SlideMagic Blog

Now that all my data is backed up constantly to the cloud, I have been become more daring when it comes to updating machine operating systems. So, over the weekend I upgraded my client production machine to Sierra, and I could upgrade the iWork applications (I only use Keynote) as well.

Keynote become “7.0”, a big upgrade number. PowerPoint and Keynote are both highly mature pieces of software, they work very well and have not changed that much over the years. The big new features in Keynote 7.0: realtime collaboration and live presentations.

Real time collaboration is the main advantage that web app Google Slides has over desktop applications Keynote and PowerPoint. Earlier, Apple launched an iCloud-based version of Keynote where multiple people could access the same file in a web browser. The problem with this format was that the iCloud version lacked a few crucial features compared to the desk top version. If you started out working in iCloud only, there are no issues. But in most cases, you would group-edit a document online that was originally created on a desktop. I struggled finding certain formatting coloring functions which made it hard to keep slides in consistent look, and missed certain table and data chart manipulation functions online (making it hard to edit existing tables and data charts).

In Keynote 7, collaboration is now done right from the desktop app, all features are supported. During the Apple product announcement (video) it all worked perfectly. I tried things, and it worked less perfectly, but maybe because I was trying to collaborate with myself (trying to edit a test presentation in parallel on my phone). I did not get to invite people via iMessage, the email link worked, but there was a significant delay in syncing of the edits, creating sync conflicts. I assume that Apple being Apple will iron these issues out (and they might not happen in a proper collaboration set up where I am not trying to trick the system in collaborating with myself).

One way to cover up poor growth numbers is to break the vertical axis of a column chart and start it at a high number. It is even PowerPoint’s default, see the chart that comes out when entering, 1000, 1001, 1002, 1003 and 1004.

The smart audience will instantly recognise it and discount your ethics. “If she is trying to cover up this one, there must be other skeletons in the closet inside the deck as well, better start looking for them.”

The best option in these situations might be to stay honest. Maybe show a table of numbers rather than a column chart that stays flat. Maybe break down your sales by subsegment, and show that there are promising products out there that can contribute to future growth.

When you use my presentation app SlideMagic, you will notice that it is actually not possible to break the vertical axis.

Image from WikiPedia

Surprisingly few organisations have a proper style guide with instructions for logos, colours, fonts, etc. This is always the first thing I ask for when starting a new presentation design project. As a presentation designer, I need the colours most.

If your organisation does not have one, here is a great tool to create your own: Frontify. You can start with a logo image, extract the colours from it, and take it from there.

When you start at a blank or partially complete slide, it is tempting to put that key message in. You don’t have the overview of the entire presentation, so the key point will appear - duplicated - on many pages.

The same thing I often see happening on corporate web sites: multiple people make edits on different pages independent from each other.

The slide and the page on its own make sense, the overall story looks garbled and duplicated.

Image from WikiPedia

Most product pitches go something like this:

• Existing solutions have this problem
• Existing solutions have this problem
• Existing solutions have this problem
• Existing solutions have this problem
• Existing solutions have this problem
• Our solution does not have this problem
• Our solution does not have this problem
• Our solution does not have this problem
• Our solution does not have this problem
• Our solution does not have this problem

The story gets repeated, which makes the whole things boring. A better option is to elaborate on the problems, but then keep the solution section relatively short. You can even show a grid of small screen shots of all your “problem” slides, with tick marks over each one of them.

Presentations have one audience. If you have 2 messages for 2 different audiences you need 2 presentations, or one presentation with 2 clearly marked sections. Using presentation A for audience B does not work, and diluting the content (a bit of A, a bit of B) results in nothing.

If you are lucky, you need to do some extra presentation design work. In the worst case, you might have to back to the fundamental positioning of your business, product, project, idea and cut one of the two options.

Apple made changes to the screen typography in yesterday’s release of iOS10. It now faces the same challenges as I have in presentation design.

Apple broke the look of elegant, thin fonts and added a narrower bold font. These fonts have good readability, and you can fit a lot of information on one line (or better: increase the font size without needing another line). It comes at a price though, as things look more cluttered.

In my presentation app SlideMagic, I still went for the narrow bold fonts (Roboto Condensed). When applied in a strict grid, and in the right sizes it works.

In the screen shot below for example, something is just not right. Not a lot of white space. Unclear grid. And the logo type of the newspapers interfere with the narrow bold headlines.

Copy-pasting full paragraphs from authoritative sources (academics, Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly) to support your point do poorly in presentations:

• A presentation is not a legal court battle where every word of an expert is examined in detail to see who is right. People don’t bother to read a big paragraph of text on a slide
• Quotes have been overused, Google is filled with quotes from random people claiming almost any point you are looking for
• Text is often a secondary interpretation of some graph or statistics. That graph or statistic, the primary source, is much better visual material to make your point
• Quotes are always almost years old, out of context. “A Harvard Professor said this in 1995 in a study for an airplane manufacturer” is not very relevant for an Internet startup in 2016.

Image from WikiPedia

Many people have vivid memories of what they were doing when dramatic events unfolded (9/11 for example). Quartz published an interesting article on these “flashbulb” memories, named after their photographic qualities.

Emotions are a powerful anchor for memories. Obviously we don’t want to invoke traumatic events to help the audience remember your pitch. But some element of emotion (an image, a story) is important to make your presentation more memorable.

Have a read through this chapter in my book to learn more.

I have noticed that my purchase of stock images has gone down dramatically:

• I stopped forcing myself to find an image for every slide (what I tended to do 10 years ago)
• Stock image sites are now overloaded with cheesy compositions
• There are many excellent free image sites around