205: Slide Decks And Presenting

<p>Today we are going to look at the proper use of visuals when we are presenting.  Many people ask us at Dale Carnegie, what should I do with preparing my slide deck for my key note presentation?  What’s too much?  What’s too little?  What’s the best way to make this work for me?  </p> <p> </p> <p>Here’s some guidelines for using visuals. Sometimes less is definitely best.  On a screen, try to avoid paragraphs.  Try to avoid sentences.  If you can, use single words.    Single words can be very, very powerful.  Just show one word or even just one number and then you can talk to the number, or you can talk to that word.  Or use just a photograph or a simple visual and you talk to the visual. Bullet points are also minimalist and good.</p> <p> </p> <p>By the way, you don’t have to crowd the screen with stuff that we can read fir ourselves.  What you really want is for the audience to be focused on you, the presenter and not what’s on the screen.  This is very critical.  We don’t want the screen competing with us, so the less you have up there the better.</p> <p> </p> <p>I believe that the two second rule is a key rule.  If you are putting something up on screen and an audience cannot see that and understand that within two seconds, it’s probably too complicated.  Strip it back until you can get the point immediately.</p> <p> </p> <p>The six by six rule means less is best.  Six words on a line.  Six lines on a screen. Then six words across each line.  Again, keeping it very minimalist.  </p> <p> </p> <p>With fonts, try to use 44 font size for the title, and 32 for the text. In terms of font types, sans serif fonts like Arial are very easy to read.  Where as serif fonts like Times, Times Roman, which have got a lot of additional fancy work, can be distracting.  </p> <p> </p> <p>Be very, very, very sparing with using all uppercase.  It’s actually screaming at your audience; it’s shouting at your audience when you use strong uppercase like that.  You can use it.  But use it strategically.  For visibility, be careful ab