Towards More Excellent Presentations
Don't listen to me!
Don't write your slides the day before you're giving a presentation!
(I promise this is the only slide I'll use the word 'don't' on.)
It's Called a Presentation For A Reason
Form Matters!
At least as much as content.
Avoid the Programmer's Interface
What makes sense to you,
may not make sense to others.
Solving solved problems...
(Spoiler Alert: Giving good presentations is a solved problem.)
Powerpoint kinda sucks.
(try slides.com. I'm pretty sure there are others.)
Slides should tell a story.
(Most of the time.)
Technical presentations can be an exception to this rule sometimes.
It's hard to make a good story out of code examples.
Let your audience pay attention.
(Heck, make them pay attention.)
Notes are overrated.
Slides that work as reference tools are great!
If you want slides that work as notes, make a second version of your presentation available, with notes.
Stories ought to be interesting.
Is this interesting?
- Here's a list of things
- Hey howdy, this sure is a pretty big list
- Maybe this'll be useful to people trying to use these slides as notes, maybe not
- In the meantime, I'm going to read off all of these bullet points in a monotone
- Except not really, because I don't want people to fall asleep, that would kind of suck
- I've got to put lorem ipsum text in here, somewhere, just for the lols
- There's no way in heck anyone reading these slides on a projector will ever be able to read this text
- Or on a screen share, for that matter! I'll probably have a slide about this later, but you, loyal slide-reader, get to find out about this RIGHT NOW, SO EXCITING. Or maybe I'll have talked about it already. WHO KNOWS?
- Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
- See, I told you I'd do it
Not really.
AND it sucks for accessibility.
(Don't forget remotes and people in other offices.)
Pretty pictures are great!
Live Demos!
If nothing else, they always make things exciting.
Stories get remembered.
Aim for the right things.
Nobody ever is going to get an exhaustive understanding of a topic from a short (or even a long!) presentation. Ever.
What are presentations good at?
(Mostly, piquing curiosity and providing broad overviews.)
WTF do I care?
What cool things could I do with the thing you're talking about?
Okay, you've got me...
...now how do I get more?
Thanks for listening.
Towards More Excellent Presentations