Good PowerPoint Presentation

According to Reep (2006) written text and presentation work together to provide readers with the information they need, during the planning stage it is vital to consider on the design of presentation slides before selecting the appropriate information and organize.

At this new era, writers nowadays are not just merely producing documents; therefore they are also proficient in integrating prose with document designs. However, it is important to provide readers with the information they need in a form that they can interpret easily.

Bernhardt (1986) mentioned the differences of visually-informative text and non-visually informative text, whereas visual-informative text may be identified through headings and identifying symbols. He also uses law of visual identity, law of equilibrium, law of closure, law of good continuation, and law of similarity to identify visual-informative text.

As Reep (2006) principles of design are the important qualities to any visual presentation regardless of topic or audience, and the general principles most designers consider are balance, proportion, sequence and consistency. 

Here is an example of some bad and good presentation slides:

Figure A - With Spacing (Bad presentation slides)

Figure B - No Spacing (Good presentation slides)

In figure A pointed with black arrow shows that there are spacing between each point, whereas figure B did not have any spacing.

It is really important to have the same typeface and margins throughout the presentation. As readers would not get confuse and it has a flow that allows readers to read easily.

Although Bernhardt (1986) said the law of good continuation suggests that visual perception works to pull figures out of the background to differentiate them from the field which they are located. Besides that, he also says that good continuation is achieved through a clear background, headings, and through the groupings of related information which are set off by blank space.

But for Reep (2006), consistency refers to presenting similar features in a similar style and by having consistency in each element is important throughout a presentation or documents.

Figure 2 - Pictures are pixilated (Bad presentation slides)

The picture above shows that the photograph that has been used is pixilated.

Photos that to be use in the presentation must always are clear and not pixilated. This shows that messages are sent effectively to the readers.

Reep (2006) a photograph provides a surface view of an object or event, and to be effective photographs must be clear and focus on the pertinent item. She also stated that it is important by eliminating distracting backgrounds or other objects from the photograph.

Figure 3 - Couldn’t differentiate main points and sub-points as the color of bullets are similar. (Bad presentation slides)

The box in black illustrates that it is difficult for audience to differentiate the main point and the sub-point. As the color of the bullets for the main point and sub-point are somehow almost similar.

While preparing presentation slides, it is important that colors that are being used must not only specific to all bright colors or soft colors. The selection of colors are vital, to ensure that messages are being sent to our audience effectively. Below is an example of an improved version and it is clearer.

Figure 4 - A better presentation slides compare to figure 3. (Good presentation slides)

As Reep (2006) mentioned color in a document or Websites is eye-catching and appealing to readers. She also says that color can distinguished among levels of information by coding information to purpose or importance, and consider how color creates style and supports usability while using it in printed documents or Websites.


References:

• Bernhardt, Stephen A. 1986, ‘Seeing the Text,’ College Composition and Communication, vol. 37, no.1, pp.66-78. 
• Reep, Diana C. 2006, ‘Chapter 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6^th edition, Pearson Education, Inc., New York, p. 173-190.