I’ve been attending NERCOMP 2006 this week, and presented [1][2] yesterday. I’m starting to think that all students should be required to take a course in presentation design, so that we can go beyond using slides with boring blue backgrounds and long bulleted lists in 12pt Times New Roman. Images and single words or short phrases are much more powerful. Also, it’s a good idea to either show live web sites or screenshots of them, instead of just putting links in presentations and talking about them. Remember, people respond well to visuals that illustrate your point, and seeing the actual site is much more meaningful than only seeing the address. (make sure you do tell people the address so they can look at it later – I put a slide in after each screenshot with just the address, so people can easily copy it down).
I’ve been a huge fan since the start, of Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds’ blog on good presentation design. Garr and I share an appreciation for the elegance and innate usability of the Mac, and good quality presentations, like Steve Jobs’ keynotes. If you’re looking for a good guide on which to model your presentations, start with Garr’s blog, and watch some of Steve’s keynotes – I bet next time you present you’ll feel more engaged and interested in your own presentation!