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I had an interesting short conversation with a colleague on Facebook in January. I went back and screen captured it to show what we wrote and here, I’m going to further explain my thoughts about his question and my answers.<\/p>\n
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His question:<\/p>\n
Hi My responses:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/span> From the laughter and heart emoticon, we were having a good time with each other. But I want to go deeper into this topic. Because Mark* mentioned being interested in cognitive overload in some of the responses he had already received, I wanted to go that route to see how much he was willing to figure that out –was he willing to figure out that ANY simultaneous spoken words and text increases cognitive load (Dual Channel Processing Theory)…therefore eliminating that reduces cognitive load problems and can increase the “pleasantness” of a presentation.<\/p>\n So when he presented that so much content was already present in a prototype manner of 64-96 slides , I was first testing to see if he was willing to pull some of that content OUT and place the text in another format (a handout).<\/p>\n I also was intrigued that he was truly asking about slide formats which, is quite a ridiculous question actually. To me, I would advise to stick with whatever format is the most obvious– HOWEVER I’m going to talk you out of all formats so don’t put too much energy into this.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n My first response:<\/span> Is <\/span>His reply:<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah, Oo! He misunderstood because it seems he thought that by taking content out, it would be replaced with images. No, that’s not what I meant. I meant reducing the number of total slides AND reducing what was on the slide. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n This is moving content that should be speaker notes to speaker notes (duh) and what should be a text handout for the audience to one of those freebies and focusing the visual presentation on looking at and listening to the presenter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n But I was willing to tease one more step with this designer. So I did one more push to see if he’d get my idea of REDUCE THE SLIDES.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n My second reply:<\/span><\/p>\n Groovy. Time to next level the next level. Present from one slide. Go.<\/span><\/p>\n His final reply: He’s laughing here. I don’t think he got that I was pushing to present with no images and no slides and all text pushed to another source. He MIGHT have thought that I meant presenting from one big image (Yikes! like one big Prezi!) but I hope not. But we did end laughing because I think he got that sometimes the power does go off and you do talk in the dark (boy, does that prove that you know what you’re talking about or not.)<\/p>\n I haven’t gone further here but I’m going towards Robin Williams<\/a>‘ Principles for effective presentation design in The Non-Designer’s Presentation Book<\/a>, which does explain well that most presentations (like the one Mark describes) have probably used the slides like speaker notes and that’s a no-no. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Hint: Would you like to see a presentation of just images that is compelling and works? Try the first 1 minute 26 seconds at the beginning of The Da Vinci Code<\/a>. (Set aside how you feel about the content). A good speaker\/presenter\/teacher might NOT need words on the slide.<\/span><\/p>\n OK, there are times for words on the slide. I’ll write about it someday.<\/p>\n *Mark is not his real name. \ud83d\ude42
\n everyone! Just joined as I\u2019m looking for some insights into this slide
\ndesign issue: how do you make use of slide layouts in developing
\ntraining slide decks? One slide layout would be repetitive and boring
\nbut too many slide layouts would appear inconsistent. The training
\nprogram has 8 modules, each module has between 8-12 slides. I currently
\nhave 6 slide layouts to work with. The type of content in each module
\ncan be repetitive (why this topic, a quote, bold statement, activities,
\ntopic idea with bullet points, etc). Different slide layouts could be
\napplied to each content (e.g. photo on the right, photo on the left,
\nphoto in the background, etc). Hope you\u2019re following the context setting
\n ![\"\ud83d\ude42\"](\"https:\/\/static.xx.fbcdn.net\/images\/emoji.php\/v9\/t4c\/1\/16\/1f642.png\")
<\/span>
\n Do you use any slide layout organization method? E.g. Layout 1 for
\nModule title (that\u2019s a given), Layout 2 for a quote, Layout 3 for the
\nfirst slide with a photo in the module, Layout 4 for the second slide
\nwith a photo in the module, etc. Then repeat for the next module. Or do
\nyou just use some random slide layouts in each training module. The
\ngraphic designers I\u2019m using don\u2019t seem to be using any coherent slide
\nlayout organization, so when I\u2019m adding slides, it\u2019s always a puzzle for
\n me to determine which slide layout might best (as if there\u2019s some
\noverall training slide design principles out there\u2026) I\u2019ve done my
\nresearch and also have a great book on building PowerPoint templates but
\n I can\u2019t find any thoughts, ideas, suggestions on the matter. Happy to
\nclarify more, if needed! Thanks!<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/a\/AVvXsEg4X1LxIbWFdsu40okF4AVKOu18SGx_TO7lnFiLDsGm8glhTteFksUIJQi-WJjLbCrJfXtH_i-Z_LUwk0Ev6n0D_2oANHHEOUUhskyaOBEieqa_-0QC7lhgYjk3mkyjT3oFCEOLOQX5s8cz_tf59UrQgu5kYO3KW9VwqpkwyeGkeYE_K5Jyz0Fq-Qpc=w640-h426\")
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Example](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/a\/AVvXsEhTzkqc-q2GE-DaUXJVdWosMghmAFXlqxfdVA8bTXJi9OJSib5f4fnWV2drvXKsJueLFesT7tKu0jSbZNqG7ZcQ7s_mcV_JZJ_Si0KW1CWvMAq6gxG6OHl077v8CTEesFIFxBA4kDy8cC9rhwEdo4jgjFadYCirmAjHaSGYz5zz-rVHGf3QZpRe6Hw4=w572-h640\")
![\"PowerPoint](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/img\/a\/AVvXsEiL_HfIyd9zhAcz7lV90zwL-KGWe3jHgBKvedZMrd3nXcWiU5VT79BeT9K6P6gi2TIGk6KjHD2uxmXt9psz9tnsUUV3enrplr-h5GSki3RZTURlAl9vjQUJIdR23QF-u5drpGpkDomcrK31WSWOQvM4Pn2MKvCSykE7BnbCdrKfyexKmuFyfpr6qlpo=w640-h418\")
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<\/span><\/p>\n
\n there any particular reason why you can’t package the “8 modules with
\n8-12 slides” into one PDF text-only handout and present only images?<\/span><\/p>\n
\n I\u2019ve looked into design like this. They can be punchy. I\u2019d have to see
\nfrom a training deck perspective how this would look like (e.g. a full
\ndeck), most of what I\u2019ve seen are decks create for business purposes,
\npresentations and pitches. The full slide deck has about 80 slides, so
\nthat\u2019d be lots of images!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\ud83d\ude01\"](\"https:\/\/static.xx.fbcdn.net\/images\/emoji.php\/v9\/t4f\/1\/16\/1f601.png\")
<\/span> it only lasted 2 hours, thankfully lol.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"