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One of the things that I enjoyed very much since college is creating presentations. The aspect of conveying an effective narrative through a presentation is my muse. I use a lot of motion and transition which adds the awe factor to any story that I am planning to convey, be it a case study or research outcomes. You can find a gallery of some of such animated slides at the very end of this page.
I had given a learning and development session on How to create a kickass presentation at Razorpay The following are the notes that I have scribbled down for the session.
Agenda
✹ How to build an effective Narrative for a kickass Presentation?
✹ Attributes of an effective Narrative
✹ How to make it Kickass?
Opening Note
The first big question that you have to ask yourself before creating any presentation is
Can this be a document/video/article instead?
Because a presentation is a powerful tool to create a narrative and put a hook to teach, sell, or to communicate literally anything. So if your objective of the presentation is not any of these or in other words if you do not feel the need for you to handhold/impress your audience through the content you are trying to offer, then the presentation may not be what you are looking for.
How to build a Narrative for a Presentation?
Drama Structure
A Presentation is as effective as the narration it carries. If you can recognize this graph, it is a basic structure followed in playwriting. This is called the Drama structure.
Let's see them one by one in the context of a Product Pitch.
1. Exposition
Unpack
Here is where you introduce the plot, which is your base for the presentation. In some cases a very small introduction of your Protagonist
● What's all this drama for
● Quickly but firmly - This establishes the mapping of the presentation throughout.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ A brief intro of yourself or the topic itself
☉ Create a rough map of what you have to offer further
☉ List out the contents/agenda
2. Trigger
The Purpose
Here you can elaborate about an event ( or a series of events), that led to the need for this product or topic that you are going to present on.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ A design brief or a Problem statement
☉ Offer something for the audience to quickly relate to.
☉ Use initial inferences of data or an event that led to this topic.
3. Rising Action
The Build-up
This is where the actual presentation starts, where you start to explain the initial actions taken to understand the problem.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ Initial research/study to understand the problem
☉ Data that supports the trigger points, basically problem statements
☉ User interviews / Testimonials which let the audience empathize with.
4. Climax
The Main sequence
This is the main sequence of actions and decisions that's going to strongly influence what's coming next. Basically in a product pitch here is where you will present your seed for your solutions.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ Define your persona and map their journey.
☉ Point out their identified needs
5. Falling Action
The outcome
The product reveal - the ways your solution/product could solve the problems identified above.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
☉ Map the Needs <> Features
☉ Reveal and explain how your product could solve all those pain points mentioned in the journey above
☉ You can show off your designs, prototypes or the product
6. Resolution
The closure
Here you can present the further plan of action or in cases of product pitch you can end it with a call to action for the audiences, like your contact details or product link.
The topics that can be covered in this phase.
- Summary of what happened so far.
- What's gonna happen next
- Failure iterations or Bloopers
- A call to action.
Story Curve
Now ignore the curve that I have sketched above, that is the basic structure of a drama. Now it's your narrative so let's see how we can bend the curve.
Sometimes it's the emotion/feeling of the narrative stays longer than the narrative itself. The Highs and Lows can keep the audience on their Toes.
These are the various ways one can narrate the emotions of the story. Here are some of the story shapes defined by Kurt Vonnegut.
Attributes of an effective narrative
Audience
● Who are they?
● What do they care about?
● What do they already know?
● What do I want them to leave with?
Core Message
● List down the core messages to offer.
● Break them into those phases as mentioned above.
● Place them where and how you want to stitch a seamless narrative.
Language
● Change your language relevant to the audience
● Talk metrics to Business folks, Talk feasibility with real examples to tech folks, Talk user journey to the design folks.
● You can mix and match these the other way round as well. But it all boils down to your objective.
● If it's a talk for students then cover the bigger picture in any case.
Perspective
● The user is your hero of the story.
● If you are presenting to the internal office audience, make them feel the user.
● If you are presenting to your user, then make sure they can relate to this.
● Talk always from their perspective
● Avoid cliched anecdotes.
Clarity
● Be very specific, don't beat around the bush.
● Combine words and Images, Talk numbers in graphs than tables.
● Use real examples in different cases
● Use pointers - try to avoid being too verbose.
How to make it Kickass
Copywriting
● Maintain Consistent tone
● Use simple/relevant terms
● Avoid big chunks of text; Add subtitles
● Avoid too many numbers in one slide
● One at a time
Visual Metaphors
● As and when your content and story is ready start collecting visual metaphors
● Use online resources like Unsplash, pexels, etc to source high-quality images
● Freepik, Blush.design, open peeps, etc for free high-quality illustrations.
● Be consistent with what kinda visual metaphors you want to use. For this create a mood board first to decide the visual tone of your presentation.
Layouts
● Decide the aspect ratio.
● Less is more
● Rule of third
Engagement
● Keep the audience's attention always in check
● One way is to keep your presentation interactive
● There are situations where you might end up getting very little participation from the crowd, in those cases use visual aids as follow
☉ Emphasize the point you are talking about, play with size/color/contrast
☉ Motion
"Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion.. unless it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed on it " - Newton
If you want to move your audience with the presentation one way is to move things in your presentation itself.
☉ Add some AHA moments.
Delivery
● A strong opening = A strong hook
● Make it personal
● Avoid speeding up - don't say more than what the audience can consume.
● Stop, Break and Summarise in between
● Expect Feedback - Active and Passive
● Rehearse once before presenting.
References
Gallery
(✹ Heavy GIFs ahead, might take some time to load )
