7: Pride

Pride is committed by a speaker who believes that public speaking is about them.

It’s not.

• It’s never about you.
• It’s never about your impressive accolades in your introduction.
• It’s never about your dazzling delivery where you channel Churchill.
• It’s never about your sumptuous slides which prominently feature your company logo beside dazzling 3-D pie charts.

Public speaking is always about the audience and the message you want to convey. Failing to put the audience first will kill any presentation. You need to perform audience analysis to discover how best to structure your presentation and deliver the message.

Avoid this sin by starting to analyze your presentation from the audience’s perspective. Amazingly, most of the other speaking sins will go away.

• You’ll recognize that you need to prepare. (Sloth)
• You will realize that you are uniquely capable of delivering your message to this audience. (Envy)
• You will trim all of the fluff to deliver a message which is focused and easy-to-understand. (Gluttony)
• You will respect the time your audience has given you. (Greed)
• You won’t saddle your audience with your problems. (Wrath)

As for Lust when speaking, well… that’s just silly.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Public Speaking

1. Sloth: failing to prepare for your speech or presentation
2. Envy: believing that great speakers are born with their skills
3. Lust: quelling your nerves by picturing the audience naked
4. Gluttony: believing that more words/slides/facts/numbers is always better
5. Greed: speaking over your allotted time
6. Wrath: rigidly reacting to problems and losing your cool
7. Pride: placing yourself ahead of the audience

How many of these speaking sins are committed in presentations you attend?

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

What else do all three have in common? They all point to Richard E Mayer’s Multimedia Learning as recommended reading for presentation design.

And I agree.

This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.

How does Multimedia Learning compare to other books?

Let’s set the context:

• Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds (previously reviewed here)
• Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte (previously reviewed here)
• Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson

All three of these are:

• More popular than Mayer’s work. [In fact, these are three of the 9 most popular books on PowerPoint, according to amazon.com.]
• More applied in nature.
• More directly tied to public speaking.

Yet, all three offer advice which is, in part, based upon research explained by Mayer in Multimedia Design.

So, who should read Multimedia Learning?

Given that Richard Mayer is a professor of psychology, it is not surprising that Multimedia Learning is written in an academic style. I believe it is this style which hinders its mainstream appeal. (And the pedestrian cover design.)

However, the content is fascinating and provides scientific explanations which leads to deep understanding of much of the contemporary approach to slide design.

For this reason, I think the primary audience for Multimedia Learning is:

• Professors, teachers, and trainers who create, design, and deliver instructional courses
• Professionals who are frequently involved with slide design
• Public speaking instructors and coaches

12 Principles You Learn from Multimedia Learning

Mayer’s work is organized around 12 key principles. Each chapter introduces the principle, describes the methodology used to study it, and summarizes research results.

1. Coherence Principle
   People learn better when extraneous words, pictures, and sounds are excluded rather than included.
2. Signaling Principle
   People learn better when cues that highlight the organization of the essential material are added.
3. Redundancy Principle
   People learn better from graphics and narration than from graphics, narration, and on-screen text.
4. Spatial Contiguity Principle
   People learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented near rather than far from each other on the page or screen.
5. Temporal Contiguity Principle
   People learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously rather than successively.
6. Segmenting Principle
   People learn better when a multimedia lesson is presented in user-paced segments rather than as a continuous unit.
7. Pre-training Principle
   People learn better from a multimedia lesson when they know the names and characteristics of the main concepts.
8. Modality Principle
   People learn better from graphics and narration than from animation and on-screen text.
9. Multimedia Principle
   People learn better from words and pictures than from words alone.
10. Personalization Principle
    People learn better from multimedia lessons when words are in conversational style rather than formal style.
11. Voice Principle
    People learn better when the narration in multimedia lessons is spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice.
12. Image Principle
    People do not necessarily learn better from a multimedia lesson when the speaker’s image is added to the screen.

About Richard E. Mayer

Richard E. Mayer is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

From his home page:

His current research involves the related disciplines of cognition, instruction, and technology with a special focus on multimedia learning and computer-supported learning. [...]

He was ranked #1 as the most productive educational psychologist in the world for 1991-2001. [...]

He is the author of more than 390 publications including 23 books, such as Multimedia Learning: Second Edition (2009), Learning and Instruction: Second Edition (2008), E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Second Edition (with R. Clark, 2008), and the Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (editor, 2005).

Get Your Copy or Read Other Reviews

• Title: Multimedia Learning
• Author: Richard E. Mayer
• ISBN: 0521735351
• Get a copy from your local bookstore, or from these online sources (also with additional reviews):
  • amazon.com
  • amazon.ca
  • amazon.co.uk
  • amazon.de

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• PowerPoint Design Wish List: 8 Modest Proposals
• Presentation Zen Slide Examples

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

You can design attractive visuals by following simple guidelines.  One of these simple guidelines is the Rule of Thirds — a composition technique borrowed from photography and other visual arts that works wonderfully in PowerPoint.

In this article, you will learn:

• What is the Rule of Thirds?
• How do photographers use the Rule of Thirds?
• How can you apply the Rule of Thirds to Your PowerPoint slides?

What is the Rule of Thirds?

The Rule of Thirds is a guideline for composition that suggests placing key graphic elements along lines which divide your image into thirds, or at the intersections of those lines.

What does that mean? I’m glad you asked.

Imagine your PowerPoint slide is divided both vertically and horizontally into thirds, like this:

PowerPoint Tip: You can use the guides feature to draw these four lines into your PowerPoint template. They will then appear on every slide to help you compose your slide.

• The vertical lines divide your image into thirds.
• The horizontal lines divide your image into thirds.
• Together, they divide your image into 9 equal areas.
• These lines intersect at four points — known as Power Points. (Seriously! They really are!)

How do Photographers Use the Rule of Thirds?

Rule #1 – Place Key Elements of Your Composition at Power Points

In this example, the key element is pretty obvious — the tree.

Rather than centering this element in the photograph, the artist has chosen to center it on over the top-left Power Point.

Even in an image with more elements (i.e. not just a “grass” background), the viewer’s eye is drawn to these Power Points. By placing key elements at one or more of these Power Points, you achieve maximum impact.

Rule #2 – Place Key Elements of Your Composition Along Horizontal Lines

Novice photographers are tempted to place the horizon in the middle of the frame. This is generally not the best approach.

In this example, the photograph has placed the horizon (and also the line formed by the tops of the horses) along the lower horizontal line.

Additionally, the upper horizontal line conveniently divides the upper dark blue sky from the lower cloud-covered sky.

The overall effect is balance between the three horizontal bands of color from top to bottom: dark blue, white, and brown.

Rule #3 – Place Key Elements of Your Composition Along Vertical Lines

This example shows the book cover of Nancy Duarte’s excellent slide:ology (previously reviewed by Six Minutes).

This isn’t a photograph, but the designer has (consciously or unconsciously) applied the rule of thirds.

Here, the white silhouette of the presenter is bisected by the left vertical dividing line.

Appropriately, Duarte writes this in slide:ology about the Rule of Thirds:

Composing your photos based on a simple grid of thirds is a trick used by movie producers, graphic designers, and professional photographers. Using the rule of thirds leads to aesthetically pleasing and professional-looking imagery.

Rule #4 – Place Key Elements of Your Composition at Power Points and simultaneously on Dividing Lines

In this example, the upper horizontal line lies across the horizon, separating the sky in the upper third from the water in the lower two thirds.

Simultaneously, the woman in this photograph is placed on the upper-right Power Point.

Furthermore, consider the line that is formed from the top of the woman’s head, down the middle of her back, and right through to the reflection on the water. Where is it? Centered on the right vertical dividing line.

So, this photograph blends elements on two of the four lines and one of the Power Points.

Does the Rule of Thirds Really Result in More Pleasing Compositions?

Are you skeptical?

I was. So, I decided to perform a simple test with the audiences of a PowerPoint seminar that I have given several times.

My test photograph is a landscape photo shown in the upper left of the four images below.  By zooming this image slightly, and then moving it up and down on a slide, I created the three slides shown below (without the rule of thirds dividing lines that you see here, of course).

• Slide A shows the tree line down the middle of the photograph.
• Slide B has the tree line lying along the upper horizontal dividing line.
• Slide C has the tree line lying along the lower horizontal dividing line.

Each time I give this seminar, I ask the audience a simple question: “Which of the three slides is most pleasing to you?”

The result?

Less than 5% of audience members choose Slide A. Some say “It’s boring.” Others remark that “I couldn’t decide what was important in the photo.”

Slides B and C were chosen roughly half of the time. Audience members found one or the other (or both) to be “pleasing” and “interesting.” Is it a coincidence that both of these slides use the Rule of Three, while slide A did not?

Which of the three do you like best?

How Can You Apply the Rule of Thirds to Your PowerPoint Slides?

1. Look for photographs which obey the Rule of Thirds
   If you are using photographs which bleed right to the edges of your slides (a good way to achieve maximum impact), try to choose photographs which use the Rule of Thirds.
2. Scale, crop, or position photographs to follow the Rule of Thirds
   When scanning photographs, use your mental viewfinder to find a small area within a larger photograph that you can use. For example, suppose the tree/grass example above were originally a much larger photograph with a tree in the middle. By cropping asymmetrically, you can create a more pleasing image using simple photo editing tools. This is easily done in Photoshop or any photo editing software.
3. Combine images with text so that one or both obey the Rule of Thirds
   Two great ways to do this are to choose photographs with either:
   • Large areas of uniform color on top of which you can place text with good contrast, OR
   • A solid color background (white works best!) so that you can move the photograph around seamlessly on top of the slide background.

The example below is the title slide from one of my presentations.  I used a stock photo which provides a visual metaphor for my topic (i.e. the blue piece stands out among all the yellow pieces). Since this photograph has a white background, I was able to place it off-center so that the blue piece landed on the upper-left Power Point. I then placed my slide text (in a matching color) centered on the lower horizontal line, anchored on the right vertical line.

Below are two more examples taken from my presentation design course.

On the left, I cropped a much larger photograph so that the stream of water falls along the right vertical line. Further, it hits the overflowing glass at exactly the lower horizontal line. Since the image background is out of focus, it provides good contrast for black text which I centered on the upper horizonal line.

On the right, I took a photograph of a trash bin and a white background and placed it on top of the lower-right Power Point. The white background of the photograph blends perfectly with the clean, white slide background. The text is positioned carefully with the most dramatic word — disaster — bolded and placed on the upper-left Power Point.

Will Using the Rule of Three Take More Time?

When you first become conscious of it during slide design, it may take you longer to choose and lay out your slides. However, it will save time and improve your visuals in the long run.

In Presentation Zen (previously reviewed on Six Minutes), Garr Reynolds writes about the Rule of Thirds:

You need to limit your choices so that you do not waste time adjusting every single design element to a new position. I recommend that you create some sort of clean, simple grid to build your visuals on. [...] Grids can save you time and ensure that your design elements fit more harmoniously on the display.

Further Reading: Rule of Thirds

• Wikipedia: Rule of Thirds
• Digital Photography School: Rule of Thirds
• Presentation Zen: Rule of Thirds

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Book Review: Multimedia Learning by Richard E. Mayer
• PowerPoint Design Wish List: 8 Modest Proposals
• PowerPoint Book Review – Clear and to The Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations
• 32 Reasons a PowerPoint Slide Deck is Nothing Like a Bra
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Public Speaking
• Book Review: Advanced Presentations by Design by Andrew Abela

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

An open letter to the PowerPoint programming team with public speaking inspired ideas for future PowerPoint features…

Dear PowerPoint Programmers:

Thank you for creating such a wonderful presentation aid. PowerPoint is like a Swiss Army knife in a presenter’s visual aid toolbox. It is a tool with tremendous power.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people cannot control this power. Hour after hour, dreaded presentation after dreaded presentation, I continue to be amazed at the horrible presentations that speakers are able to create with PowerPoint at the core.

I teach a course titled Powerful PowerPoint Presentations. You’ll be happy to know that this course is always oversubscribed. Everyone is eager to tap into the power of PowerPoint.

I wish these people were motivated to become great PowerPoint artisans because their peers were giving fantastic PowerPoint presentations. Unfortunately, they are quite happy to become “adequate” users, because they know that any skill at all will put them in the top echelon.

Are PowerPoint users all morons? No, I don’t think so.

Is the tool itself crappy? Certainly not!

Perhaps the power of PowerPoint is just too great for the majority of users to handle by themselves. Like a jackhammer in the hands of a child, perhaps.

So, please consider the following suggestions to help tame the power of future PowerPoint versions.

1. Eliminate Slide Transitions

The verdict is in… users cannot handle the responsibility. If I had a dime for every random gratuitous slide transition that I’ve seen, I would have been grossly underpaid for suffering through these presentations.

Speaking of dimes, if you cannot eliminate the slide transition feature, consider making a user pay 10 cents for every slide transition used beyond 2 (a clear sign they are being overused). Donate the money to kiva.org. Here’s your ad slogan:

Microtaxing for Microlending… by Microsoft

2. Rewrite Your Documentation

From PowerPoint 2007, I searched for help to change the font. To my horror, I was presented with instructions to change the font in Access, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, Project, Publisher, and (hurray!) PowerPoint.

Why am I bombarded with all these non-relevant details? If this were a speech critique, I would be pointing out how reams of irrelevant details makes it more difficult for your message to reach your audience. But, I digress…

Instead of just spewing mechanical details, (e.g. “On the Home tab, in the Font box group, type or click a font in the Font group“), why not provide them with a virtual speech coach with useful advice like:

• Using fonts consistently makes your slides look more professional.
• When using different fonts on a slide, do so with purpose (e.g. one font for titles, one for labels), not to make things “look interesting”.

3. Partner with the Best

If you cannot rewrite your documentation, consider a marketing deal with Nancy Duarte to bundle a copy of Slide:ology with every license of PowerPoint. Seriously.

4. Prevent Suicide by PowerPoint

Atrocities are committed hourly with bullets, font choices, and colors, but you can’t exactly eliminate bullets, fonts, and colors from PowerPoint.

However, you can perform up-to-the-second analysis of the slide deck, and put up warnings when the user is making bad design decisions.

Some of these are trivial to implement:

• Count the number of words on a slide, and display it in the status bar. As the count rises, put up progressively stern warnings. (“Red alert: 100 words is a great start to a novel, but a lousy visual aid”)
• If the slide deck consists entirely of text, suggest that the user create a report in Word instead. (Better yet, just automatically launch Word after the 13th text-only slide.)
• Count the number of font variants in use in a slide deck. Caution users that their colleagues will laugh at them if every slide is something new. Better yet, give us an automatic way to apply a consistent font face throughout an entire slide deck. This would be especially helpful when cobbling together a presentation from multiple sources using cut-and-paste.
• Compute contrast ratios for all adjacent colors, and warn the user when something is hard to read. (”Pink text on yellow background may be hard for your audience to read.“)

5. Provide Better Support for Outlines

Presentations need to have a clear speech outline.

PowerPoint’s outlining support is awful. Both Outline Mode and Slide Sorter Mode give presenters only a one-dimensional stream view of their slides. The resulting slide deck is too often a sequence of individually designed slides that have no flow or macro-organization.

Make it possible to arrange groups of slides into units (e.g. these four slides are “background”, these eight are the “technical summary”).

• Let us apply formatting to entire units (e.g. a different background color to each section of the presentation as a visual cue to the audience).
• Let us create hierarchies among groups.
• Provide support for doing more presentation-level design.

6. Remember the Room

Some PowerPoint slides are designed entirely to be viewed at a computer where 10 point font is acceptable, even if not recommended. However, presenters are often oblivious to how their slides will look in a larger room. This isn’t your fault, but…

When a new slide deck is created, ask the user to specify the presentation setting, in general terms (e.g. small meeting room, lecture hall, etc.) or approximate dimensions. Use this to provide guidance on readable font sizes, diagram detail, etc. For example, I recently took an audience survey in a room with only six rows of chairs. Users at the back could not comfortably read fonts below 28 point font.

7. Enable Users to Insert Good Visuals

Please, end the clip art insanity.

Instead, allow us to search through stock photography website catalogues from within PowerPoint. (You can even take a cut of any purchased photos!) Once images are selected, make it easy for us to crop, resize, and optimize these photos (within PowerPoint) for embedding into slides. Why do I need yet another application open to do this?

8. Help Users Manage Slide Libraries

Don’t make us use third-party tools to organize, catalog, and search through slide libraries built up over time (particularly in corporate contexts). Provide this functionality in PowerPoint itself.

• Let me easily find all slides I’ve created with the words “Web 2.0″ in them, and then choose among them to insert into a new presentation.
• Create a Super Slide Sorter that provides a slide desktop where I can sift through slides from dozens of presentations at a time, selecting what I need, and then easily combining them into a new presentation.

Sincerely,

Andrew Dlugan
Six Minutes Public Speaking and Presentation Skills

p.s. Contact me if you’d like to discuss more ideas.

Your Wish List?

What features do you want the PowerPoint team to add/delete/change in future versions? Let me know in the comments.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Book Review: Multimedia Learning by Richard E. Mayer
• 32 Reasons a PowerPoint Slide Deck is Nothing Like a Bra
• How to Improve Your Slides with the Rule of Thirds
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• Presentation Skills Book Review – slide:ology by Nancy Duarte
• PowerPoint Book Review – Clear and to The Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Stephen Kosslyn has written a wonderful book for all presenters: Clear and to The Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations.

The subtitle for the book promises to illuminate the psychology of PowerPoint. Does it deliver?

In a way, yes. The 8 principles, dozens of examples, and hundreds of tips reveal much that would improve your PowerPoint skills.

However, this book delivers so much more. The 8 psychological principles can be applied to many aspects of public speaking beyond PowerPoint design.

For example, consider Principle 7 (The Principle of Information Changes: People expect changes in properties to carry information). A wise presenter might apply this to variations in voice. A shift from a strong, quick voice to a softer and slower voice should mirror a change in the content. Indeed, such a transition must mirror a change in content. Otherwise, your audience will be confused.

8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations

This book revolves around 8 psychological principles which are introduced early in the book, and then explained in greater detail in the Appendix. (The Appendix explanations are not required reading, but I do recommend it.)

1. The Principle of Relevance
   Communication is most effective when neither too much nor too little information is presented.
2. The Principle of Appropriate Knowledge
   Communication requires prior knowledge of pertinent concepts, jargon, and symbols.
3. The Principle of Salience
   Attention is drawn to large perceptible differences.
4. The Principle of Discriminability
   Two properties must differ by a large enough proportion or they will not be distinguished.
5. The Principle of Perceptual Organization
   People automatically group elements into units, which they then attend to and remember.
6. The Principle of Compatibility
   A message is easiest to understand if its form is compatible with its meaning.
7. The Principle of Information Changes
   People expect changes in properties to carry information.
8. The Principle of Capacity Limitations
   People have a limited capacity to retain and to process information, and so will not understand a message if too much information must be retained or processed.

Practical Application of the 8 Principles

The majority of book is devoted to 4 chapters, each of which:

• Addresses a topical area of slide design,
• Includes dozens of tips which describe how the 8 principles can be applied to maximize the effectiveness of the slides, and
• Conclude with a summary of tips organized by the matching principle.

The format is easy to read from start to finish, or as reference material.

1. Legible Text

This chapter covers font selection, formatting choices, the use of bullet points, labels, titles, tables, and legends.

An excerpt which illustrates the Principle of Information Changes:

Use the same terminology in labels, as well as in the surrounding text and spoken words. Using different terms in a display, in text, and in what you say aloud may lead the audience to wonder if you mean different things. Attempting to distinguish these differences will definitely tax the cognitive capacities of your audience.

2. Color, Texture, Animation, and Sound

Here’s an excerpt illustrating the Principle of Perceptual Organization:

Use color to group elements. Regions of the same color will be seen as a group. Use the same color for all titles and another color for all text entries, which will clearly group the material into these two categories. And use color to pair corresponding elements.

3. Quantitative Information: Graphs

This chapter covers pie graphs, visual tables, line graphs, bar graphs, step graphs, and scatterplots.

Here’s an excerpt illustrating the Principle of Salience:

Construct an exploded pie graph by displacing the important slice or slices, as if a wedge of pizza had been pulled out from the pie. [...] If you decide to use an exploded pie, you must decide which part or parts to emphasize. If too many wedges are exploded, the viewers won’t know where to look.

4. Qualitative Information: Charts, Diagrams, Maps, Photographs, and Clipart

Here’s an excerpt illustrating the Principle of Capacity Limitations:

Use photos and clipart to give the audience time to “come up for air.” [...] useful as a break in the steady flow of information, allowing the audience a moment to reflect and digest. This is especially the case if the photo or clipart is humorous.

Three Primary Goals for Every Presentation

As stated above, the advice in Clear and to the Point applies to more than just PowerPoint design — it applies to presentations as a whole. This broad context is established early in the book, and referenced throughout.

The 8 principles are mapped to three primary goals of any presentation, even those which do not utilize PowerPoint at all.

Goal 1: Connect with your audience.
Your message should connect with the goals and interests of your audience. [Principles 1, 2]

Goal 2: Direct and hold attention.
You should lead the audience to pay attention to what’s important. [Principles 3, 4, 5]

Goal 3: Promote understanding and memory.
Your presentation should be easy to follow, digest, and remember. [Principles 6, 7, 8]

In Summary

Clear and to the Point is a very welcome addition to my public speaking bookshelf. I highly recommend that you read it too.

About the Author: Stephen M. Kosslyn

Stephen Kosslyn is Chair of the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He is a leading authority on the nature of visual mental imagery and visual communication.

Update: Isn’t This Just “Common Sense”?

Upon reading this review, Michael Hyatt (President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers) commented:

Much of this looks like common sense; nevertheless, I am a sucker for books on making better presentations. It’s a HUGE part of what I do.

Michael’s comment struck a chord with me. I felt the same way as I browsed through and then read the book. None of the individual guidelines was earth-shattering, and most of them were not even new to me. While I was already designing slides in agreement with Kosslyn’s advice, Clear and to the Point helped me understand why I was doing things that way and it underlines the benefits for the audience.

Further, as I asked myself whether this was just common sense, my eventual conclusion was simply: “If it was common sense, why do we still suffer through so many poorly-designed presentations?”

Like Michael, I am a sucker for books on making better presentations. I hope you are too.

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Chris Brogan conducted a quick and informal survey asking the question:

Quick: Give me YOUR 3 things you wish speakers would do better, or not do at all!

The raw results are interesting to look at, but not very accessible. So I did some further analysis:

1. First, I stripped out all the noise, and divided it up into three columns so it was easier to read.
2. Then, I began looking for sets of responses which were identical or closely related.
3. I grouped these under a single phrase which collectively described them.
   For example, I grouped four responses — “have great take-home notes“, “give a deliverable“, “use handouts“, “give me more than PP as their handout” — under the collective description: “Provide useful handouts (not just slides)”
4. This process involved some interpretation, but I tried to make reasonable assumptions.

Do’s and Don’ts: Time to Change Your Speaking Strategies?

The results of this analysis are:

• 19 responses: Be engaging; Involve the audience; Conversation not presentation
• 14 responses: Do not read the slides
• 9: Focus on the message; avoid lengthy self-promotion
• 8: Better(more) visuals/diagrams/stats/other media
• 8: Show passion; Show enjoyment; Smile; Relax
• 8: Clear, simple, and useful messages and language
• 6: Do not use Powerpoint (or “bullets”) at all
• 6: Do not go over time
• 6: More time for Q&A / Answer questions thoughtfully
• 5: Use stories / metaphors
• 5: Challenge the audience; Don’t “dumb it down”
• 4: Know your audience
• 4: Better takehome handouts (not Powerpoint slides)
• 3: Make your presentation fun
• 3: Use humor (but only if you are funny)
• 2: Answer “what’s in it for me”
• 16 other responses which didn’t “match up” with others, such as “be confident“, “practice“, and (one that I’ll certainly remember) “Don’t wear ties with horrible patterns and mismatched colors“

The top two are particularly telling. It would be hard to imagine any speaker could be engaging if they were reading their slides.

Not satisfied yet, I continued looking for patterns among these groups. After some juggling, I massaged them into three meta-groups.

Presentation Techniques (47 responses)

• 14: Do not read the slides
• 8: Better(more) visuals/diagrams/stats/other media
• 8: Show passion; Show enjoyment; Smile; Relax
• 6: Do not use Powerpoint (or “bullets”) at all
• 5: Use stories / metaphors
• 3: Make your presentation fun
• 3: Use humor (but only if you are funny)

Audience Focus (37 responses)

• 19: Be engaging; Involve the audience; Conversation not presentation
• 6: Do not go over time
• 6: More time for Q&A / Answer questions thoughtfully
• 4: Know your audience
• 2: Answer “what’s in it for me”

Content Focus (26 responses)

• 9: Focus on the message; avoid lengthy self-promotion
• 8: Clear, simple, and useful messages and language
• 5: Challenge the audience; Don’t “dumb it down”
• 4: Provide useful handouts (not just slides)

Viewed under this light, I believe the survey provides a wealth of information. I’m always looking for ways to improve my presentations, and the numbers above provide excellent clues as to where I should focus my efforts.

How about you? What are YOUR 3 things you wish speakers would do better, or not do at all?

Raw Survey Data

Responses to the survey are given below. Each row corresponds to three responses from one person.

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.