|
 I
could write a whole website on this subject. Let me ask you a
question. What colour is PowerPoint? If you answered
"blue" you're in good company. Most people would.
Why are most presentations blue? There is a reason, and it's
physiological. The retina of the eye is made up of cones and rods.
The rods see brightness, the cones detect colour. Just like a computer or TV
screen the cones come in three types, Red Green and Blue (RGB). However,
only 2% of cones are blue sensitive. This is why you struggle to see
properly or read in pure blue light, the eye does not have the 'blue definition'
to cope with it.
The result is, the brain compensates for this by 'sharpening' blue images.
Yellow text on a blue background 'looks sharper' than any other colour
combination. In the days of 640x480 pixel PC screens this was very
useful! A lot of electronic presentations were made in that colour
combination for this fact alone - even if the creators didn't know why they were
doing it - it just 'looked better'.
There's nothing wrong with yellow on blue and it still looks sharper than other
colour combinations. In general though, there's no need these days to use
yellow on blue - use your corporate colours.
If you're presenting in a darkened room with a
large screen, always, always use light text on a dark background. The
reason again is physiological. A bright white square on the wall
closes the iris of the eye. You, the presenter, will fade into darkness
and the screen will be totally dominant and dazzling. People will start
looking around in the darkness to avoid the 'dazzling' screen. Using light
text on a dark background allows the eye to adjust for low light, and people
relax, listen better and watch you as well. Use one or two fonts per presentation only. In
general, keep them simple and straight forward. You don't want to make
your message more difficult to take in by using typefaces that are difficult to
read. Stick with Arial and Times for 99% of all presentations and limit
the amount of italic and bold you add as well. Only use it occasionally
for really important words or points. Using it throughout devalues it's
effect on the really important things.  Here's
a really practical PowerPoint tip. You can make diagrams and
flowcharts interesting and
understandable.
First, make it neat and tidy. Use [Align] and [Distribute] to make sure
everything is lined up and evenly spaced. Don't add any animations at this
stage and make sure you're absolutely happy with it before you move on.
You're going to work backwards, so save your presentation then start by
duplicating your slide and removing the last thing you want 'added' when the
presentation runs forwards.
Continue working backwards, inserting duplicates of the
slide at each stage and removing more until you reach the ' first' stage.
Then, in Slide Sorter View, reverse the order of the slides. Run the
presentation just to make sure everything comes up in the right order.
Now go though the slides in the correct final order adding suitable [Custom
Animations] to bring in each new addition. This is far easier than trying to build
and animate a complex slide piece by piece. (The pieces will never fit by
the time you get to the end unless you start with a tidy version with them all
there.)
If you're linking two
boxes for example, show the first one, animate an arrow (with Wipe or Stretch)
from the first to the position of the second one, then add the second box.
This way your audience will follow the direction, flow and logic of what you are
creating on screen
There are dozens more hints and tips I could add here, some
even more useful that those above, but if I did that, you would know everything
I've learned over the last 15 years. I may change some of the hints here
from time to time, just to keep you coming back, so check back every so
often. Better still, I'll do it all for you! Details can be found here.
There is so much I could write here, but I'm not going to give
away all my secrets. However, let me point you in a few obvious
directions. Management Guru Tom Peters is well known for
using 50 slides in 20 minutes. He simply uses a whole slide where most speakers
would use a bullet point.
I once gave a ten minute presentation with 112
frames. That's an average of one every five or six seconds!
Obviously they were not bullet points, but pictures, structures and diagrams
that moved and formed and built stage by stage, to clearly explain certain
concepts.
Use transitional and building slides, moving pieces around and illustrating how
processes work and come together. You have to know your presentation
backwards and know exactly what is coming next, so your words can lead up to the
exact moment to click the mouse and reveal the next arrow or movement. It
is a very effective way to put across a message. The screen will
be 'doing something' all the time, and your audience will be riveted to your
whole presentation to
see what comes next. During this, they will be listening to (but not
necessarily watching) you! When you notice everyone "ignoring
you", it's going well! Never try and put across more than one point to a
slide. Cramming several ideas into a single slide just makes your audience
read ahead rather than listen to you. If you end up with just a few words
(or better still, a relevant picture or diagram) per slide, that's great. Keep the screen moving to keep the
presentation interesting. For each mouse click,
reveal no more information that people can assimilate in ten seconds. One
bullet point, one simple graphic idea, one addition to the 'big picture'.
It's obvious to state it, but as soon as the screen changes, you lose your
audience for the time it takes them to look and take in what's just
appeared. If you reveal 45 seconds worth of reading, they're going to stop
listening for that period of time. Ten seconds is a maximum, too! If
you're revealing information piece by piece, building a graphic representation
of what you're saying, don't reveal it until it's pretty well explained.
The screen should reinforce your audience's understanding of what you're
saying. remember, it's 'Speaker Support' you're creating, not 'Speaker
Replacement'! Group your 'points' into 'themes' and never
have more than three themes to a presentation. Your audience simply won't
remember more. 'Signpost' the way ahead - what you will be talking about
(preferably without using the word 'Agenda'!) confirm with your audience when
you are "changing themes" and summarise all three - briefly - at the
end. Remember the line from Shakespeare,
"I come to bury Caesar not to praise him!"? Try to appeal to
emotions rather than logic. It isn't always possible or appropriate of
course, but bear it in mind when writing your presentation. Rather than
say "We are bringing in customer service training because we need to
improve customer satisfaction by 20%", It's more motivating to say
"After this course, your customers will love you and your commission will
rise"! Listen to any great orator and you will find either
consciously or unconsciously, they make use of "threes".
"Friends, Romans and Countrymen", "...of the people, by the
people, for the people...", "...never has so much, been owed by so
many, to so few.", "...education, education, education"!
Press home your main points in groups of three. It's very effective. Next
Page -->
|
Presentation Colour Schemes