Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations (Voices That Matter)

by Garr Reynolds

Most live slideware presentations today still contain a lot of text. However, according to Dr. John Medina, author of the best-selling Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School (Pear Press, 2008), this is inefficient since our brains are not as good at identifying letters and words as identifying and remembering pictures. Says Medina, “Professionals everywhere need to know about the incredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredible effects of images.” Dr. Medina says that all professionals should “burn their current PowerPoint presentations” and instead create slides that take advantage of our incredible ability to understand images. Each presentation case is different; however, evidence shows that we should strongly consider the use of images in the design of presentation visuals.