Ray is Head of Software Design at GR Business Process Solutions,
a UK-based business which provides specialist services around
knowledge testing and skills assessments. He develops and
sells Excel, Access and Visual Basic applications, both as
off-the-shelf products and as custom jobs to meet specific
client needs.
The website he maintains for his company GR
Business Process Solutions contains a range of articles
of interest to Office developers, and a page of RAQs (‘Rarely
Asked Questions’) on Excel and Access.
With three sons all under the age of 6, he gets little time
for interests of his own, but seems to get dragged into each
of theirs. Consequently, he has built up an impressive knowledge
of young persons’ literature, mostly surrounding the
adventures of rodents and other small mammals. Although not
proud of the fact, he can also name each of the Wild Force
Power Rangers. Repairing toys and replacing batteries are
activities he has learned to undertake in his sleep.
et
me take you back to the days of my childhood in the 1970’s.
In many ways, this was a more carefree time, of course. People
had respect for their elders, the village bobby was always welcome
for a chat at the garden gate, pop records had real tunes and you
could understand the words.
Back then, there were 3 channels on the TV and the programmes
for us children would run out before the 6 o’clock news. Many’s
the day when the strains of the Captain Pugwash closing theme would
fade out and the strident chords of the BBC News bulletin would
cruelly break in long before I was sated. In desperation I’d
watch the opening minute or two of the news in the hope that there
might today be a special version for children with cartoon characters.
The daily disappointment was sometimes tempered when the shot
cut from a talking head to something cooked up by the BBC Graphics
department. It might be some bullet point text listing the key
points from the budget, or some stick men, boats and fish depicting
the day’s manoeuvres in the Cod
War. But always I’d stare in awe at these screens, marvelling at the technology
which allowed such things to be brought to us in full, black and white glory.
Nowadays, of course, this god-like power is easily available to
all of us, thanks to PowerPoint and products like it. Sadly, though,
this is rarely backed up by the sort of design aptitude and formal
layout training that I’m sure the BBC Graphics department
used to insist on for its staff. Not to put too fine a point on
it, the majority of PowerPoint presentations we are all now subjected
to contain some of the most heinous design crimes since the ‘Vision
On’ Gallery closed its doors.
I’d like to share with you some of the most widely-perpetrated
of those crimes, through examining some slides I’ve gritted
my teeth to create specially for the purpose of lambasting. If,
whilst looking at these slides and reading my diatribes, you spot
some of your own sins, then please be reassured that there is not
a single error I will highlight here that I have not
at some time made myself; indeed, I am in several respects a multiple recidivist.
Console yourself also with the thought that I have no formal design training
either, and that this critique represents merely the opinions and prejudices
of a man who has already freely admitted to an attachment to children’s
television from the early 1970s.
That being said, let’s start with a truly hideous example
of what is possible in PowerPoint. Have a look at Exhibit A.
Exhibit A: So much to say, so little room
So, where do we start with this one? This slide has a number of
errors:
I think the first point is that the sidebar and the slide
title are vying for attention quite loudly. It’s a battle
that either of them could win, but your text stands little chance
of scoring a hit in such heavy crossfire!
And speaking of that sidebar, it has stolen a good 20% of
your screen space. Up on the wall, that’s a huge acreage
which you can’t use for anything else.
Your logo is also cramping your space. Without the contrived
short bullet at the bottom, you’ve lost another third of
the remaining slide space. And what is that logo doing there
on every slide? Do your people really need a constant reminder
of who they work for or which company is presenting to them?
A logo belongs only on your welcome slide. Have this showing
for 10 minutes prior to the start of the presentation, and anyone
wandering into the wrong room will as a result of your logo quickly
realise their mistake and be on their way.
Typographically, there’s a lot going on for a single
slide, including text oriented at three different angles. As
a general rule, no more than two fonts should be used per slide
(one for the heading, one for body text) and these ought to be
consistent between slides. Any orientation other than horizontal,
left to right should be used very sparingly for extreme emphasis
and only once on any one slide. If you need to know which fonts ‘go’ together,
do a web search for ‘font families’.
And what about the words themselves? Do they support what
you will say, or do they replace it? To appropriate an old analogy,
a PowerPoint slide should be used rather as a drunkard uses a
lamppost: for support, rather than for illumination. If your
slide says everything you are going to, just send the slides
and stay in bed. The first two points could have said just, “Lead
generation” and “servicing” instead of stealing
the speaker’s thunder entirely.
When bullet points span more than one line like this, you
should really put more white space in between them to make them
stand out as individual items.
That last bullet point says an awful lot about the speaker,
and nothing that’s good. A skilful speaker will not need
this pseudo-cheerful, pseudo-jokey prompt because he will have
created a fun element already. An unskilful one will find that
the only humorous response this bullet provokes is ironic and
at his expense.
While we’re on the subject of bullet points, they should
be used sparingly. Slide after slide of the damned things are
dreadfully tiring, ultimately resulting in a phenomenon known
as ‘death by bullet point’ in which the audience’s
attention leaves the room after three slides, followed after
three more by their will to live.
About
Ray Blake
et
me take you back to the days of my childhood in the 1970’s.
In many ways, this was a more carefree time, of course. People
had respect for their elders, the village bobby was always welcome
for a chat at the garden gate, pop records had real tunes and you
could understand the words. 
