SlideMagic Blog

Microsoft is on a roll, and now that I am turning temporarily into a developer, I appreciate them even more with very powerful code editors, and repeated decisions to open source their software (the entire Windows platform engine is going open source), and make other sensible decisions (moving to the Chromium browser rendering engine inside Edge).

The office apps are no exception, and I took some time to play around with PowerPoint on my new iPad.

The app looks and feels fantastic (I have something to aspire to), and all the basic design features work flawlessly. I find it easier to find my way around coming in “cold” then the keynote app for iPad. The small screen encourages you to design simpler slides, and spend less time adding stuff that is not essential to your story.

In 2018, things are still not perfect though. But most shortcomings are to blame on the iPad form factor, not Microsoft:

• Presentation design is a creative process that needs space, a big screen, accurate placing of objects (fingers are less good here than a mouse). An iPad is just not a focussed design interface.
• File management is still cumbersome on an iPad. Finding that deck from last week, opening a spreadsheet side by side, copying an image from the web browser, things that take a second on a computer are not intuitive on an iPad.
• Because of the form factor Microsoft has cut down the features for PowerPoint on iPad. In itself, this is great (I am also focusing the features in my app), but, once the genie is out of the bottle, it is very hard to have the same application on different platforms with different feature sets, especially if you are working with collaborators on different devices. “Please create this bar chart”, is emailed to the analyst working on an iPad in the taxi who then discovers that data charts are not really supported. It also hard to create custom themes and colour schemes.

Some users of the PowerPoint template store notice that the pace of new addition has slowed down as I am focusing on coding my own slide design application. If you have any specific requests feel free to forward them to me via jan at slidemagic dot com. It needs to be a very specific request (sorry, can’t do a bespoke design in this business model), or alternatively, send an existing chart with your content inside that I can use as inspiration for a template on the store (obviously I will remove the specifics).

Photo by Daniel Bradley on Unsplash

I upgraded my 9.7” iPad to the new 12.9” version after trying one out. Here are my observations:

• The size and weight of the bigger iPad is now manageable (unlike the first models). It is so light that the programmed weight to size ratio in your head gets confused. Still, this remains a “2 hand” device in most cases. If you need a 1-hand device, this one is not for you.
• The size is the main reason I got it, it enables me to read “magazines” by smaller publishers do not have the resources to invest in proper iPad apps and simply send out a PDF every month. For this purpose it is great. An A4-sized PDF on iPad is now one on one comparable to a paper one, probably even better.
• The best way to get a feel for the screen quality is to go back to your old device that you thought was great. It is not yet as stark as the iPhone 3 to iPhone 4 jump, but it is a huge step up.
• The thing is incredibly fast and snappy
• The pencil is a huge improvement. I tried working with styli and pencils right from the launch of the first iPad, none of them really worked for me. This one snaps against the iPad with magnets (although it will fall of in your bag), has a matt feel, cannot roll away due to a flat side, has a tap function to quickly change pens, and charges on the side of the device rather than sticking out of the connector. Writing and drawing is awesome. The killer question will be how it behaves in an hour meeting: unlocking the device, battery life, both of which were wrong in the previous version. Constantly messing around with buttons and passwords to jot down something, and then leaving your meeting with a drained battery. Face ID should help (hopefully).
• I did not get the keyboard, I still believe that writing long texts can be better done on a proper laptop.
• The iPad is expensive, but you can save on storage if you restrict your movie downloads to those you need on one long haul flight.

Applications with a dark background are fashionable now. I can still remember back at the end of the 1980s, when screens went the other way: light backgrounds with dark letters, even on green and amber monitors.

Research (lots of it done in the 1980s), suggests that light backgrounds are better. Light tightens the iris, and and a smaller iris can focus better. (Think squinting and pinhole cameras).

As I am coding away on my app, I need to think about this.

• Again, not all user interfaces are the same. Dark mode can be useful when reading Twitter feeds late at night in bed with others sleeping, but this is not the context of presentation design.
• We need to separate presenting and designing. Presenting on a big screen is better with a dark background, since the speaker does not get overpowered by this big wall of light. (Dark backgrounds will encourage people to dim the lights in the conference room though, encouraging sleep). In some industries, people sill print decks (banking), and a white background saves a lot of ink cartridges.
• When it comes to user interfaces, I am again on the fence. Coding on a dark background is more convenient because it is easer to see subtle differences in text color (functions, variables, etc.).
• Apps need to be more or less consistent. Switching back and forth between light and dark is tiring. If the everyone goes dark, I probably have to follow. (This was probably one of the main reasons for people to switch in the 1980s, switching back and forth from the screen to paper)
• There is an opportunity to make a starker contrast between the design canvas and the software UI, making one light, the other dark
• In 2018, dark applications give the impression of being “cool” and modern, which is what a new startup needs…

Overheard from a VC friend: an entrepreneur who was pitching suggesting that his colleague would for sure understand the opportunity, since he has an undergraduate degree in the subject at hand, A few mistakes:

1. You lost a few niceness points there
2. Your score for judgement as a salesman in sales pitches just was lowered
3. Yes, 4 years of undergraduate education in a certain subject has value, but so has 30 years of professional and investing experience.

Even if you think the VC you are pitching does not understand the subject at hand (and you could be totally right of course), hold the feedback for yourself. Instead, make it your problem to convince him.

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

For a number of reasons, keyboards do not follow an alphabetical layout, including increasing typing speed by promoting the use of alternating hands, and/or preventing jams of hammers in mechanical type writers.

I feel that many of today’s presentation (and all other productivity) software is still in the ABC phase. Functions are grouped logically so you can more easily find them the first time around. Instead, they should be grouped in the way you actually use them:

• How often are they required?
• What features are typically used together?

The resulting user interface might not be logical, but will be very useful. Work in progress.

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Seth Godin designed this framework to explain what Linchpin Jobs are:

I did a quick makeover of the diagram, keeping the design super simple (life is too short to be spending designing charts at your desk):

• Move from an XY to a 2x2 layout to make it easer to read the axis
• Changing the labels of the boxes, axes to get rid of excess text, make them more consistent
• Change the colours so that the cog jobs stand out (I think they are worse than what I call “lazy specialist” roles

Cover image credit: Jared Goralnick

By coincidence I watched part of the live coverage of a political debate in the Dutch parliament yesterday (after reading a newspaper that provided a link). Here are some of the things I noticed:

• Most of them are debating to each other, technocrats, rather than the general public and looking to score quick points on technical details. The audience for the live debate is probably pretty small, but news outlets tend to pick sound bites in their coverage later on.
• All of the politicians want to have the last word: they quickly make an additional point, leaving no time to let the answer sink in, and move on to a completely different subject not to give the opportunity for additional intervention
• The whole format of an open political debate about a very complex treaty without a clear agenda does not really work, people jump back and forth between totally different topics: fundamentals, practicality, interpretations of words, etc. etc.
• Politicians like to stick to their hobby horses. Finally, someone makes a point that could be considered reasonable by the opposing party, open the way for a compromise or agreement, and boom, it is followed by the usual dogmas that will block any further changes of mind.

Maybe a good slide deck that breaks down the discussion in 2-3 tangible options what can be done next, with clearly grouped pros and cons can help structure this debate a bit :-).

Photo by Giovanni Gras on Unsplash

I met someone at Amazon the other day, explaining how they deal with communication (spoiler: no PowerPoint):

• For a decision, you have to write a memo (2 pages max), no slides / PowerPoint
• The memo gets handed out in the meeting (no pre-reading), and people have 30 minutes to read it in silence
• Then, the discussion follows, going straight to Q&A, no presenting

There are obviously some good things about this approach:

• No time wasted on designing 100+ page PowerPoint decks
• No time wasted in sitting through presentations where people are reading slides from the screen
• Less risk that people will jump in the conversation without having done their homework
• No pre-reading late at night after the kids are asleep

But…

• Writing a good memo might be more time consuming/difficult then creating a quick presentation
• Some information on which you want to base a decision is better presented visually than in paragraphs (pros/cons, graphs with trends, tables with financial data)
• Sometimes, you actually need some time to ponder things over before making a big decision.

On balance, it is probably the right thing to do because it creates a strong cultural statement.

(BTW, I am going to experiment with uploading the cover images in colour, a nice change for 2019, what do you think?)

Photo by Luca Micheli on Unsplash

I was looking back at my old site on the Wayback Machine the other day and noticed how my approach to presentation design has changed. Back then, I would put huge efforts in finding unusual images, study advertising design, push PowerPoint to its limits. The result: some pretty unusual presentations.

Today, I have become much more pragmatic: presentations should be easy to understand (which might mean cutting that exotic visual metaphor), have a pro/no-nonsense look, and very easy/quick to put together, there are more important things to do than battling presentation design software.

Have I become lazy? I don’t think so. Just a more realistic and practical approach to presentation design.