From the Research Files, January 2010

Happy 2010, everyone!

I thought we’d start 2010 with a look at some articles I’ve read recently. Here’s the first one!

Gross, Alan G. and Joseph E. Harmon. 2009. “The Structure of PowerPoint Presentations: The Art of Grasping Things Whole.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 52(2): 121-137. DOI: 10.1109/TPC.2009.2020889.

Gross and Harmon examine two presentations through Jean-Luc Doumont’s design guidelines (1) to explore their organizational structures and their effectiveness. One presentation is for a general audience, and it employs a “narrative” structure; the other is for a professional audience and it employs an “argument” structure, “…driven by the need for professionals to make and to support claims of new knowledge” (p. 121). Both presentations discuss the volcanic activity around Mount St. Helens in Washington state.

Take-Away Points:

• A reminder to AVOID text-filled slides: ”The audience is placed between the rock of listening to the presenter and the hard place of deciphering the slide. This puts the communicative burden on the audience, rather than on the presenter” (p. 123).
• Use Doumont’s guidelines:
  • Adapt to your audience: Think about what THEY want/need from your presentation).
  • Maximize signal-to-noise ratio (SNR): Remove unnecessary graphics, text, images, etc. from your presentation.
  • Use effective redundancy: Use an “agenda” or “key points” slide at the beginning and end of your presentation to remind your audience of the main points/structure of your talk.
• Use a narrative or “story” structure for presentations to general audiences; employ the argument structure (lay out the assertions, describe/present the evidence) for expert audiences.

(1) Doumont, Jean-Luc. 2005. “The cognitive style of PowerPoint: Slides are not all evil.” Technical Communication, 52(1):64-70.

Peace out,

Lee

Presenter’s Christmas List for 2009

Happy Holidays!

Here’s my Presenter’s Christmas List for 2009:

Cliff Atkinson’s new book: The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever. Atkinson is the author of Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft® Office PowerPoint® 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire and I can’t wait to see what he has to say about social media tools in presentation situations.

Price: $23.09 on Amazon.com.

A subscription to SlideRocket. SlideRocket is web-based presentation software with media and graphic effects you can’t get in PowerPoint.

Price: $12.00/mo. ($120/yr) for individuals; $24.00/mo. ($240/yr); a limited-features version is available for free.

Oasis Storyboard Pads (from Levenger.com). Beautiful, large 11X17 pads for developing your slide ideas.

Price: $32.00 for one; $29.00 for two or more (plus shipping).

A subscription to Prezi.com. Prezi is web-based presentation software with a twist: instead of working in linear form, slide-by-slide, you work on a presentation “canvas” and zoom in/out as needed. A totally NEW way to do your presentations.

Price: €39/yr for Private Prezi version (no logos and other features); €119/yr for a Pro account including an offline editor; a limited-features version is also available for free.

The second edition of Richard Mayer’s book  Multimedia Learning. This is a superb, highly-recommended, every-presenter-should-read-this kind of book. Dr. Mayer’s work is what inspired me to study presentations and write my book and start this blog!

Price: $31.49 on Amazon.com.

Impatica ShowMate – Project your presentations from a smartphone! Small device connects to Blackberry, Sony Ericsson and Windows Mobile smartphones to show PowerPoint slides or screen contents.

Price: $249.99 (plus shipping).

Dan Roam’s book: The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas With Pictures. This is a great book on how to use pictures and drawings effectively in your presentations.

Price: $16.98 on Amazon.com.

A subscription to Animoto.com. “We make killer videos from your images automatically.” Upload some images, add your soundtrack (or choose one of theirs) and let Animoto make the coolest video you have ever seen. For me, it’s not so much a total replacement for slide presentations as something you can use to create video pieces to use within your presentation.

Price: $30.00/year for individuals; $249.00/year professional subscription.

A ticket to one of Edward Tufte’s one-day seminars on presenting data and information. Dr. Tufte is a noted authority on the design and presentation of information and data. He publishes the most beautiful books on information design.

Price: $380.00 (includes all four of his books!).

Chewing gum. For them (maybe they had garlic and onions for lunch) and for their audience. In an earlier post, I talked about some research I’d read about the use of gum (specifically cinnamon gum) to help enhance cognitive activity. Just for fun, here’s a few gum-related links:

• Chewing Gum Association
• Trident Gum
• Wrigley’s (Spearmint, Doublemint, Big Red)
• Orbit (my personal favorite!)

May you have a wonderful and joyous holiday season and all the best to you in 2010!

Peace,

Lee

*Photo Credit: nmagallan(ID:673646; www.sxc.hu)

Spring 2010 Colors

Here are the Spring 2010 colors as forecast by PANTONE.

Click image for larger size, or get the PDF version.

For more information on the PANTONE color reports, see my earlier post, or visit PANTONE’s website (http://www.pantone.com).

I used Adobe’s web service, kuler, to convert the CMYK numbers to RGB (for PowerPoint). Garr Reynolds has a new post on his blog about using kuler to create color schemes.

You can take one of your favorites from the Spring 2010 list of colors and have kuler help you create lots of different color schemes. 

To learn how to customize colors, search “change color theme” in PowerPoint Help.

Peace and Good Presenting!

Lee

Connect via LinkedIn!

I’ve been a reluctant social networking site user. I only recently got an account on Facebook, and still can’t see the day-to-day usefulness of it (or Twitter, for that matter). But LinkedIn is the answer – the professional social networking site to connect you to colleagues and others in your line of work around the globe.

I’m looking to connect with current and former colleagues as well as people out there doing the same thing I’m doing – namely trying to improve the state of presentations in every business, school, college and club meeting everywhere!

You can find me and my profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hilyer.

Peace out,

Lee

Research article “Less is More”

Photo #773427 by user:sofijab | http://www.sxc.hu

Mahar, et al. recently published an article describing some research on the effectiveness of static versus animated slides when introducing concepts. They conducted experiments where students saw either static slides, where all the information on the slide was presented at once, or animated slides, where pieces of information were brought in one at a time.

As a cognitive load theory “enthusiast” and an instructional designer, I would’ve initially averred that the animated slides would produce better results (i.e., better learning outcomes). According to Maher, et al., this was the exact opposite. Participants who received static slides performed better on the tests given at the end of the experiment.

 Here’s a quote (with some emphasis from me):

Even though the use of custom animation allows the introduction of new information incrementally the technique can adversely impact student learning experience when factual information is conveyed in the presentation. Subjects shown the static slides had better recall of graphics and text on the slides due to prolonged exposure to the information. The incremental introduction of concepts in dynamic slides’ was designed to prevent student exhaustion caused by visually presenting all concepts at once.

However, the dynamic slides lead to excessive processing demands and limited exposure time. In this study, we observed that static slides allowed better knowledge retention for male students, female students, students with academic excellence, students with poor academic performance, students in different academic years and students from different disciplines. The results are consistent with the aggregate results presented in Mahar et al. (2009) and Lowe (2003) who suggested that diminishing expected benefits of animations may be caused by excessive processing demands on learners and a reduced learner engagement (p.7).

So what does this mean practically? Reduce your “entrance” animations to an absolute minimum (in fact, get rid of any animation that does not convey “meaning,” though you can keep your slide transitions (but only “wipes and “fades,” please)). If you are going to cover complex concepts, show the students the entire concept, rather than building it up piece-by-piece. But be prepared to spend a lot of time on just one slide (this is not a bad thing, but a GOOD thing).

Remember that learners need time to process information, a precious resource that is often in short supply during a presentation. To focus attention on parts of a complex diagram or chart, use a piece of software like Pointer ($35-40.00 USD) from Netop. Pointer is a screen annotation tool that lets you “spotlight” areas of the screen to focus your audience’s attention to a particular image or area of a slide.

For extremely complex concepts, consider turning off the projector and guiding your audience through paper copies. This may be less “jazzy” than a slide presentation, but may prove to encourage much more effective and efficient learning of the content. Remember: a presentation doesn’t have to involve PowerPoint or Keynote slides!

Peace out, and be safe over the Labor Day holiday!

Lee

 

 

 

Sources:

Mahar, S., Yaylacicegi, U. and Janicki, T. 2009. Less is More When Developing PowerPoint Animations. Information Systems Education Journal, 7 (82): 1-11. http://isedj.org/7/82/ISEDJ.7(82).Mahar.pdf.

Book Is Now Available From Neal-Schuman!

Presentations for Librarians (the book) is now available from Neal-Schuman! Visit http://www.neal-schuman.com/bdetail.php?isbn=9781843343035 for details and to order.

I’ll be back in full swing in early September – August is a busy time for us librarians as we prepare for a new academic semester!  See you soon!

Best,

Lee

Are You Ready for PowerPoint 2010?

Microsoft has an informational page on the latest version of Office, due out some time next year.  Looks like PowerPoint is getting some much-needed improvements in handling video and other media better.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/

Best,

Lee

Build a Better Handout

Hi all,

Last month, I had the pleasure of presenting a workshop at the American Society for Engineering Education’s annual conference. My workshop was sponsored by the Engineering Libraries Division and I thank them for inviting me to present.

Rather than give them a deck of slides to upload to the conference site, I created a separate document, based on my slides, but including additional information and resources. I used the “Notes Pages” format in PowerPoint, then converted it to PDF for ease-of-use. (In addition to being an example of good handout practice, if you’ve never been to one of my workshops, this will give you a good introduction to the three rules for better presentations.)

This is the kind of handout you want to give to your audience or make available to them after your presentation. Something that your audience members can read and study and ponder at their own pace.

Now, go forth and make good handouts!

Lee

Freshen up your colors

Photo (c) sundstrom, ID849660, www.sxc.hu. 

You can keep your presentations fresh by updating the colors you use on a regular basis. While the use of color should always support the message of your presentation, there’s no requirement that you have to use the same set of colors year in and year out.

Blue can still mean “business” and green can still evoke images of growth and success, just in slightly more up-to-date shades and tints. To find those new colors, visit Pantone’s website for their seasonal color forecasts.

Pantone is a company that standardizes color specifications for a wide variety of industries and applications from printing to fashion. Several times a year they release color forecast reports for upcoming seasons. The latest one I’ve looked at is the Fashion Color Report for Fall 2009.

Ten to twelve new colors are described in these short reports, and each color’s Pantone number and CMYK equivalents are provided. Unfortunately, PowerPoint only deals with RGB and HSL color schemes, so a bit of conversion is required. I found a simple one on the web created by Peter Forret and converted the CMYK values to RGB values that PowerPoint can understand.

Here is the table of CMYK to RGB values for the color trends listed in the Fall 2009 report. Note that the colors in the PDF will vary depending on the monitor/projector used. If you don’t like a particular color, try adjusting it within PowerPoint, or use an online tool such as Adobe’s kuler to help you select another shade (kuler can handle CMYK values and can convert them to RGB for you).

I’ve created a sample presentation using some of the new colors. Take a look and feel free to adapt for your own needs.

Peace,

Lee

Practical Tips for Using the Three Rules

Hi all,

Per a colleague’s suggestion (thanks, NB), I have combined into one document all of the practical tips I give during a live presentation.

PracticalApplicationOfTheRules2009

I hope you find it helpful, and if you do, please share with your colleagues.

Peace,

Lee