Published On:Sunday, 27 November 2011
Posted by Muhammad Atif Saeed
Developing Presentations
Developing Presentations |
We learnt about what we mean by spreadsheets
We discussed the usage of various functions provided by common spreadsheets
Spreadsheets:
Electronic replacement for ledgers
Used for automating engineering, scientific, but in majority of cases, business calculations.
A spreadsheet - VisiCalc - was the first popular application on PC’s.
What Can They Do?
Can perform calculations repeatedly, accurately, rapidly.
Can handle a large number of parameters, variables
Make it easy to analyze what-if scenarios for determining changes in forecasts w.r.t. change in
parameters.
Are easy to interface with other productivity SW packages
Easy to store, recall, modify
Make it is easy to produce graphs:
The Structure of A Spreadsheet:
Collection of cells arranged in rows and columns
Each cell can contain one of the following:
Numbers
Text
Formulas
These cells display either the number or text that was entered in them or the value that is found by
executing the formula.
Connecting Two Cells:
Today’s Lecture:
Developing Presentation:
Third among the four lectures that we plan to have on productivity software
We will discuss several design guidelines for making effective multimedia presentations
We will become able to develop simple presentation with the help of presentation making software
Let’s call this
cell
A1
And this one,
A2
=A1 + 4
31.1 Presentations:
I used to use transparencies in conjunction with overhead projectors for making presentations
Some time back, I used to write on transparencies with felt-tip markers
Then I moved on to developing presentations on a PC, and printing the final version on transparencies
with a laser printer
Some of my contemporaries used color inkjet printers instead of the laser printer
Another option was to develop them on a computer and then transfer to 35mm slides using a camera,
and display it using a slide projector
Problems With All Those Modes:
It was difficult and often costly to make changes, especially last minute changes
No sound, no animation, no video
Electronic transmission, in some cases, was not easy
It was difficult keeping track of old ones and making sure of their proper storage
Solution: Multimedia Presentations :
Great tool for effectively communicating ideas to an audience
All electronic
Easy to make last minute changesThe undo feature encourages experimentation
More attractive; commanded more interest
May include animations, sound, video
Easy to catalog, store, and recall
Great tool for making presenter-free interactive material (e.g. self-learning tutorials)
The Presentation Scenario:
The Goal of the Presenter:
Maximize the (sum of the 2 types of) info that needs to be transferred to the audience.
Recommended Approach
Put together a presentation that is:
Simple,clear ,consistent, design guidelines for simplicity, clarity, consistency
Layout Guidelines:
Keep layouts simple
Vary the look of successive slides. Mix up graphics with bulleted lists with animations
Avoid cluttering the slides with too much text or graphics. Your audience should hear what you have to
say and not be distracted by a busy layout
Presenter
Presentation
screen
Audienc
e
Info
Info
Put a title on each slide. As soon as the audience see the slide, the title should make it clear as to the
point of that slide
Slide Background:
Keep the backgrounds simple. You want a background that shows off your info, not one that makes it
illegible
Avoid bright background colors. Light colored text against a dark background works best
Keep colors, patterns, and text styles consistent (not necessarily the same) for all slides in a presentation
Color Usage Guidelines:
Use color sparingly to to highlight a point, but don't get carried away
Choose them with care; at times, the wrong choice may convey an unintended message
Select background colors that are easy on the eye for several minutes of viewing, e.g. don’t go for a
bright yellow or red or other warm colors for background
Instead, use cool colors like blues and greens as backgrounds
Writing Text:
Limit text to a few phrases on a screen. A good rule of thumb is 5±2 lines on a slide
Write short phrases - not sentences - in the form of bulleted points: if you display sentences on your
slides, you have nothing to add!
Have every bullet on a slide begin with a verb, or alternatively, have each begin with a noun
Text Usage Guidelines:
Normal text is easier to read than ALL CAPS
Avoid ornate typefaces
Use a clean & readable typeface, e.g. sans serif ones (Arial, Verdana, Helvetica)
Use at least a 24-point size, with the normal text size being 28-32
Be consistent in type size throughout the presentation
Keep text simple and easy to read by not using many different text styles (bold, italics, underline)
different typefaces, different font sizes, varying font colors within a sentence
A Word of Caution on Guidelines:
These guidelines are not ‘Laws of Nature’
For example, if I keep on repeating the same type face and font size and background throughout a long
presentation, I’ll put the audience to sleep
At times, I use a warm background color or a very large (or small!) font size on a slide or two just to
wake the audience up, or to make an important point
Graphics & Images:
Use simple graphics or images in place of text
Example:
Components of an OS diagram (Lesson 11)
It not only listed the components in the form of colored discs, but also gave info visually about their
interactions (through overlaps) and relative importance (through the size of each disc)
Animations & Transitions:
Use simple slide transitions. Too many different transitions are distractive
Animation is especially suitable for displaying:
Steps of a process: Waterfall model
Flow of info in a system: How does IM works?
Graphics and Images examples:
31.2 The Structure of A Presentation:
Title slide
Overview slide
Main body
Slide 1
Slide 2
Slide 3
…
…
Summary slide
Divide long presentations into sections, and have separate title, overview, summary, body slides for
each section
31.3 Presentation Development SW:
One can use a word processor to develop presentations of reasonable quality
However, using a SW package especially designed for developing presentation can:
Speed-up the task
Make available features not available in standard word processors
Presentation development SW lets users:
Choose from a variety of ready-made presentation designs
Create original designs as well as change colors, background, fonts in ready-made designs
Add, delete, move slides within a presentation
Insert graphics & images, or create their own
Presentation development SW lets users:
Import from other applications or create new tables/plots
Create simple animations
Incorporate sound and videos
Add hyperlinks, custom navigational controls
Save work in HTML, PDF, graphics formats
The Best Feature: Undo
Allows you to recover from your mistakes
Allows you to experiment without risk
Popular SW:
Microsoft PowerPoint
CA Harvard Graphics
Lotus Freelance Graphics
Corel Presentation
Let’s now demonstrate the use of the presentation making SW:
We will create a new presentation
Enter text
Add, delete, and move slides
View slide show
Today’s Lesson was the …:
Third among the four lectures that we plan to have on productivity software
We discussed several design guidelines for making effective multimedia presentations
We became able to develop simple presentation with the help of presentation software
Focus of the Final Productivity SW Lecture: Database SW:
To become familiar with the basic functions and features of desktop data management software
To become able to build a small application with the help of database software
Function
identifier
Pair of parenthesis
Function ‘arguments’ separated
by commas
