Making Presentations That Audiences Will Love.ppt

Making Presentations That Audiences Will Love Use a Template Use a set font and color scheme. Different styles are disconcerting to the audience. You want the audience to focus on what you present, not the way you present. Fonts Choose a clean font that is easy to read. Roman and Gothic typefaces are easier to read than Script or Old English. Stick with one or two types of fonts. Font Size Bulleted items should be no smaller than 22 points. The title should be no smaller than 28 points. Bullets Keep each bullet to one line, two at the most. Limit the number of bullets in a screen to six, four if there is a large title, logo, picture, etc. This is known as “cueing” You want to “cue” the audience in on what you are going to say. Cues can be thought of as a brief “preview.” This gives the audience a “framework” to build upon. Bullets (con.) If you crowd too much text, the audience will not read it. Too much text makes it look busy and is hard to read. Why should they spend the energy reading it, when you are going to tell them what it says? Our reading speed does not match our listening speed; hence, they confuse instead of reinforcing each other. Caps and Italics Do not use all capital letters Makes text hard to read Conceals acronyms Denies their use for EMPHASIS Italics Used for “quotes” Used to highlight thoughts or ideas Used for book, journal, or magazine titles Colors Reds and oranges are high-energy but can be difficult to stay focused on. Greens, blues, and browns are mellower, but not as attention grabbing. White on dark background should not be used if the audience is more than 20 feet away. This set of slides is a good example. You can easily read the slides up close. It is harder to read the further away you get. Backgrounds A white on a dark background was used for this set of slides as: The author assumes most users will view the presentation on their own computer. Having a dark background on a computer screen reduces glare. The Color Wheel Colors sep