TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

by Chris J. Anderson

The generic name for this is revelation. In a talk based on revelation, you might: Show a series of images from a brand-new art project and talk through it Give a demo of a product you’ve invented Describe your vision for a self-sustaining city of the future Show fifty stunning photos from your recent trip through the Amazon jungle

There’s an infinite variety of possible revelation talks, and their success depends on what is being revealed.

A wonder walk is a talk based on the revelation of a succession of images or wonder moments.

If a talk is a journey, then a wonder walk can be thought of as a studio tour with an artist who gives you revealing insights into each artwork.

Assuming the work is strong, the journey can be enjoyable, informative, or inspiring. This talk structure is most often used by artists, designers, photographers, and architects, although anyone with a body of visual work can use it. Including scientists.

Whether it’s business, science, design, or art, don’t just walk people through your work. Figure out the route that engages, intrigues, and enlightens. The route that brings in a little wonder and delight.

Suppose what you’re revealing is not just visual, it’s a technology, an invention, or a brand-new process. Then it’s not enough just to look at it. We need to see it working. We need a demonstration.

To give such a talk, the single thing that matters most, of course, is the quality of whatever it is you’re going to demonstrate. Is it truly a compelling invention or design? Assuming it is, there are numerous ways to unveil it. What you shouldn’t do is spend the first half of the talk giving a complicated context to the technology. Your audience hasn’t yet seen it in action and may switch off.

The structure Han and Pritchard used is good for most demos: An initial tease Necessary background, context, and/or the invention story The demo itself (the more visual and dramatic the better, so long as you’re not faking it) The implications of the technology

Humans have a skill that, so far as we know, no other species possesses. It is so important a skill that we have multiple words to label its different flavors: imagination, invention, innovation, design, vision. It is the ability to pattern the world in our minds and then re-pattern it to create a world that doesn’t actually exist but someday might.

Some of the most powerful speeches in history have been powerful precisely because they communicated a dream with irresistible eloquence and passion.

There are two keys to sharing a dream effectively: Paint a bold picture of the alternative future you desire; Do so in such a way that others will also desire that future.

That’s the power of our dreams. They can spread to others, build excitement and belief, and thereby make themselves come true. By giving us a sense of increased possibility, they also inspire us to work harder on our own dreams. If you’re invited to go on a journey with an inspired dreamer, that’s an invitation you can never refuse.

Here’s the reality. Most talks do not fit neatly into just one of the categories we’ve discussed so far. Rather, they include elements from many of them.

We’re going to look at four key elements of the talk-preparation process that will determine if your talk sings or croaks: Whether or not to include visuals, and if so, what visuals? Whether to script and memorize your talk, or plan to speak “in the moment” How to practice both types of talks And how to open and close for maximum impact

In the twenty-first century we have the ability to supplement the spoken word with a dazzling array of technologies that, done right, may take a talk to a whole new level. Photographs, illustrations, elegant typography, graphs, infographics, animation, video, audio, big data simulations—all can dial up both the explanatory power of a talk and its aesthetic appeal.

Despite this, the first question to ask yourself is whether you actually need any of it. It’s a striking fact that at least a third of TED’s most viewed talks make no use of slides whatsoever.

Now, it is certainly not the case that there is a zero-sum attention tradeoff between screen and speaker. What is being shown onscreen often occupies a different mental category than what is being said. Aesthetic versus analytical, for example.

So what are the key elements to strong visuals? They fall into three categories: Revelation Explanatory power Aesthetic appeal

REVEAL! The most obvious case for visuals is simply to show something that’s hard to describe. Presenting the work of most artists and photographers of course depends on doing this. An explorer revealing a voyage or a scientist unveiling a discovery can also use visuals in this way.

EXPLAIN! A picture is worth a thousand words (even though it takes words to express that concept). Often the best explanations happen when words and images work together. Your mind is an integrated system. Much of our world is imagined visually. If you want to really explain something new, often the simplest, most powerful way is to show and tell.

The key to avoiding this is to limit each slide to a single core idea.

your goal is one key idea per slide, then it makes sense to consider whether anything more can be done with a slide to highlight the point it is trying to make.

DELIGHT! An often overlooked contribution of visuals is their ability to give a talk immense aesthetic appeal.

These are some core principles. But with visuals, the devil is in the details. To take us a little deeper, let me invite back to the page Tom Rielly, a man for whom bad visuals are a source of physical pain. Tom, over to you!

Font size Tiny type causes the audience to struggle to read it. Use 24 points or larger in most cases. Use at most three sizes of your chosen typeface per presentation, and there should be a reason for each size. Large size is for titles/headlines; medium size is for your main ideas; small size is for supporting ideas.

Font background The background on which your text is displayed can mean the difference between legible and impossible. If you’re going to place type over a photo, make sure you place it where your audience can read it. If a photo is too busy to put type on directly, add a small black bar at the bottom and put the type on it.

Font color Here the operative words are simple and contrast. Black on white, a dark color on white, and white or yellow on black all look good because they have great contrast and are easy to read. Use only one color of font per presentation unless you want to show emphasis or surprise. Never use light-color type on a light-color background or dark-color type on a da...

LEGIBILITY After you make your font and color choices, look at your presentation on your computer or—way better—on your TV or a projector, and stand back 6 to 12 feet. Can you read everything? Do the photos lo...

WHAT NOT TO DO Bullets belong in The Godfather. Avoid them at all costs. Dashes belong at the Olympics, not at the beginning of text. Resist underlining and italics—they’re too hard to read. Bold typefaces are OK. Drop shadows can occasionally be useful to improve legibility, especially for type on top of photos, but use the effect sparingly. Don’t use multiple type effects in the same line. It just looks terrible.

EXPLANATIONS AND DIAGRAMS Use builds—add words and images to a slide through a series of clicks—to focus people’s attention on one idea at a time. Give your audience enough time to absorb each step. Don’t feed too much of the slide at a time or people will get overwhelmed.

PHOTO CREDITS In the scientific community it’s especially important to credit each photo on every slide. But it’s better to avoid large type, because those citations wil...

PICTURES OF YOU AND YOUR TEAM It’s great to include a photo of you in your working environment: lab, bush, Large Hadron Collider. But resist including more than one unless there is a reason. Ben Saunders told us how he journeyed to the North and South

Videos can be amazing tools to demonstrate your work and ideas. However, you should rarely show clips longer than 30 seconds.

You can embed a video in your presentation, but remember to check with the A/V team to be sure it’s definitely working before you go on

TRANSITIONS Many presenters sink in the dreaded quicksand of excessive transitions.

Rule of thumb: Avoid nearly all of them.

There are two transitions I do like: none (an instant cut, like in film editing) and dissolve.

If there is no reason for a transition, don’t use one. In summary, your transition should never call attention to itself.

TRANSPORTING FILES Send your presentation to your hosts, and bring a USB stick with your complete presentation and your videos separate from your presentation. Also include the fonts used in the presentation.

RIGHTS Make sure you have a legal license to use the photos, videos, music, and any special fonts, or that they are in the Creative Commons or outright free to use.

There are two kinds of testing: human and technical.

First, for human testing, I recommend that you test your presentation—especially your slides—on family or friends who are not in your field. Ask them afterwards what they understood, what they didn’t, and what further questions they have. Testing is extremely important, especially on very technical or abstruse subjects. Edit according to their feedback and test again. The harder the talk the more you should test.

Equally important is technic...

WORKING WITH DESIGNERS Most people can learn to make good slides, but if the stakes are high and budget permits, by all means enlist the help of a presentation graphics designer.

Four more important points: Even if you have a corporate graphics department to do the work, you should be involved from the beginning. Be proactive. Don’t just review the finished video; make sure you are present and participating. Most designers are great at what they do, but they’re helping you express yourself, so it just makes sense to be involved.

If you are uncomfortable with someone else’s slide recommendations, trust your instincts. It’s you up there on stage, after all.

We work with a lot of designers remotely, using Skype, email, and Dropbox, and it works well. There is no reason ...

Help doesn’t need to be expensive. For presentation graphics, I like to work with small design shops of just one to about fifteen people because I get to work more with the principals. There is also a steady supply of recent art and design school graduates from places like RISD, Art Center College of Design,...

VERSION CONTROL Use version control religiously, and a tool like Dropbox to store all your drafts as well as your fonts, photos, videos, and sound. It’s always a good idea to name files with the version number, your ...