Online Presentations Require Great Design
Photo by Element5 Digital from Pexels
By Scott J. Allen & Maria Soriano Young
“A designer knows he or she has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
—Nolan Haims, designer
Our use of the word “design” in the title of our book Captovation: Online Presentations by Design is an intentional choice because of its complex nature and its mental and physical components. Architects design buildings. Scientists design experiments. Computer scientists designed the computer, phone, or tablet you are using to read this post. Thus, we view the topic of delivering engaging online presentations, in part, as a design challenge. Why?
You design the structure and central message of your talk.
You design your slide deck.
You design a masterful delivery.
You design your setting and space.
You design your plan for growth and development.
It’s not a stretch to imagine that each of you reading this post would say that you have viewed an ineffective online presentation in recent months. The question is, why was it boring, demotivating, or ineffective? While we cannot answer for every poor presenter you saw, we would assert that there was a design challenge somewhere in that presenter’s process.
In our work with clients, we will consistently return to this notion of design—both in terms of the mental exercise it requires and its active, hands-on connotations. What we mean by that is, design requires intentionality, a plan, forethought, and a purpose or desired end-state. It also requires time, emotions, tools, an eraser (or the “delete” button), investment, and persistence. Great design requires creativity and nudges the world forward. And for you, that means activity, practice, and engagement.
Design is also a process that takes time and investment, and involves some kind of tactile element—whether that means physically sketching out the details of a Prezi before putting together the presentation or moving graphical elements around a computer screen. It could even mean moving furniture! For instance, open up your Microsoft Teams, Zoom, GoogleMeet, or other online meeting platform, and look around at everything except yourself. What’s in that background...maybe that you didn’t realize before? This type of reactionary approach is exactly what we are hoping for you to gain from our work, and represents the intentional process that we want you to undertake as you become a more conscious designer of your presentations (or your participation as an audience member).
Ultimately, we are excited to help you design online presentations that cause people to say:
She was incredible!
She was so well-prepared!
That slide deck was awesome!
I need to tell others about them!
He was really good.
I am so happy I attended. They were great.
That person is going places. Wow!
I want to contact that person afterward and tell them how meaningful that talk was.
We look forward to how you think about the word design. When you think of your own pre-presentation process, which elements of your presentation require the most design time? What design elements do you focus on that others may miss? We can’t wait to learn with you!
We explore this topic and others in our new book Captovation: Online Presentations by Design.