1. Guidelines to help avoid common presentation mistakes
Design Guidelines
Guidelines to help avoid common presentation mistakes

2. Design Guidelines Simplicity is your friend Rule of seven
Lots of white
Organized
Path for the eye
Rule of seven
Color and contrast
Typography
Content
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

3. Simplicity is your friend
Content is center stage
Draw attention to presentation, not special effects
Text
Graphics
Sound
Background
Colors
Consistency - slides, bullets, fonts
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

4. Simplicity Is Your Friend
Content (and speaker) is center stage
Draw attention to presentation, not special effects
Text, graphics and background
Sound
Colors
Consistency - slides, bullets, fonts
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

5. Lots of White Space Too much filler will overwhelm the viewer
Makes your eyes tired –
You won’t bother to read it
If you have a lot of information to share in a slide, consider either using PowerPoint to display the point and you discuss it, or break things up into several slides
You need a place for the viewer to focus on as you discuss a point - otherwise, he or she could just read it themselves ...
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

6. Lots of White Don’t want to overwhelm audience Place for focus
Keep things short
Break up into several slides
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

7. Organized Audience feels movement to a conclusion Easy to see progress
Pace of slides (rehearse)
Too fast, exhausts them
Too slow, put them to sleep
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

8. This (nothing dominant)
Path for the Eye
class…
Oh, boy, another
This versus
This (nothing dominant) 
GREAT POWERPOINT
PRESENTATION
I feel so
informed!
Oh, boy, another
class…
Confusing
PowerPoint
Presentation
I survived …
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

9. Rule of Seven Thou shall not use more than SEVEN lines
Thou shall not use more than SEVEN words per line
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

10. One to three colors is PLENTY
Green
Growth and movement
Blue
Calm
Red
Power, energy, danger
One to three colors is PLENTY
Yellow
Positive
Purple
Spiritual
Brown
Neutral
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

11. … And Contrast Dark background Light background Black Red Orange Green
Blue
Purple
Yellow
White
Yellow
Orange
Green
Red
Blue
Purple
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

12. Colors for Presenting Dark Room – dark background
Light Room – light background
35 mm slides – dark background
Overheads – light background
Handouts – light background
This one has a dark background to show the difference…
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

13. Colors for Presenting Dark Room – dark background
Light Room – light background
35 mm slides – dark background
Overheads – light background
Handouts – light background
This one has a light background to show the difference…
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

14. Typography - Font (44 pt) Smallest font 28-30 points (32 pt)
Large for emphasis: Titles
Simple fonts - Arial, times
Avoid script
Limit: 1 or 2 fonts
No more than 3 sizes
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

15. Typography - Style Don’t hyphen- ate
Errors: check, recheck, someone proof
Avoid italics – least likely to be read
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

16. Typography - UPPER CASE
DON’T USE ALL CAPITALS FOR LARGE BLOCKS OF TEXT. READERS READ FASTEST WHEN SENTENCES ARE PRINTED IN UPPER AND LOWER CASE - THE WAY THEY NORMALLY ARE SEEN IN PRINT. HEADLINES ARE IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE IT REQUIRES THE READER TO SLOW DOWN, GIVING EMPHASIS TO A FEW WORDS.
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

17. Typography - Title Case
Don’t Use All Caps for Large Blocks of Text. Readers Read Fastest When Sentences Are Printed in Upper and Lower Case - The Way They Normally Are Seen in Print. Headlines Are in All Caps Because It Requires the Reader to Slow Down, Giving Emphasis to a Few Words.
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

18. Typography - Sentence Case
Don’t use all caps
Readers read fastest when
Sentences are upper and lower case
The way they normally are seen in print
Headlines are in all caps
It requires the reader to slow down
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

19. Content Only the essence Few words Items in order
No extraneous data you’ll ignore
Relate graphics to content
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience

20. Design Summary Less is more! Anecdote from Presentations Magazine
Any good presentation will have the presenter as its prime focus, he (Nick Morgan – Princeton University professor and former speech writer) says; visuals should be used sparingly and only to reinforce the speaker’s credibility. How sparingly? To answer this question, Morgan tells the story of a client who started at a pace of one slide per minute (not unusual in the corporate world, he says) for a speech that could go up to three hours. After working with him for six months, Morgan gradually pared the client down to one single slide – albeit one with six pictures that could be highlighted in various ways throughout the speech.
“It liberated him,” Morgan says. In fact, once the client broke his slide habit, he tripled his speaking fee.
2/15/2019
Hale - Huff - Patience