Presentation slides on apple

Presenting Design Work

Ideas can live or die by their presentation. Learn indispensable and proven techniques for presenting your design work to better communicate your objectives and receive helpful, valuable and constructive feedback.

Resources

Related Videos

WWDC 2018

Thanks, Mike. Hello everyone.

Design is hard but design presentations are way harder. I still find them daunting.

And today, a presentation about how to present design work at WWDC.

The struggle is real.

In any presentation, we have to take this big and complex topic and explain it precisely. Take it right down to its nucleus. And if we don’t do that well, those ideas might die.

All that hard work you did resigned to the depths of your hard drive.

Presentation matters. As a designer at Apple, I have to present design work all the time.

Unfortunately, this year I can’t show you too much of that, but I’m going to try and transmit to you the ten most important things I’ve learned about presenting design work in the next nine minutes or so. It’s going to be punchy.

Now when you really think about it, there are three fundamental parts to a presentation. There is me, the presenter, the emotional designer consumed by this problem and the prettiness of it. And there is you, the audience, detectives of design crime, guardians of good sense, Draculas of deadlines, and captains of code.

And between us, there is this central idea.

The thing we need to agree is good for our company, good for our customers, something that makes the world a slightly better place. Let’s call it a toaster.

And really a presentation is just a mechanism to exchange information about that idea, to facilitate decisions and action one way or another, to make this thing fly or crash right back down to Earth.

So dear presenter, these are the key things you need to understand.

What are your objectives for this presentation? Clarify your objectives.

Are you trying to get this work approved by your superiors or successfully communicate with engineers? Maybe you’re pitching a new idea.

Try to imagine what succeeding looks like and work backwards from there. Identify the questions you need your audience to help you answer.

State these and your goals up front.

And understand the objectives of your audience. What do they care about? Remember, your objectives include addressing theirs.

Try not to dive in to details and minutia before you clarify the bigger picture.

Next is a big one: feedback. As designers, we feel vulnerable and exposed, painting our finest pictures and teeing them up to be torn to shreds.

Try to entertain the mindset that there is no failure, only feedback.

Take all of it seriously even when you disagree. If you are presenting, you are asking for feedback. It’s the whole point and clarify the problems the audience identify. Sometimes people offer solutions that are unworkable, but the problem they are addressing is totally valid.

So when you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this, you really haven’t.

People in your audience will know things you don’t. So be willing to change your position, especially when new information has been presented.

Don’t pretend to understand unclear feedback.

Clarify the problem this person is trying to address. Don’t respond like that. And don’t be dismissive or get overly defensive. It really won’t help your case.

Seek advice. Use the wisdom of your colleagues.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. They know how this works. Their input is priceless. Practice with them. Sense check your deck. Do a full practice run if it merits it. Do not deliver it blind. The feedback will make a huge difference. And honestly, don’t try to do everything yourself. Teamwork makes the dream work plus it’s really hard to keep track of too many disparate things as one person, let alone try and explain them to others in a single presentation.

Use your own voice. Be genuine.

Have fun. Make terrible jokes. Quote Bruce Lee. You wouldn’t be giving this presentation at all if you didn’t have the credibility. You’ve earned it. Express your opinion. You are the expert here. The audience wants to know what you think and that doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers.

Show your passion. Why do you care about this? And explain your process. Show the journey you’ve been on. How and why did you reach these conclusions? Don’t be overconfident or insincere. Sometimes designers can adopt a posture of being super confident, bordering on arrogant and avoid that. It’s just not cool. And don’t say what you think people want to hear. Your vote counts for a lot.

It’s not a presentation without an audience. Make sure you show them that respect. You need their cooperation to give life to your ideas. And if you’ve presented to this audience before, you’ll get — start to get an idea of what they respond to.

Tailor to them as much as you can and always have an agenda. Here’s what we’re going to talk about in this order.

This is also your chance to assert the point at which you’d like to field feedback. It almost certainly won’t work that way but still do try.

And if you’ve met previously, recap what happened. Like when you’re engrossed in a series but then life happens and when you pick it up again, you really grateful for that 30 second refresher.

Hey, Zach. Here’s a study of the character that you asked for.

Good feedback. I’m not sure about those emoji either. Integrate their feedback. Let them know how it affected your designs.

Show that you’re listening and responding.

Make no assumptions, you know — people know what things mean or why decisions were made. You are much further along this path than your audience. Anticipate their questions. Pay attention to their reactions. And be willing to explain.

Do not show up without a plan or try to wing it. It’s not a good look. And also showing your working files, not good. These things are lazy and disrespectful of people’s time. And, of course, don’t be dismissive of — again, don’t be dismissive of anyone’s input.

Try to be patient and objective.

Make it relatable to your audience. If not, they may well start to tune out. Let people see themselves in your story. If you can elicit an emotional response, excitement, worry, or even fear, it will enhance their sense of commitment. Ellis goes crazy for that elderberry jam. Use what you know about your audience to your advantage.

Describe what you see and feel.

Don’t talk about users like they are a distant third party. Flow diagrams can be really useful with engineers but when communicating concepts, there’s a big disconnect. Instead, speak in the first person.

Here I am at my desk working on my e-mail and ding, a handy reminder it’s time for breakfast. I hit the notification and bam, straightaway I can load my toast without even stepping away from my desk. Just one swipe down and we’re toasting.

And a few minutes later I know to be on my way, perfect timing.

And how cool is that? I can even see my stats. Clearly, this is more powerful if you can demo a prototype.

And engage in dialogue. A presentation should be a dialogue. Engage with your audience. Design for the aha moment. If you can lead people through your story, their minds will try and predict the ending. This will keep them engaged.

Ask them questions. Keep them dialed in. You’re here for their feedback after all.

Do not deliver a monologue.

This is boring and naive. Think of it as a discussion more than a speech. And finally, the idea. It is crucial to explain why.

Define each problem in a single sentence. It’s a great exercise to really get to the heart of the matter.

You’ll need to find agreement on those problem statements with your audience. Otherwise, you’ll be barking up the wrong tree. Continue to revisit, refine, and refer back to those statements as you progress and, of course, where you can, show evidence that these problems exist.

Boom. Cold, burnt toast. Tragic problems in this world.

Avoid using subjective reasoning for your decisions. I chose this color because I like it is not remotely persuasive, especially if your audience don’t share your preferences. And the truth is that people really won’t remember your slides. They’ll remember how your story made them feel if it resonated with them so sketch out the narrative of your presentation early. The most successful designers I know do this. It’s another thing that will help you focus and use your time effectively.

So where you can, incorporate a story with a distinct beginning, middle, and an end. People intuitively get stories.

And it’ll really help them follow along.

Contrast today’s reality with a better future. Nancy Duarte, a master of presentations, discovered in her research that some of the greatest and most effective presentations follow this structure. And the key thing here is providing the contrast between what is today’s reality and what could be, what the future could look like if we make the ideas we’re presenting our new reality.

Today, people are frustrated, cold, joyless toast. It’s an epidemic. But imagine happy, flawless toast at the top of the button on your iPhone.

But don’t get too carried away.

That is a rookie mistake.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

I love this quote. And I always find myself coming back to it.

It’s such a perfect expression. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter. Relevant not only for presentations and writing e-mails but as a philosophy toward design.

Don’t overload people with too much information. Strip away everything that isn’t essential to your mission or your message.

And finally, don’t forget to summarize.

Know your objectives, otherwise what’s the point? Embrace feedback. It’s what you’re here for.

Seek advice. Your colleagues are smart. And use your own voice. It’s the best one you have. Respect your audience or they won’t respect you. Make it relatable, otherwise they’ll forget it.

Engage in dialogue to keep them present and explain why. It’s the million dollar question.

Utilize storytelling because it works. And keep it simple even though it’s not. Good luck with your presentations. [ Applause ]

Looking for something specific? Enter a topic above and jump straight to the good stuff.

An error occurred when submitting your query. Please check your Internet connection and try again.

Источник

Iconic Slides: 7 rules Apple’s slide decks teach us about creating insanely great presentations

Slides, the unsung hero of Apple keynotes

We hear presentation experts talk quite a bit about the story, structure, and speakers’ performances of Apple keynote events, but we rarely hear about the slide decks that support these reality-distorting presentations.

What makes an Apple presentation insanely great is not just the amazing products, the well-structured story, and the performances rehearsed with so much discipline, but also the beautiful, simple, and, dare I say, iconic slides.

I’m here to tell you more about the unsung hero of Apple presentations, the iconic slides. Why is this important?

Because these slides are the final piece of the puzzle to create insanely great presentations like Steve Jobs and Apple.

Tearing down the original iPhone presentation deck

Heralded by some as one of if not the best presentation of the century, the presentation that introduced us to the phone that changed the world is packed with lessons to help us revolutionize our presentations.

I’ve decided to do a tear down of these presentation slides. I rewatched the presentation many times paying close attention to the slides.

What I’ve discovered are seven golden rules that will one-up your slides and make your presentations more engaging and persuasive. These rules are timeless and very much still in play in presentations Apple makes today if you look for it.

These seven rules will help you accomplish three things:

1. Make your slides look great.
2. Make your presentations easier to understand.
3. Make your presentations more engaging.

Ok, let’s get to it. Rule number one.

Rule 1: Use colors with intent, use colors with consistency.

Before showing us the iPhone and all its glory, in the beginning of the presentation Steve Jobs first gives us some context about the current smartphone category (devices with plastic little keyboards that could access the baby Internet) at the time.

The problem is that the [smart phones on the market] aren’t so smart and they’re not so easy to use.

To illustrate the point he showed us a business 101 graph with a smart axis and easy to use axis. Here’s what the slide looks like:

The Cell Phones category are represented by a red circle. While specific smartphones like Moto Q, E62, and Treo are presented by blue circles. The leapfrog product iPhone is represented by a green circle.

This is where we introduce the first rule: use color with intent.

Each color has a purpose. In this slide, blue is for smartphones, red is for the cell phones category, and green is for iPhone.

Next, let’s talk about the second part of the first rule.

Notice the iPhone is a green circle. Hmm… how come?

Well, it turns out if we rewind back when Jobs talks about the iPhone as a iPod, Phone, and Internet communicator, notice the color the phone icon. It’s green.

In this slide it has associated green with phone in the minds of audience. To leverage this understanding, I suspect the slide designers at Apple decided to represent the iPhone as a green circle.

And hence, the second part of the rule: use color with consistency.

To recap, the colors you use should have a specific purpose. And if you do use the color, make sure it’s consistent throughout the entire presentation.

(Fun exercise. Now is the time to take out your iPhone and check what color the Phone icon is. Talk about consistency!)

Rule 2: Animate things in when you talk about them

In 1984 we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple. It changed the whole computer industry.

Notice how the elements in the slides are faded in as Jobs mentions them.

“In 1984…” The 1984 text fades in on the slide.

“We introduced the Macintosh…” The Macintosh image fades in.

He could have easily not used animation, but that would be like a spoiler for what you are about to say. Your slide deck should support you not undermine you!

So the rule we learn here is animate things into your slide when you talk about them.

We see the same applied when Jobs continues to talk about the iPod.

“In 2001…” The 2001 text fades in.

“We introduced the first iPod…” The iPod image fades in.

You can also apply this rule to a list of bullet points. Instead of showing a list all at once, animate them in one by one as you talk about them. It keeps you audience focused on what you’re talking about at the moment.

Rule 3: Drop the bullets.

When we create a list in word-processing or presentation apps, the list by default comes with bullets. Thus, we’re kind of trained to employ bullets for lists.

However, when looking at the Apple’s slides we rarely see bullets in lists.

Here’s the slide which Jobs uses to summarize the marquee features of the iPod functionality of the iPhone.

That’s right. No bullets.

Instead of using bullets to guide the viewer’s attention to each point, Apple employs spacing between each line item. This spacing gives the items room to breath allowing the viewer to easily identify each item.

Rule #3: when it comes to lists, drop the bullets and use ample spacing between each item.

Drop the bullets in those bullet points. You get the point.

Rule 4: Make it symmetrical.

Symmetry is a fundamental concept when it comes to layout and design. Apple nails this one down as well.

Here are two examples from Apple’s presentation deck. Not only do they demonstrate the idea of symmetry, but they also show Apple’s attention to detail.

The first example is from a graph I mentioned in rule 1 (near the beginning of the iPhone presentation). Pay attention to the horizontal axis labels, “hard to use” and “easy to use.” Notice how they are both broken down into three lines. (It also happens that each line contains the exact same character count!) The left label (hard to use) are right-justified while the right label (easy to use) is left-justified to create symmetry.

The second example of symmetry is in the slide where Jobs talks about what kind of contents and data are synced with iTunes and the iPhone. On the slide are two lists: one list for the media contents and another list for data types such as contacts and calendars. The lists are placed side by side. Notice how the right list has a similar bell shape as the left list. Isn’t that neat?

So the lesson here is to always be on the lookout for opportunities to create symmetry on your slides.

Rule 5: Make a Mad Lib and use it twice!

I want to take a quick detour and show you the first two verses of Imagine by John Lennon, a hero of Steve Jobs.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

See the similarities of the lyrical structure (the bolded parts) between the two verses.

Let’s look at the lead-in to the iPhone introduction again.

In 1984 we introduced the Macintosh. It didn’t just change Apple. It changed the whole computer industry.

In 2001 we introduced the first iPod. It didn’t just change the way we all listen to music. It changed the entire music industry.

I think you know where I’m going with this.

The trick here is to take a part of your presentation as if they were a stanza in a song. Take that stanza, make it into a Mad Lib, and use it with different contents.

The repeat of the structure creates a rhythm and, more importantly, creates familiarity among the audience, which ultimately brings them closer to what you have to say.

So a recap: Make a Mad Lib and use it twice!

Rule 6: Bring your audience into the presentation.

After Steve Jobs announces that Apple was dropping the Computer from its name, he talks about the revolutionary products Apple has made, Mac in 1984 followed with iPod in 2001, and how they changed everything. To wrap things up he speaks of the iPhone:

We’re going to do it again with the iPhone in 2007. We’re very excited about this.

Spanning these two short sentences, three slides were shown.

1. A slide with the iPhone showing the lock screen.
2. A slide with the iPhone showing the home screen.
3. The same slide above with a hand holding it.

They could’ve shown us just one slide of the iPhone, but instead they showed us this series of three slides. The one I’d like to bring your attention to is the third one with the hand holding the iPhone.

Similar to how movies put us in the shoes of the protagonist, this slide is helping the audience imagine holding the iPhone. Great films invite us to be in the story and this concept can also be applied to presentations to help us connect with them.

Connect with your audience by bringing them into the presentation. If your presentation was a film, we have to transform the audience into the hero in the story.

And finally, rule number seven.

Rule 7: There are actually 19 more rules.

I have a confession to make. I started out saying 7 rules, but there are actually 19 more rules bringing the total to 25 rules.

Since cramming all these rules here would make this post extremely long, I’m compiling all these rules into a book called Iconic Slides. The book is still very much a work in progress, but it’s coming along bit by bit.

If you’d like to find out about the remaining 19 rules, and get a free beautiful PDF of this article, be sure to sign up to get updates for the book here.

You’ll be the first to know when the book will be ready.

The idea of this book has been brewing for quite some years now. As a business consultant making countless slide decks for the past two decades, presentations from Apple has taught me the foundation of crafting presentations. I’m excited to codify them into timeless rules to share with you.

If you love all things Apple and you want to give persuasive presentations, I think you’re going to find this book fun and helpful. Make sure you sign up for updates here.

Thanks for reading.

One Last Thing…

It’s about what we can learn from Disney movies to create truly captivating and (dare I say) magical presentations. If you are a presentation Jedi in training and a fan of Disney and Pixar movies, this fun little ebook is made for you.

With references to tons of Disney and Pixar movies, this little ebook introduces you to a simple framework inspired by Disney storytellers that helps you create an engaging presentation your audience cares about. You can find it here.

Источник