Handout from workshops on Presentation Design at BOHS Conference 2013 and OHSI Conference 2014

1. Presentation Design Workshop
Mike Slater, Diamond Environmental Ltd.
Hewitt House, Winstanley Road, Orrell, Wigan WN5 7XA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 1942 324977
e mail: wigan@diamondenv.co.uk
web: www.diamondenv.co.uk

2. Presentation design tips
Diamond Environmental Ltd.
Introduction
Occupational hygienists have to deliver presentations for a number of different situations including:

Presenting results, conclusions and recommendations from surveys to management and
workers

Talks on occupational hygiene to various types of audience

“Toolbox talks”

Delivering talks at BOHS meetings

Presenting papers at conferences

Conference Keynote lectures

Educational talks and lectures
The format of the presentation should be adapted to the type of situation. What’s appropriate for a
meeting where results are presented to management or Safety Representatives is unlikely to be the
same as if you were presenting the same results as a paper at a conference of your peers
Pay attention to presentations – how they are designed and delivered is important if you want to
make a good impression. It’s worth putting some effort into presentation design.
Your
slides
What
you say
Your
presence
and delivery
Your
handout
Total
presentation
experience
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Audience
interaction

3. Presentation design tips
Diamond Environmental Ltd.
Common problems with presentations

Unclear objective

Too much content for time available

Text heavy slides
o
Too many words that distract from what the speaker is saying
o
Unappealing and uninteresting to look at
o
Lack of visuals

Use of poor quality, clichéd clip art

Badly designed charts and graphics

Lack of audience interaction and engagement

Reading directly from slides

Poor verbal delivery
Preparing and designing a presentation
Never prepare and deliver a presentation that you wouldn’t want to sit through yourself!
Features of good presentations include:

Clear objective

Well structured

An appropriate amount of content for time available

Content pitched at the right level for the audience)

Good materials - including well designed slides and handouts

Clear, interesting delivery

Rehearsed
Allocate adequate time for preparing the presentation.
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4. Presentation design tips
Diamond Environmental Ltd.
When planning your presentation, make sure you know about:

your audience

your material

yourself – i.e. your strengths and weaknesses

your objective
It’s important to have a clear objective – what you want to achieve. Identify the key points, but
don’t try to be too ambitious there is only so much that your audience can absorb and retain in the
time you have available.
Prepare handouts that they can take away with them or materials that they can access later (e.g. by
e-mail or by downloading from the Internet).
The key steps in preparing to deliver a presentation are as follows:
1. Define your objective – what you can realistically achieve in the time available. When doing
this take into account
a. The audience – makeup, prior knowledge, what they want or need from you
b. The time available
2. Design your content – prepare an outline . It’s usually best to avoid using Powerpoint (or
other presentation software) to do this. Use a pen and paper to sketch out your ideas and
then tidy them up and rearrange them if necessary.
3. Design your materials – prepare good quality slides and handouts. Think about their content
and how they should look before you start typing
4. Practice and rehearse and then deliver
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5. Presentation design tips
Diamond Environmental Ltd.
Designing materials
The materials you use for the presentation are important. Good visual aids, such as slides, should
enhance what you are saying. Well designed handouts for your audience to take away can reinforce
what you have said and help you to achieve your objectives.
It isn’t always necessary to use slides. Think about whether an alternative approach would be more
appropriate.
Slides, if used, should support what you have to say – they are NOT the presentation. Good slides
are usually meaningless on their own without the presenter.
Good slides don’t make good handouts. Slides designed for use as handouts are too wordy and don’t
make good visual aids. They distract from what the presenter is saying.
Think carefully about the design of your materials and devote adequate time to their preparation.
Too often sides are NOT designed with the audience in mind. They are often used as

An outline of the presentation rather than visual aids

A script or teleprompter for the presenter
Both of these are poor practice that should be avoided.
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6. Presentation design tips
Diamond Environmental Ltd.
Slide design

Slides are visual aids – they are NOT the presentation, but should support what YOU have to
SAY

Good slides DO NOT make good handouts

Avoid using standard Powerpoint templates if you can. They drive you into creating text
heavy slides with lists of bullet points

Slides should be like headlines containing the key point, not the whole story

Make your slides as visual as possible – use images and diagrams to support your point
rather than words

Use high quality graphics – avoid clichéd clip art and low resolution photos

Minimise the word count on your slides – keep them short and snappy and to the point.
Avoid the dreaded “slideument”

Try to aim for one idea per slide.

If you really need to present lists try to use alternative approaches to bulleted lists to make
them more visually appealing and interesting
Remember, with presentation software, slides are free so you can have as many as you need or
want. If you find you have too many for the time you have available that probably suggests that you
are trying to cover too much.
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7. Presentation design tips
Diamond Environmental Ltd.
Handouts
It’s useful to provide handouts

They allow you to cut down on the amount of material you cover in your presentation
and so not commit information overload

Audience members will have a concrete reminder making your presentation more
memorable.
It’s become standard practice for presenters to distribute copies of their slides as handouts.
However, well designed slides don’t make good handouts. If your slides are bullet-point slides (not
recommended) then they will often be cut-down sentences which will no longer make sense to the
reader a week later. And if they are visual slides (recommended) then they’re also unlikely to make
sense without additional text. For handouts try to prepare a written document which highlights and
expands on your content.
If you do want to provide copies of Powerpoint slides, one of the easiest ways of creating a handout
is to type the text of the handout in the “Notes” pane of the PowerPoint edit screen. Then print your
slides as “Notes”. You’ll have an effective handout.
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8. Presentation design tips
Diamond Environmental Ltd.
Further Reading
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery – Garr Reynolds
slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations - Nancy Duarte
The Non-Designer's Presentation Book – Robin Williams
Useful Websites
Presentation Zen http://www.presentationzen.com/
Duarte http://www.duarte.com/training/tools/
Contact Details
mike@diamondenv.co.uk
http://www.slideshare.net/mikeslater
http://diamondenv.wordpress.com
Twitter @diamondenv
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