Presentations in Action - Jerry Weissman [25]
Two remedies offer a solution to this slideshow-stopping impasse.
One is Dr. Kosslyn’s recommendation, based on his own scientific study, to substitute images for text wherever possible. As he puts it, “Showing people meaningful, content-based visuals, as opposed to text, lessens their cognitive exertion and improves overall experience.”F29.2
Bravo! Dr. Kosslyn takes Less Is More to a new level.
The other remedy lies in the presenter’s delivery: Whenever you introduce a new slide or a new element on a slide, whether it’s a graphic or text, pause. Stop talking, turn to the screen, and look at the new information. During your pause, look at the image as if you have never seen it, giving your audience time to see it—because they most certainly never have seen it. Your pause fulfills Dr. Kosslyn’s goal to lessen your audience’s cognitive exertion and improve their overall experience. Only then can your presentation succeed.
Think about that: The key to the effective use of PowerPoint is the pause.
30. PowerPoint Template: Combined Picture and Text: The Best Positions for Pictures and Text
The Microsoft Office Online site offers PowerPoint users a variety of graphical templates for download. One involves combining picture and text in one frame, as in Figure 30.1.
Figure 30.1. PowerPoint template: text on left, picture on right
In Figure 30.2, the position of the picture and the text are reversed.
Figure 30.2. Now picture is on left and text on right
Now let’s up the ante in Figure 30.3 by increasing the amount of text in each picture/text combination and adding four short bullets, as is often done in presentations.F30.1
Figure 30.3. Adding bullets to the slide
Do you feel the difference?
Most people in Western cultures find it’s easier to process the arrangement where the picture is on the left and the text is on the right. Do you? In Western cultures, people are accustomed to reading from left to right. Therefore, when the picture is on the left, your eyes start by taking in the image with one swift scan; then your eyes continue to the right to take in the text by traveling back and forth across each bullet line. In the reverse arrangement, with the text on the left, your eyes start by making all those back-and-forth moves through the text, while aware that there is still another image (the picture on the right) for you to scan.
This juxtaposition, although seemingly slight, makes your audience work harder to take in the images and can accumulate into a negative effect when combined with other thoughtlessly designed or crowded slides. In the previous chapter, you read about the scientific research of Dr. Stephen Kosslyn, of Harvard University, whose advice is worth repeating: “Showing people meaningful, content-based visuals, as opposed to text, lessens their cognitive exertion and improves overall experience.”
Follow the doctor’s orders. Make it easy on your audience, and they will make it easy for you.
31. Shady Characters: The Wrong Way and the Right Way to Build Text
The default for building text in Microsoft PowerPoint—and the universal practice in presentations—is to dim the outbound bullet by turning it gray, making it almost disappear into the background, as if to say, “I’m done with that item.”
Small problem: You’re not quite done with it, for it is still partially visible to your audience, as in Figure 31.1.
Figure 31.1. Dimming an outbound bullet
If your audience wants to refer to one of the earlier bullets, they have to squint to see it. That’s a slight discomfort for your audience, but a discomfort nonetheless. If instead you changed the default so that you highlight the inbound bullet with a brighter shade and leave the outbound bullets in their original visible contrasting shades, your audience would easily be able to refer back to an earlier bullet and then return to the current bullet. See the difference in Figure 31.2.
Figure 31.2. Highlighting an outbound