claus brabrand, itu, denmark feb 05, 2008structured presentation with powerpoint(-lessness)...

Claus Brabrand, ITU, Denmark Feb 05, 2008STRUCTURED PRESENTATION with POWERPOINT(-lessness)

Structured presentation:with POWERPOINT

Claus Brabrand[ [email protected] ]

( “FÅP”: First-year Project Course, ITU, Denmark )

lessness

[ 2 ]Claus Brabrand, ITU, Denmark Feb 05, 2008STRUCTURED PRESENTATION with POWERPOINT(-lessness)

Outline

Introduction & History Content & Structure Semantics & Consistency Form (tips’n’tricks)

Images Text F onts Colors Themes Animations

Presentation (rehearse + live talk)

1

2

3

4

5

abc

[~Inventio/Dispositio]

[~Elucutio]

[~Elucutio]

[~Memoria/Actio]

Fnt

<T>


History

Purchased by Microsoft for $14,000,000 USD (July 31, 1987)

Robert Gaskins

PowerPoint was invented by Robert Gaskins in early 1987 under the name “Presenter” for company Forethought, Inc.


Version History (archeology)

PowerPoint 1.0 Black’n’White only! (for ”Overhead projector”)

(Mac: Apr. ’87)

PowerPoint 2.0 Now also in color (for work with ”color 35mm slides”)

(Mac: May ’88; Win: May ’90)

PowerPoint 3.0 Added video-out (for use with ”video projectors”)

(Win: May ’92; Mac: Sep. ’92)


Ubiquitous

PowerPoint is everywhere

Guestimate:

( US population)

After today’s lecture… :-)

300,000,000 users34


(Popular) Related Tools

OpenOffice.org (aka. ”OO.o”) Free Software (LGPL) based on ”StarOffice” by Sun

Beamer (for use with LaTeX) i.e. good for mathematics:


Outline




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abc


[~Elucutio]

[~Elucutio]

[~Memoria/Actio]

Fnt

<T>


Content ~ Kind of Talk

Which kind of talk?: (different ”conventions and appropriateness’es”) Research talk

”conservative” Lecture Debriefing Project presentation … Advertizing talk (aka. ’sales pitch’) ”fancy”

Warning: PowerPoint often

tends towards ”sales pitch”!

(may distract from message) MESSAGE


Note on ”Fancy Effects”

”The fancy effects offered by today’s presentation software should be used only when they contribute more to the message than they distract from it.”

-- Robert Gaskins”Powerpoint at 20: Back to Basics”

Communications of the ACM, 50(12), 2007

MESSAGE


(Know your) Audience

Prerequisites: Educational level Language & tone (~ type of audience) Technical skills (terminology, abbreviations, …)

Essentially: ”know what your audience knows” i.e., ”empathy”

Mediators of Change (if applicable): Who’s minds are you trying to change? …and will they ”take” your message?


Focal Point of Presentation

Be aware: PowerPoint tends to ”steal the focus”:

May be perfectly okay (in some situations) Just but be aware of it!

Warning: PowerPoint often

tends towards this one…!

Presenter-oriented(~ teacher-centric)

Audience-oriented(~ student-centric)

Monologue(one-way communication)

Interaction(exchange of ideas)

vs.


Audience Concentration

Experiment: Fitted students with pulse readers (during lecture):

puls

e re

adin

gs:

Warning: No long ”talks”

without breaks or variation!


On Simplicity

”Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”"All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best”

-- ”Occam’s Razor”, 14th century(Paraphrased from Latin)

”La semplicità è l'ultima delle sofisticazioni”"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

-- Leonardo da Vinci, (Translated from Italian)

"La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien à ajouter, mais quand il ne reste rien à enlever""Perfection is achieved: not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove”

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Translated from French)

Advantage: PowerPoint

promotes simplicity!

(due to space constraints)


…but NOT TOO simplistic!

”Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler than that”

-- Albert Einstein

“We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain

their appearances”-- Sir. Isaac Newton

Correlation is not Causation

vs.

Warning: PowerPoint

often tends towards

(over-)simplification!

(Possibly shortest ’true statement’ of phenomenon.)

”Empirically observed covariation is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for causality.”

(Grosly over-simplistic!)

Example from:[Tufte, 2003 ]


Structuring your Talk

Recall the 5 canons (from classical rhetorics): Inventio Disposito Elucutio Memoria Actio

…is how this presentation got organizedAdvantage: PostItsTM

”promote” simplicity!

(due to space constraints)


1 Point:

One point per slide


Make Structure Explicit

Use outline:(aka. roadmap)

Usually (recommend following structure): Introduction ”say what you are gonna

say”, Body (part 1, 2, …, n) ”say it”, Conclusion ”then, say what you’ve said”.

Advantage: Audience can

follow the explicit structure

(where are we, what next, ..)

a ”progress indicator”may help even further


(Usually) Don’t useChronological Structure

Chronological: First, we did …; Then, we tried …; Hereafter, we …; …

Post-Processed: The Problem is …; The Solution is …; Problem Solution …;

Initial problem

Final Solution

Warning: Usually

a bad idea for projects

(lots of ”irrelevance”)

Initial problem

Final Solution

Advantage: Easier to

present and follow

(demonstrates reflection)


Other ways of Structuring

Inductive Structure: Deductive Structure:

Introduction

“Build-up”

Solution

Introduction

Solution

“Break-down”


Outline




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abc


[~Elucutio]

[~Elucutio]

[~Memoria/Actio]

Fnt

<T>


Form vs. Content

Form and Content are not independent:

Form Contentusually

but also!

”A good ’encoded’ form guide ’decoding’ of the content”:

CONTENT

Content

+ FORM

CONTENT

e” e”“Encod

“Decod


Differential Importance

Use [de-]emphasis to ”encode” importance: Bold, Italics, or emphasis color ”for emphasis”

e.g., This is really important

Gray or Parentheses ”for deemphasize” e.g., (this is not as important)

Standard Color (e.g, black) for ”the rest” e.g., this is of standard importance

Advantage: Helps the

reader tremendously!

(but use consistently)


Semantic Coloring

Use colors to ”encode” content information: Blue for some concept Green for some other concept Purple for some third concept

You can do this…: Globally for entire presentation Locally for one slide/section (caution of ”mix-ups”)

Warning: Your ”color scheme”

will affect overall aesthetics

and ”look-and-feel” (caution)

class Application { Client user; Server db;

Application(Client c, Server s) { this.user = s; this.db = c; db.addClient(user); register(db, user); ...

(e.g., server)

(e.g., client)

(e.g., application)


Consistency

Be meticulously consistent:

Pick a(ny) convention (and stick with it)!

We employ two data-flow analyses to construct a graph […]

We instrument the compiler with an interprocedural data flow analysisthat extracts […]

In Sections 4 and 5, the two parts of the data-flow-analysis are […]


Outline




1

2

3

4

5

abc


[~Elucutio]

[~Elucutio]

[~Memoria/Actio]

Fnt

<T>


Images

Use relevant images whenever possible: Improves appearance (if used appropriately) Makes a presentation ”less boring” Helps association (if used appropriately)

May be used as (psychological-)anchors i.e., ”recall” of content/thoughts/discussions/emotions/...

association”Red/black-tree”e.g.,

(Many people ”store”lots of things

effectively /w images)

content

emotions

discussions

thoughts


Locating/creating images: Inspiration: [ images.google.com ] Use digital camera:

Incorporating Images:

Set transparent color (in ”Picture Tool Bar”)

PrtScr Ctrl VCtrl V

Tips’n’Tricks

e.g.,

vs. Unfortunatelyonly one color

Ctrl C

[PrtScr] ; Paint ; <paste> ; [select area] ; <copy> ; PPT ; <paste>


Tips’n’Tricks (cont’d)

Align Images !!! (makes slides look more solid & stable)

Constant space invariants (…same thing)

Moving images precisely [Alt] + mouse [Ctrl] + keys PPT ”window zoom”

(for further increased precision)

DEMO ”SELECT” + ”DISTRIBUTE H/V”


Tips’n’Tricks (cont’d2)

Set ”same height” (for horizontally aligned images)

Set ”same width” (for vertically aligned images)

Compress images (to save space)


Tips’n’Tricks (cont’d2 )

Use arrows to direct attention: (or crossreference)

Use highlighting to emphasis relevance:

2

class Application { Client user; Server db;

Application(Client c, Server s) { ... db.addClient(user); register(db, user);


Text

Avoid / limit ”text-only-slides”: Uninspirational

(…and boooooring!)

Avoid ”full sentences”: many will read 100% i.e., not concentrate on you

Avoid ”orphans”: Lone word on a newline

vs.

not seenot hear

Modality redouplication:

”Less is more”TEXT

In fact (generally):

abc


Bullets!

Use with great caution!!!

”Bullets don’t kill people, people kill people”

-- NRA (National Rifle Association, USA)

Warning: Sequencing is

uni-dimenstional!

chronologically (e.g., earlylate); alphabetically (e.g. ’A’’Z’); logically (e.g. firstlast); xor priority-wise (e.g., highlow)

Warning: Hierarchical info

structures have to be

”linearized” (= flattened) A list can either (be ordered)…:

i.e. one order only (at same time)!

Warning: we loose

structural information!

Warning: we loose

inter-dependencies!


F Onts

Two (very different!) font design goals:

“No area is so small that you cannot spend your whole life researching it.”

-- M. Schwartzbach(oral communication)

Designed to be read on paper: Designed to be read on screen:

vs.e.g.,: Times Roman (Morison et al., 1931)

Helvetica (Miedinger, 1957)

Arial (Nicholas & Saunders, 1982)

e.g.,: Tahoma (Carter, 1994)

Verdana (Carter, 1996)

Trebuchet (Connare, 1996)


Sans ou Avec Serifs?

”Serif” Fonts: Usually best on paper

”Sans Serif” Fonts: Usually best on screen

Online font readability test:

[ http://edtechfm.sdsu.edu/bhoffman/type/font/intro.htm ]

my scores: population avg.:


Font Usage

Size: Always:

(for quite obvious reasons :-)

Quantity: Maximum:

Use monospace fonts (e.g., ”Courier New”)for code / programming fragments

”font size ≥ 20”

Application(Client c, Server s) { this.db = s; this.user = c; super();}

Otherwise:Use bold or ”wide fonts”(e.g., ”Arial Black”)

”2-3 fonts/presentation”


Colors (cont’d)

Lots of ”bad combinations”:

Note: often poorly reproduced on projectors

Caution with |RGB|-difference (contrast): In general, Maximize this (approximation):

for any adjacent colors (R1, G1, B1) and (R2, G2, B2)

where (R = |R1-R2|, G = |G1-G2|, B = |B1-B2|)

R2 +G2 + B2

”Red on Orange” ”Blue on Green” ”Black on Blue” ”Yellow on White”


Colors

Caution with colorblindness! Red-Green colourblindness:

7–10% of (male) population

(i.e., statistically 2-3 of the ” s” among you in class)

Illustration by:E. W. Scripture, 1895“Thinking, Feeling, Doing”

”Ishihara”(color test plate):

Should say ”74”(”21” or nothing,

if colourblind)


THEMES

Themes are convenient

BUT: be careful Some are very very very frequently used!!!

<T>


Animations

Animations can make presentation more live

BUT: be careful Many different Inconsistent use Overly fancy

Chaotic / Amateur’ish


Outline




1

2

3

4

5

abc


[~Elucutio]

[~Elucutio]

[~Memoria/Actio]

Fnt

<T>


Presentation (recap)

Rehearsal: Test equipment beforehand Get to know room Avoid CO2 drinks before talk

(Auken) Rehearse slide transitions

Presentation flow Plan (dynamic) skip points Get to know personal pace

#slides/minute Incremental uncovering

(aka. ”striptease” ~ OHP) Disable ”menu on right click”

(in Tools>Options>View)

Live presentation: Use all Mathias’ advice

…from BRPO Speak loud & clearly Use ”presenter” Use keys ”b” / ”w”

…for focus on you # + <return>

…to jump to particular slide # Cultural differences

Denmark vs. Germany Subject differences

Science vs. Humanities


Small Exercises

Reflect: How did I make the Title slide?

(i.e., the first slide of this presentation)?

Synthesis: Try out each of the Image Tips’n’Tricks

(in succession)

Analyze: Does this presentation ”take its own medicine”?

Where? Where not (and how could it be improved)?

Apply: Improve your slides

e.g., your BPRO presentation(s)


Exercise (for next week!)

Prepare a group presentation on; either: A) ”IT Jobs” – different perspectives:

Skills, competences, & personalities (offered and sought) Team and team-work ”Job Index”-like sites IT job sector vs. other sectors Statistics, analyses, & comparisons

B) ”Evolution” – different perspectives: Historical: Darwin, Beagle, Galápagos, Finches, Mendel, .. Biological: genes, selection, mutation, recombination, … Psychological: Evolutionary psyc. [Pinker, Dawkins, ...] Religious: ”Evolution vs. Intelligent Design” Ideological: human self-image, memetics, …

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