Alexei Kapterev's "Presentation Secrets": Chapter 5, The Slides' Focus

Chapter 5 of Alexei Kapterev's Presentation Secrets begins part two, which focuses on slides. He assumes that you now have your presentation's story or outline. And now you begin to create your slides.

Slides are important because they

• remind the speaker what to say next
• can impress the audience and make the information more memorable
• can help explain information through diagrams or pictures
• help to prove information by drawing comparisons or presenting data

Kapterev goes through the history of presentations and discusses Garr Reynold's "Zen" approach to slide design, which uses very simple slides with one phrase or picture on each slide. Most corporations, by contrast, call for "Vajrayana" slides, which are much more complex and contain every bit of information. Kapterev shows how the Zen approach can be much more effective.  

The speaker should guide the audience where to look at every second, Kapterev says. It should be clear whether the audience should be looking at the speaker or at the slides.

Designing Zen Slides

Slide Templates

Templates are not inherently bad, but the problem with most templates is that they contain a "slide within a slide." They add something else into the PowerPoint frame, such as a company logo frame at the top or bottom or a title frame at the top. Presenters/designers think variety on slides (colored lines, different fonts, different colors, background images) provide variety and interest, but Kapterev says otherwise:

"If your presentation is boring and you think some fancy background and frames can improve it--think again. This is not a design problem, this is a content problem. When people ask me, "Where do I find a suitable background image for PowerPoint template?", I think they 1) don't need any background at all and 2) most certainly need to work on their structure and not on design...A complicated design wastes not only your time but also the audience's attention."

So how to make a good slide template?

• Clarity: no unnecessary decorations, borders, logos, background. Just go for plain white.
• Contrast: text is clearly visible.
• Consistency: elements on the template all belong together; they fit together.

Text Slides

Warning: DO NOT READ FROM YOUR SLIDES. Audiences hate that.

• Focus your audience on key points. Use short bits of text, not entire sentences.
• Avoid the same headings. They lose the slide's focus. 
• Use bullets for long lists, but with short lists (around four), they are unnecessary. 
• Use a clear order with bullets (hierarchy, time, importance).

Slides with Photos

• Illustration: Photos bring the subject to life and can have a bigger impact. 
• Explanation: Photos help "if you want your audience to understand some complex, abstract idea, concept, or scheme."
• Evidence: You need just the right amount of evidence. Too little, and the audience won't believe you; too much, and they will be overloaded.

"A slide with a large photo and a short statement is an archetypal Zen slide. Photos are very powerful; they are [a] great way to reinforce your point and they don't take much time for the audience to process. There are just two challenges when using photos: finding them and combining them with your text."

How to find photos

Be wary using Google images. They are normally copyrighted, and they're also made for the web, so they aren't good enough for a presentation. The best is to take your own photos.

For free images, visit

• www.freeimages.com
• www.photl.com
• www.morguefile.com

Using Abstract Illustrations

Sometimes you don't want a photo. Instead, you want something more abstract like the outline of a man to represent a workforce. Use icons or pictograms, not clipart. To represent a process within a company, use abstract people, not photographs. To illustrate bulleted lists, use icons.

Slides are important and it's important to design them right. Use illustrations and photographs, but make sure you use them correctly.