{"id":255,"date":"2009-02-04T11:23:36","date_gmt":"2009-02-04T10:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elementally.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/?p=255"},"modified":"2009-02-04T11:23:36","modified_gmt":"2009-02-04T10:23:36","slug":"so-does-design-really-matter-in-slides-and-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/so-does-design-really-matter-in-slides-and-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"So…. does design really matter in slides and stuff?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently took part in a biggish group blog<\/a> about what we – a group of us interested in making presentations – were looking\/hoping for in presentations in 2009. As part of that conversation, Olivia Mitchell<\/a> hosted a debate on whether design mattered in slides (or in presentations generally, for that matter). At the time, I’d not really had time to get my act together but I suggested that there was a law of diminishing returns in slide design…..<\/p>\n

For me, it’s axiomatic that presentations are about making an impact on your audience. How you measure success in presentations I’m still not sure about, but however it’s done, I’m sure it has to include what the audience gets out of it. So… obviously then, whatever improves the audience’s experience is a good thing. Does design help, then?<\/p>\n

I tried and experiment this week to see if I was close to the mark when I suggested that presentation design is useful up to a point…. so instead of “just” designing my presentation I really, really went to town: believe me, these slides weren’t just slides, they were works of art.<\/p>\n

They ticked all the boxes for beautiful design and useful content. I was so proud of them I found myself running them through on a big, sexy, 50+ inch TV screen in the office just for fun. Pictures from the NASA site, the most beautiful transitions my Mac has to offer, hours spent agonising over the position of the couple of words on a screen….. oh! So wonderufl!<\/p>\n

Was the impact any better on the audience for all this extra effort?<\/p>\n

Not that I noticed.<\/p>\n

Okay, one trial isn’t a scientific experiment but on the basis of this one run, slides need to be good enough to work but there’s not much point in making them ‘breathtaking’. Of course I’ve no way of recalling the long-term impact and recal as the presentation was only a week ago and there might be an issue about the particular audience. There may be (I hope there is!) an issue with the fact that my normal slide quality is already very high so any improvements can only be marginal… There may be any number of things…. but……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently took part in a biggish group blog about what we – a group of us interested in making presentations – were looking\/hoping for in presentations in 2009. As part of that conversation, Olivia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,7,9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-key-posts","category-personal-blog-related","category-presentation-tips","category-reviews-case-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/presentation-skills-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}