Which of the following is an advantage of using structured slides for a presentation?

How a well-structured presentation helps you hold your audience

You want to give a good presentation that holds your audience’s attention right to the end? One that creates enthusiasm for your topic? And for you as the speaker? Your presentation concept is the key. Based on your target group, aims and central message, and taking into account the time available, you need to create a clear structure with a golden thread running through it.
This structure and its golden thread help your audience to keep up with you, to understand your message and to concentrate over a longer period of time. Your audience stays with you. And what can be better than that?

What do we mean by "concept" and "golden thread"?

There are many ways to create a well-structured presentation. The most tried-and-tested method sounds simple, but works extremely well.
First, ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I want to achieve with my presentation, what’s my aim?
• Who’s my audience? When would they consider a presentation to have been really worthwhile?
• What’s my core message?

Then structure your presentation into the three typical sections:

Introduction, main part, conclusion.

Each section has a particular purpose.

Introduction – You get your audience’s attention. You provide orientation and bring everyone up to speed. You present your central question. The answer to this question will be the golden thread running through your presentation. A good introduction brings everyone together, makes them curious, and prepares you for the main part of your presentation.

Main part – now you must convince your audience about your core message. Structure your statements and arguments into logical sections. Remember that your audience is hearing and seeing your presentation for the first time. Give them time. Refer to different aspects one at a time. Use metaphors and imagery from your audience’s areas of interest, concerns or expertise. Try using a pyramid structure for this part of your presentation.

The central message is at the top of the pyramid and is supported by appropriate arguments and facts. The decision-maker hears the most important point first, followed by the main arguments, and then the relevant details. This allows them to assimilate and follow your arguments. This structure has another advantage: if you start running out of time, it gives you the flexibility to skip details without losing your thread and your central message.

Conclusion – This is crucial for anchoring your message in your audience’s mind. Summarize everything. Then make concrete proposals for how to proceed. Perhaps even mention the next steps. Don’t be tempted to include a “thank you for listening” slide – you’ll bore your audience and lose them at the last moment. Your very last slide should round off the presentation and show the way forward!

can improve the quality and impact of any presentation by creating interest and illustrating points that are difficult to explain with words alone. They add variety and increase the audience’s ability to absorb and remember information. But beware: Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your visuals are a presentation. Particularly when using presentation soft ware, it’s easy to fall into the trap of letting the slides take center stage. Your message is the presentation, not your visuals; your visuals are there to help support and clarify what you have to say.

Electronic slides are the visuals of choice in most business situations today. Electronic slide presentations have a number of advantages:

 Relatively easy to create and edit (at least for simple slides)  More engaging with images and various multimedia elements  Easy to incorporate into online meetings and webcasts  Self-running presentations or screencasts for trade shows, websites, and other uses

Primary disadvantages of electronic slides:

 Amount of time that developing slides can consume  Equipment requirements  Potential complexity involved in creating more advanced presentations  Risk that your hardware or soft ware won’t cooperate when it’s show time

Overhead transparencies may be considered old school, but they do have advantages:

 Create them with nothing more than a marking pen.  Use them without the latest computer or projection equipment.  Write on them during a presentation.  Count on them--they never malfunction.

On the downside of overhead transparencies:

 Limited to static displays  Virtually impossible to edit once you’ve printed them  Awkward when someone is forced to stand next to the projector throughout the presentation

Chalkboards and whiteboards, electronic whiteboards

are effective tools for recording points made during small-group sessions you can print and email copies of whatever is written, too.

Flip charts are another dependable low-tech tool for meetings and presentations. You can

 Record comments and questions during a presentation  Create a “group memory” during brainstorming sessions  Keep track of all the ideas the team generates

Be creative when choosing other visuals to support your presentation. Some possibilities:

 Video of a focus group talking about your company  Sample of a product or material which lets the audience experience your subject directly  Mock-ups and models to help people envision what the final creation will look like  Software to show a new product’s design  Screencasts that shows the software in action  On-screen annotations and an audio track to explain what is happening on-screen

After choosing the medium or media for your visuals, think through your presentation plan carefully before creating anything. Review the plan for each visual and follow these steps:

 Ask yourself how it will help your audience understand and appreciate your message.  Ensure your presentation style is appropriate for the subject matter, the audience, and the setting.  Double-check any cultural assumptions that might be inappropriate.

Let simplicity be your guide:

 Creating simple materials often takes less time, and time is a precious commodity.  Simple visuals reduce the chances of distraction and misinterpretation.  The more complex your presentation, the more likely something might go wrong.  Use your time wisely.  Decide up front how much visual design is sufficient and then stop when you get there.  Rehearse your presentation

Choosing Structured or Free-Form Slides

Perhaps the most important design choice you face when creating slides is whether to use conventional structured slides or the looser, free-form slides. Both design strategies have advantages and disadvantages, and one or the other can be a better choice for specific situations. Because the amount of content varies so dramatically between the two design approaches, the number of slides in a presentation can also vary dramatically:  Structured slides might have 5 or 6 slides for a 20-minute presentation.  Free-form slides for the same presentation might have 60–80 slides or more. Create only as many slides as you need to support your spoken message.

Structured slides follow the same basic format throughout the presentation; in fact, they’re based directly on the templates and this provides some advantages:

 Fast and easy to create: simply choose an overall design theme; select a template, and start typing  More practical for routine presentations  More effective at conveying complex ideas or sets of interrelated data  More effective as stand-alone documents that people can read on their own, without a presenter

However, structured slides have disadvantages:

 Mind-numbing with text-heavy slides that all look alike  Focused on delivering information without considering how the audience can convert that information into usable meaning

The goal of free-form slide design is to overcome the drawbacks of text-heavy structured design by fulfilling three criteria for successful presentations:

 Provide complementary information through both textual and visual means.  Limit the amount of information delivered at any one time to prevent cognitive overload.  Help viewers process information by identifying priorities and connections.

With appropriate imagery, free-form designs can also:

 Create a more dynamic and engaging experience for the audience  Excite and engage  Motivate, educate, and persuade

In addition to these benefits, however, free-form slides have three potential disadvantages:

 Effectively designing slides with both visual and textual elements is more creatively demanding and more time-consuming than simply typing text into preformatted templates.  Free-form slide designs require more preparation and practice on the part of the speaker.  Dividing information into smaller chunks can make it difficult to present complex subjects in a cohesive, integrated manner.

Effectively designed free-form slides should still be unified by design elements such as:

 Color  Typeface selections  Visual messages  Textual messages

refers to people being bored to death by mind-numbing presentations. The problem is not with the tools, however, but how they are used. In addition to the temptation to pack too much info onto every slide, “slideuments” hybrids that try to function as both presentation slides and readable documents. Slides by themselves should be useless to an audience without the speaker, because good slides are there to support the speaker. The ideal solution is to create an effective slide set and a separate handout document that provides additional details and supporting information.

With both structured and free-form design strategies, it is often helpful to structure specific slides around a key visual that helps organize and explain the points you are trying to make. Two examples:

 A pyramid suggests a hierarchical relationship.  A circular flow diagram emphasizes that the final stage in a process loops back to the beginning of the process.

When designing and creating slides

always keep the audience’s experience in mind: What will it be like to view this slide while listening to a speaker?

As you select the design elements for your slides and create content for each slide, recall the previously discussed six principles of effective design:

 Consistency  Contrast  Balance  Emphasis  Convention  Simplicity

Color is a critical design element, far more than mere decoration. Effective use of color

 Grabs the viewer’s attention  Emphasizes important ideas  Creates contrast  Isolates slide elements  Sends powerful nonverbal messages

Color can also play a key role in the overall acceptance of your message. Color visuals can account for:

 60% increased chance of an audience’s acceptance or rejection of an idea  80% increase in willingness to read  75% enhancement in learning and improvement in reading

choices can also stimulate various emotions. Remember, however, that color has different meanings in certain cultures, so when creating slides for international audiences, research these cultural differences.

The background often stays the same from slide to slide, particularly with structured designs. Issues to keep in mind when using a background include:

 The less your background does, the better.  Keep backgrounds open, spacious, and simple.  Cluttered or flashy backgrounds tend to distract from your message  The background needs to stay in the background; it shouldn’t compete with foreground elements.  Backgrounds can be too busy to understand.  Some backgrounds are too playful for business use.  You don’t need to use a background, except perhaps a solid color to set type and images against.

contains the unique text and graphic elements that make up each individual slide.

Functional artwork includes:

 Photos  Technical drawings  Charts  Other visual elements containing information that is part of your message

In contrast, decorative artwork doesn’t deliver textual or numerical information, but can be helpful if it

 Establishes an appropriate emotional tone  Amplifies the message of a slide; simple, high-impact images are easier to remember than text

Decorative artwork is unhelpful if it:

 Doesn’t add value  Is off topic  Conveys an unprofessional image  Pulls viewer attention away from the essential elements on a slide is usually the least important element of any slide, but it often causes the most trouble. Don’t include decorative artwork that gives your slides an unprofessional, cartoony appearance.

Typefaces and Type Styles

 When selecting typefaces and type styles for slides, follow these guidelines:  Avoid script or decorative typefaces, except for limited, special uses.  Use serif typefaces with care and only with larger text.  Limit the number of typefaces to one or two per slide.  When using thinner typefaces, use boldface so that letters won’t look washed out.  Avoid most italicized type; it is usually difficult to read when projected.  Avoid all-capitalized words and phrases.  Allow extra white space between lines of text.  Be consistent with typefaces, type styles, colors, and sizes.  Make sure type is readable from everywhere in the room.

Maintaining Design Consistency

Don’t force viewers to repeatedly figure out the meaning of design elements by making arbitrary changes from slide to slide. Presentation soft ware makes consistency easy to achieve, particularly for structured slide designs. The less work readers have to do to interpret your slide designs, the more attention they can pay to your message.

Explain how to create effective slide content.

When creating effective slide content, remember to watch out for information overload. When slides have too much content—textual, visual, or both—viewers can’t process the incoming information fast enough to make sense of it and eventually tune out. Keep your slides clear and easy to grasp, and pace the flow of information at a speed that lets people connect your ideas from one slide to the next.

To choose effective words and phrases for slide content, think of the text on slides as a guide to the content, not the content itself. Stuffing slides with too much text creates several problems:

 It overloads the audience with too much information too fast.  It takes attention away from the speaker by forcing people to read more.  It requires the presenter to use smaller type, making the slides even harder to read.

You primarily want your audience to listen, not read. Use slides to:

 Highlight key points  Summarize and preview your message  Signal major shifts in thought  Illustrate concepts  Help create interest in your spoken message

When writing content for text slides, keep your message short and simple:

 Limit each slide to one thought, concept, or idea.  Limit text content to four or five lines with four or five words per line.  Don’t show a large number of text-heavy slides in a row; give the audience some visual relief.  Write short, bulleted phrases rather than long sentences.  Use sentences only when you need to share a quotation or some other text item verbatim.  List items in parallel grammatical form to facilitate quick reading.  Use the active voice.  Include short, informative titles.  The more information a visual can convey, the less words you need.

Detailed visuals can be too dense and complicated for presentations. Follow these guidelines:

 Reduce the detail. Eliminate anything that is not absolutely essential to the message.  Simplify. Complex visuals are even difficult to interpret on screen and from a distance  Shorten numbers. If doing so doesn’t hide essential details.  Limit the amount of data shown. Line graphs should have no more than two or three lines; bar charts look crowded with more than five or six bars; and tables are difficult to read if they have too many rows or columns.  Highlight key points. Use arrows, boldface type, and color to direct your audience’s eyes to the main point of a visual. Summarize the intent of the graphic in one clear title.  Adjust the size and design. Modify the size of a graphic to accommodate the size of a slide. Leave plenty of white space and use colors that stand out from the slide’s background.

Presentation soft ware offers a wide array of options for livening up your slides, to include:

 Sound  Animation  Video clips  Transition effects from one slide to the next  Hyperlinks to websites and other resources

Animation and special effects can be grouped into four categories:

 Functional animation  Transitions and builds  Hyperlinks  Multimedia

Software packages offer numerous tools for moving and changing things on screen. Just as static graphic elements can be either functional or decorative, so too can animated elements. You can control every aspect of the animation, so it’s easy to coordinate the movement with the points you’re making in your presentation Use to support of your message, not simply for animation’s sake.

control how the motion as one slide replaces another on-screen.

 Subtle transitions ease your viewers’ gaze from one slide to the next.  However, many of the transitions are like miniature animated shows and are distracting.  If you use a transition effect, use the same one throughout the presentation and choose the effect carefully.  Aim for a smooth, subtle effect that is easy on the eye.  And unless a sound effect is integral to the message, don’t add audio to a transition.

control the release of text, graphics, and other elements on individual slides This helps draw the audience’s attention to the point being discussed and keeps them from reading ahead. Much more useful than transitions, when used with care and thought. The point of a build is to release information in a controlled fashion, not to distract or entertain the audience. Stick with the subtle basic options

instructs your computer to jump to another slide in your presentation, to a website, or to another program.

 Simple underlined text  Invisible hotspots in graphical elements  Clearly labeled action buttons

Other advantages to hyperlinks include the options to:

 Click an action button and jump right to the two or three most important slides.  Switch from the indirect approach to the direct approach, or vice versa.  Adjust your presentation at a moment’s notice—and look polished and professional while you do it.

offer the ultimate in active presentations. Using audio and video clips can be an effective way to complement your live message. Keep these elements brief and relevant, as supporting points for your presentation, not as replacements for it.

Just as with messages, review slides and other visuals for

 Content  Style  Tone  Readability  Clarity  Conciseness

Also, make sure that all visuals are

 Readable. Can text be read from the back of the room? Does text stand out from the background?  Consistent. Are colors and design elements used consistently?  Simple. Are each slide and the presentation as simple as possible? Can you eliminate any slides?  Audience centered. Are the message and the design focused on the audience?  Clear. Is the main point of a slide obvious? Easy to understand?  Concise and grammatical. Is text written in concise phrases? Are bulleted phrases grammatically parallel?  Focused. Does each slide cover only one thought, concept, or idea? Does the slide support the key points of the message? Is the audience’s attention drawn to the key sections of a chart or diagram?  Fully operational. Have you verified every slide in your presentation? Do all the animations and other special effects work as intended?

Using a slide sorter makes it easy to:

 Add and delete slides  Reposition slides  Check for design consistency  Preview animation and transition effects  Experiment with design elements

Creating Navigation and Support Slides

Once the content slides are complete, enhance your presentation with a few additional slides that add “finish” to your presentation and provide additional information to benefit your audience. Make a good first impression on your audience with one or two title slides Use agenda and program details slides to communicate the agenda for your presentation and any additional information that your audience might need, such as wireless network logins. By answering such questions at the beginning of your presentation, you’ll minimize disruptions later and help the audience stay focused on your message. Use navigation slides to tell your audience where you’re going and where you’ve been.  This technique is most useful in longer presentations with several major sections.  As you complete each section, repeat the slide but indicate which material has been covered and which section you are about to cover.

A title slide can contain the following elements:

 Title of your presentation (and subtitle, if appropriate)  Your name  Your department affiliation (for internal audiences)  Your company affiliation (for external audiences)  Presentation date  Appropriate graphic elements

any printed materials you give the audience to supplement your talk, should be considered an integral part of your presentation strategy. Plan them in tandem with your presentation so that you use each medium as effectively as possible.

 Paint the big picture.  Convey and connect major ideas.  Set the emotional tone.  Rouse the audience to action. Your handouts should then carry the rest of the information load, providing the supporting details that audience members can consume at their own speed, on their own time.

Possibilities for good handout materials include

 Complex charts and diagrams  Articles and technical papers  Case studies  Recommended resources  Copies of presentation slides Timing the distribution of handouts depends on the content of your handouts, the nature of your presentation, and your personal preference.

Which one of the following is an advantage of structured slides?

What is an advantage of using multimedia slides?

What is an advantage of using multimedia slides quizlet?

Which of the following is an advantage of group presentations?