Effective Content Design and Presentation

What information is being conveyed, who is the audience and what is the atmosphere at the presentation venue.

Usually, most successful presentations must meet three main requirements: convey new information, the audience not only "hears" but also "enjoys" the presentation, and the issues in the presentation need to be presented clearly and logically. In case the presentation's goal is to encourage the audience to participate in some activities, the presentation needs to bring the audience positive content, presented in an enthusiastic, exciting tone to stimulate the spirit and response of the audience.

It is important to note that the attention span of the audience is limited to about 45 minutes. During that time, they will only absorb about 1/3 of what you present. Therefore, the content of the presentation should be specific to 3-4 important issues and emphasize these points in the introduction, middle and repeat them at the end. Usually, the main points fall into the following issues:

– Why is this “presentation theme” necessary?

– What is the content of the “presentation topic”?

– What is the desired outcome after the presentation?

Also, avoid presenting concepts related to the presentation topic in theoretical form because they are often difficult to understand.

Understanding Your Audience:

To effectively convey a message, it is important to consider the cultural level and viewpoints of your audience. Also consider the audience’s reactions before bringing up a sensitive issue, as this may affect the atmosphere of the presentation. If you know that some of your audience has strong opinions, be cautious and only raise controversial issues when you have good evidence and arguments in hand.

Also, remember that inappropriate humor can sometimes be offensive. Therefore, use only funny stories and jokes at the right time to bring the highest efficiency. The size of the audience also affects the structure of the presentation. If there are only a few listeners, we can answer the audience's questions specifically, or ask the audience to give their opinions on the issue being presented. In the case of a large audience, the presentation is mostly one-way. In this case, clarity, accuracy and ease of understanding are important factors to maintain the audience's attention throughout the presentation.

– Find Out About Location and Audio-Visual Equipment:

The location affects the atmosphere of the presentation. For example, a presentation at a university has a different atmosphere than a presentation at a hotel. However, since the location is difficult to change, just pay attention to creating an atmosphere that is appropriate for the presentation theme.

The important thing is that we should consider the location in advance to choose a place to stand, how to move appropriately, whether there are objects that can limit the audience's vision, whether the lighting in the room can be adjusted when using visual equipment, whether the seats are arranged properly... If possible, we need to adjust some details to suit our intentions.

When we intend to use audio-visual equipment, we should check if the necessary equipment is available. If we already have audio-visual equipment, we should familiarize ourselves with using it to avoid problems that may occur during the presentation. If we do not have it, we must calculate (maybe have to rent) so that the presentation is effective.

3.1.2. Design effective content and presentation

– Building an Outline:

A presentation naturally begins with the first slide, usually the title slide. There is no convention for titling a presentation, but the three most important pieces of information to include are:

 Presentation title

 Author and place of work

 Support person or guide.

 Introduction:

This is the introduction to the topic of the presentation, it can depend on each person's presentation style, but we can introduce it by the importance, characteristics or outstanding attributes of the subject or issue to be discussed. The introduction can start with an introduction, a question,...

 Main Content:

You should briefly introduce the entire content you will talk about (the major topics in the article).

When presenting a topic, there should be an introduction and when moving on to another topic, there should be a transition. A transition sentence can be both to end the previous paragraph and to start the next paragraph. It can be a statement, a question for a problem and to clarify the statement or answer the question, we will need to find out the problem that will be discussed next... For example, like this. We can combine with conjunctions, transition words such as "next", "so then",... Presentations with images, charts, and illustrative tables need to be explained.

 Conclusion:

Also very important, this part will be able to reiterate the most important issues, issues that you forgot to mention during the presentation and the closing sentence of the presentation, development direction. This will make the presentation be evaluated better.

– Time Distribution:

The report should be presented at an average speed of 1 slide/1 minute. The presentation should last 15 – 20 minutes.

After dividing into basic parts, it is necessary to choose the time for each content. Usually the first part should be concise to give the audience a feeling of brevity and increase the level of concentration.

– Using Graphics Combined With Text:

After completing the content, we should consider adding some visual illustrations to the slides to create a strong impression on the audience. In addition to images, we should take advantage of the contrast of text colors and background colors in the slides to highlight important content. WordArt is also very good at visualizing short paragraphs of text for emphasis.

Adding multimedia effects to regular slides increases the effectiveness and audience enjoyment of the presentation. We can use movies, flash, sound, music, effects for graphs, text, transition effects between slides, color changing effects, etc. for our presentation. We should not apply one type of effect to all slides or between slides because it is easy to bore the audience, instead, flexibly apply many types of effects to our presentation.

– Create Visual Effects:

Choosing colors for text is an art. Red and orange are high-energy colors, but they are hard to focus on. Greens, blues, and browns are sweet, but they are hard to notice. Reds and greens can be difficult for people with color blindness to see.

The choice of color depends on the context and environment. It is also necessary to distinguish between text color and background color. The colors of these two objects should be chosen to contrast with each other. Common color combinations are:

Background color

White

Black

Yellow

Green

Text color

Black Red Blue

White Red Yellow

Black

White

Maybe you are interested!

In short:

 If the hall is small or the lecture is in class: choose dark text on a light background. For example, black or dark blue text on a white background;

 If the hall is large: choose light letters on a dark background, such as white/yellow letters on a dark blue background.

 Avoid slides with green text and red background (or red text on green background), as many people are color blind to this combination. In general

Avoid choosing a red background because this is a “high energy” color that easily makes the eyes tired and difficult to follow. In addition, there should not be more than 4 colors in a slide and the colors in all slides should be consistent with the main theme.

– Use text formatting and effects:

 Use sans-serif fonts (eg: Arial …), avoid using strange fonts. Avoid using too many fonts in a report. Titles should be ≥ 36 points. Large headings should be ≥ 32 points. The remaining items should be 24 points. Do not use all uppercase letters.

 A topic is presented on a slide. The title of each slide should be prominent. Each slide should not contain many words (only about 3-5 lines).

 Do not overuse graphic effects or animations; only use them when absolutely necessary to emphasize details that cannot be expressed in color.

3.2. Master presentation pages and templates

3.2.1. Home page

The Home page (Slide Master) in PowerPoint is a tool used to format all slides in the Presentation such as: Font format, font size, font color, creating motion effects, etc. Slide Master is a simple way to apply changes to all slides.

Create Master slide

To create Slide Master, do the following:

 Go to View tab Slide Master

Figure 3.1 – creating Slide Master

 Select the slide template that needs to be formatted on the left frame of the window  slide format in the right frame including: Font, size, color, etc. Note that you do not enter data into the slide.

 Select Close master View to close the Master Slide window and return to slide editing mode.

Figure 3.2 – Slide Master Tab

Save Slide Master format

If we want to save the created Slide Master for future use, do the following:

- Go to Design tab  select the expansion arrow  Save Current Theme

Figure 3.3 – Save Slide Master format

- The Save Current Add dialog box appears, enter a name for the format to save.

Figure 3.4 – Slide master format save dialog box

Using a saved slide master:

To create a new file with the same format as the sample just created, do the following:

 Go to File tab  New  Blank Presentation

 Select the Design Tab  select the saved template displayed in the design frame.

Figure 3.5 – Applying the master slide template

3.2.2. Sample

– Using Available Templates:

To use an existing template in Power point, go to the File tab  New  PowerPoint will display a preview window of the template to choose. If you agree with a template, click to select it.

 then select Create

Figure 3.6 – Templates available in Power Point

Or we can search for the template name in the Search for online templates and themes box or search for templates by topic in the suggested searches box .

– Create New Template:

To create a new Template, do the following:

 Go to File tab  New  Blank Presentation

 Go to View tab  Slide Master to format the sample slide

 Insert background image in the Background Styles section , otherwise we can also choose the background image we created by going to the Slide tab  Master  Background Styles  Format Background

Figure 3.7 – Background Styles Frame

 The Format Background window appears on the right side  select Picture or texture fill, then select File and find the path to the background image to insert.

 To apply the background image to all existing or new slides, select Apply to All.

Figure 3.8 – customizing the Background image

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