The following are my personal ideologies that play a significant role in how I approach designing presentations and using narrative and visuals.
Context and Clarity Kill Complexity. At its core, a presentation is about communication — especially the presenter communicating to the audience. Working together, context and clarity are vital for effectively communicating with the three core parts of a presentation: narratives, visuals, and delivery.
Presentations Should Be a Gift to Your Audience. Audiences attend presentations because they desire something they don’t currently possess and hope the speaker can provide. The thing the speaker provides — whether it’s a project or quarterly update, information about a new process, or a recommendation for a new platform — is the gift.
No One Gets It Right on the First Try. Excellent communication is a learned skill that requires practice, so be prepared to iterate and make several changes to a presentation to increase your chances of success.
Prioritize Narratives and Delivery Over Slides and Visuals. Narratives and delivery are more critical to the success of a presentation than the slides and visuals, so focus more on what you’ll say than what you’ll show.
Do More With Less. All communication should ideally be simple and easy to understand. That typically means keeping the narrative to the most critical information and not overloading slides with too many visuals.
Learn more about my ideologies in my Medium article.