Think of the listeners

Last summer, a great event was held - EPAM Software Engineering Conference'2006.

From the official press release:

The event was attended by over 300 company employees from five countries where EPAM Systems development centers are located. Over the course of two days, more than 40 reports were presented covering a wide range of topics: project management, quality management, application integration issues, business analysis, customer requirements management, vertical solutions, the use of reusable components, etc.

The conference was a great success.

But it’s not about the event itself, but about the presentation materials and how to prepare and conduct a useful and memorable presentation.

About presentation materials

Unfortunately, as is often the case, the quality of presentation materials left much to be desired. As always, the lecturers considered it unnecessary to prepare handouts, business cards, pointers, backup copies of their presentations, etc.
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Considering the fact that all presentations were held in English, the importance and necessity of handouts is difficult to overestimate - in large audiences people simply did not see from the back rows, which is displayed on the screen, many did not perceive English by ear. And it is always easier to take out something from the presentation, having something in your hands :)

The main omission in the design of presentations, in our opinion, was:

the absence of an indicator that shows the number of slides remaining until the end of the presentation (we heard people say: “Do not know how many slides are at the end?” or “He’s been talking for a long time, half an hour left, what do you think, have you reached half?” etc. .)
the presence of a large number of unreadable text on one slide (“What is written there, do not you see?”) ;
a jumble of slides - when students do not understand what the speaker is already talking about another problem;
unreasonable number of effects ("Wow!") ;
a lot of text, few illustrations (“Will they have any pictures at all?”) .

Tips for presentation designers: think about the audience

Think about the listeners - the listeners should know what topics the presentation consists of, how big it is, to understand where we are at the moment (the problem of location and navigation) . This time.

Listeners should have something on hand to read. These are two.

Listeners should perceive the most complicated information through illustrations. These are three.

Listeners should not distract anything, so the presentation should not contain any interference: be it effects, terry edges of the inserted picture or the noise of the projector. These are four.

Do not forget that of all the more or less useful presentations, students usually remember the most beautiful and professionally designed :) These are five.

Speaker tips: think about the listeners again

Listeners should listen to you, not read from the screen. This time.

Listeners should be able to ask questions. These are two.

Listeners expect from the speaker an interesting presentation, do not disappoint them. These are three.

Listeners will be able to listen to you for only 3 minutes, without being distracted (proven!) . Do not let them get distracted. These are four.

Listeners love to hear the story, not reading from the leaf. Do not read on the leaflet or from the screen. It's five.

Be sure to take with you: