Dazzling
Yet Effective:
Presentation Graphics Tips
To
produce successful, professional-quality computer slide shows, consider the
following tips:
- Always plan your presentation on paper. Analyzing
your audience, and specifying objectives and content should be included in
the planning process.
- Give an attractive, forceful title for your
presentation.
- Summarize your points. Use phrases. Avoid the
use of complete sentences. Presentations include oral explanations, so
don't copy your oral text on the slides. The same transparency rules
apply: no more than five or six lines per frame; no more than six words
per line.
- The simplicity rules for charts and graphs also
apply. Avoid using too many elements, lines, segments, colors, and
textures. Show trends rather than detailed date. Reserve detailed data for
audience handouts or articles for publication.
- Don't include more than one graph or chart in
each slide. If you need to " explode" a pie chart beside another
one, limit it to one in each slide
- Avoid using all caps for large blocks of type
as they are hard to read. Use upper and lower case instead. It is
acceptable to set headlines or major headings in all caps.
- Type size should reflect the importance of the
various ideas in a slide. Headlines should be larger than body copy.
- Limit typefaces, type sizes and weights to one
or two and retain these throughout the presentation.
- Use simple block typefaces and sans serif
typefaces. Sans serif typefaces are those with the same thickness at all
points. Helvetica is an ideal font. Fancy or ornate types should be
avoided.
- Avoid Hyphenation. Hyphenated lines interrupt
the continuity of the thought.
- Check spelling and numbers. Avoid grammatical
errors.
- Use bullets and numbers to organize ideas in
list format. Bullets are the dots, check marks, or other shapes that
delineate topics or introduce items in a list. Use them to give list items
equal importance. Use numbers to list items if the order of importance or
chronological order is important.
- Do not use dashes or asterisks as bullets.
- Have phrases in bullet lists written in
parallel grammatical construction. For instance, use the same verb tenses,
save voice for verbs, same cases, and same number (singular or plural).
- Avoid superimposing words over graphics as this
impairs readability.
- Use boldface or italic type instead of
underlining. Avoid excessive underlining.
- Start each heading in the same place on each
slide.
- Make line lengths in a text frame approximately
equal to one another.
- Use (but don't overuse) repetitive patterns in
subdued shades to give the impression of texture.
- Develop a logo or an institutional
identification segment for use in your presentations and include this in
your opening frame.
- Use builds, or reveals, or progressive
disclosure slides to give visual variety and to help the audience absorb
the information one step at a time. Make the last item in the list
brighter or of a different color than the others.
- Grab viewer's attention with drop shadows but
use them sparingly. Drop shadows can be colors other than black or gray.
The deeper the shadow, the closer to the audience the object appears to
be. The general rule is to make the shadow a darker shade than the
original.
- Use color sparingly. Limit colors to two or
three on a contrasting background.
- Use distinctive color contrasts between the
text and background. For example, use blues or blacks for backgrounds and whites
or yellows for letters, bullets, or numerals. Superimposing dark-colored
typeface on a dark background or a white-colored typeface on a pale
background reduces the legibility of the letters. A simple guideline is to
use bright colors for foreground and dark colors for background.
- Use bright colors for the most dominant
message. Similarly, use brighter colors for the message and not for
accompanying graphics. Remember the lighter or brighter colors (colors
high in saturation and luminance) tend to accentuate or emphasize.
- Plan the color scheme for the whole
presentation before choosing colors for individual elements.
- Consider the type of output when selecting
colors. Colors displayed on the monitor may not necessarily look the same
when seen on the large screen projection display, a film recorder, video
recorder, plotter, or color printer. What you see on the screen is not
what you see on the other output devices.
- When creating printed handouts for your slides
using the same presentation software, use dark type on a white background.
- Use heavier, darker colors at the bottom of the
frame when including ramps or gradation effects (grading of color from
black to solid color or through shades of a color).
- Use adequate margins for each frame. One guideline
is to leave equal margins at the top and sides and a slightly larger
margin at the bottom.
- Be aware of the positive and negative
connotations of colors and the emotional response that may be evoked by
certain colors. For example, it is widely accepted that red connotes
deficits and financial failure.
- Avoid placing red and green next to each other.
The combination may cause eyestrain.
- Color should be used discriminately in graphs
and charts as it can affect interpretation of the data, even if correctly
presented. For example, darker colored bars make them appear more
important than those in lighter colors.
- Use brighter colors to highlight the most
important element in a chart.
- Place labels of graphs and charts horizontally
rather than vertically to relieve the audience from tilting their heads
while reading.
- Place footnotes in graphs and charts in the
lower left corner using the smallest legible font size. Do not use bright
colors in a footnote or secondary data as they will make the footnote
appear to overpower the primary foreground information.
- End your presentation gracefully with one or
two closing titles.
- Start and end your presentation with a black
frame.
Reprinted
with permission from the September 1994 edition of Tech Trends. Copyright 1994,
Association for Educational Communications and Technology.
Contributor:
Richard H. Hughes from the Dudziak-McClintock Business Technology Center can be
reached at hughesrh@ufl.edu
Last
modified: February 23, 1998