Do SlideShare reinforces poor presentation design?

Do reinforces poor presentation

design?

a conversation

This conversation took place in

2 months ago

It was between these members of the group Great Communicators!

Effective Presenting & PowerPoint

Steve Hards Geetesh Bajaj Konrad Schroth Don Weatherbee

Ellen Finkelstein Michelle JohnsonGlenn Behenna

Pedro Ricart

Steve Vachss Jessica Pyne

France

India

TexasUSA

NYUSA

DominicanRepublic

CaliforniaUSA

United Kingdom

IowaUSA

VirginiaUSA

It was an international conversation

SlideShare reinforces poor presentation design?

“When SlideShare started I thought it had the potential to be a resource for examples of good presentation design. However, it seems to me that its lack of support for anything other than slide-by-slide shows has undermined the ability of good designers to show off the more interesting graphics capabilities of PowerPoint.”

Does anyone else share my disappointment?

In 2007 I launched my own add-in for PowerPoint, building on my experience as Director of Sales and Operations for Visual Exemplars Ltd, the developer and supplier of Perspector, the 3D add-in for PowerPoint.

“I do think that how people design is not their prerrogative...

“... but the fact that they don't make any improvements in the graphic and animation conversion engines is something that leaves a lot to be desired.

Lots of people get over those limitations by creating slides that are nothing more than flat graphics --

and that's something SlideShare should seriously look into.Have a great day...”

“SlideShare's shortcomings reveal a common prejudice that says PowerPoint presentations are simply documents…”

“I came across another "slide deck" sharing site recently that converts PowerPoint to PDF! Of course, a presentation prepared for an audience without a presenter is different from (to) a presentation designed to support a speaker. Even considering this, SlideShare falls short as a showcase. I have converted presentations to video and uploaded to SlideShare - this obviously supports animations, transitions and audio but there apparently is no way for the viewer to step thru the presentation or use on-screen navigation. Sigh..”

http://www.slideshare.net/pptcrafter/do-you-need-a-powerpoint-specialist

The impact is lost without animations

“I've used Slideshare to share presentations I've given (Presentation Design, Swine Flu) and to host another design for Slideshare (Narration).”

“I've also used to put up a presentation (private link) that I've submitted for consideration for Technical Conferences.

When I put a PPT up on Slideshare, I break down "static" animation events to several slides, and let a series of slide show how I used the "click" events. Granted it would be nice if Slideshare would handle animation events without the extra work from me, but like all things, I work with what is available to me. PLUS - it is FREE!

Also if you want people to see what you have done within a PPT, then allow them to download it and be impressed. :)|”

“Ellen, you are right that SlideShare has more viewers than any other online presentation site ...”

“...that's the reason I would like to put more of my content on SlideShare... but

when I am trying to show how an

animation works, then I just use

PowerPoint 2010's new video output

options and upload to .. The

rest of the time, I use SlideShare.”

“The good/popular presentations on SlideShare are more like storybooks. You would design your slides differently if you were presenting live.”

“@Michelle - nicely put! They should call it StorybookShare and stop reinforcing the notion that this is what presentations should be.

Most of the content there would be communicated better fleshed out as Word documents :-)”

“I have 3 presentations up on Slideshare - two (Presentation Design and Swine Flu) are exactly as I gave them, the third (Presentation Narration) was more designed with Slideshare in mind and has not been presented live.”

“I discovered that difference wasn't as big as I had thought it would be, but there is a difference for sure.

But the same is true for webinars, e-Presentations and so forth, each method or path for getting the information across will bring with it, modification to the fundamental design of it.”

“I agree that presentations given online need to be different from those given in person..”

If there's narration, the difference is less (although there still isn't the opportunity for interaction with the audience). Without narration, the difference is huge, because the slides need to tell the entire story.

Gone are the days when presentations are limited to poster boards you can haul into the conference room, and you've also got more optionsthan the de facto office suite provides. Here's a look six of the most popular presentation creation tools.

Narration

No Narration

“Great points!”

“Excellent discussion and well considered contributions regarding the important differences between conveying information through slides (perhaps in terms of supporting slides providing reference information to a course), as compared to using slides to underpin the speaker who expands on the important points bringing relevance to and interaction with the intended face to face audience. Looking forward to more views : - )”

A few more thoughts:

“1. 99% of the presentations on Slideshare are

awesome examples of what NOT to do in a presentation. 2. I'll referenece the Presentation Design one I have up on Slideshare again (since it is there and you can see it) - when someone sees it on Slideshare, they get maybe 50% of what the seminar is about, the other 50% comes from me as the speaker. But I understood this when I put it up there…”

A few more thoughts:

“One of the points I make when I give this is to encourage people to review the presenation on line in a week or two, and see all the things they missed the first time. For example, the overall flow of it, how transitions were used, how humor was placed, etc. These are all things that most people miss on the first go around. :)

3. I've done several ePresentations (narrated PPT converted to FLV) and those are very different from my live presentations. I have think move like I'm watching TV and how to maintain visual interest as the narration progresses.”

I agree with Don, almost all presentations in Slideshare really suck. To me Slideshare shoul be called slidecumentshare because most of the presentations are that.

“Check the ones that are featured and you see some slide design worth of seeing but as I said most of the other are really bad even for web delivery.”

Don's comments are really on point.

“Design of an on-demand presentation is very different from a live, face-to-face presentation. Our company blog at PresenterNet will have an upcoming series of posts about creating on-demand presentations. FYI, our customers deliver on-demand content using our Showroom feature. For an example, go to http://mompres.presenternet.com. Note that this is an interactive example that collects response data as you view it.”

I guess to fair, I should also mention there are absolute gems on Slideshare, which have given all kinds of interesting ideas for use in presentations I put together for my employees at my plant and for the 1 to 2 external seminars that I do a month. Yeah, I don't do stuff as my only job, but as part of my job. :)

I'm totally with you on this, Steve. SlideShare has been my bugbear for a while now. In fact, SlideShare was the inspiration for an article I wrote a few months ago:

I think the biggest issue is not so much the animation - although this is definitely a problem, particularly as we use animation to engage audiences and explain complicated problems visually and simply. The biggest issue is the lack of narration. SlideShare does allow it but the process is ridiculously painful (yes, I

went through it - and I wish I hadn't!) SlideShare has completely become a platform where audiences don't watch a presentation - they read it.

What really pains me is that presenters use the same slides for their presentations, and then upload them to SlideShare. I'm concerned that this has led to a selection of presenters thinking: 'Hmm, well if I don't write this here, SlideShare viewers won't get what this means when they look at it later... I'll add the text anyway, even though I'll be explaining it at my live presentation.'

So completely agree with you Steve - I'll refer to it as StorybookShare from now on!

“I also have a narrated presentation on SlideShare and I agree that it was painful. I've recently been using and their procedure is so much easier. You can upload MP3 files, use a mic, or even use the phone! I have two presentations there and they are both jarretad.”

I'm narrated about 20 plus presentations, and do it and assemble at home, then convert to FLV or mp4 for uploading or use. I find most on-line "system" for the assemble to be too cumbersome for me. But then I have a bit of the Sound Engineer in me, so I may well be bias :)

I for one upload the same presentation I give live to slideshare for those that attended to review later. I don't "revise" them for Slideshare on purpose. I did do one specifically for Slideshare and did include more slides or words as needed to allow the presentation to be read on line (no me or narration).

“@ Jessica - I think you have highlighted the really insidious problem with SlideShare... something that was lurking in the back of my mind and hadn't put my finger on until you articulated it... "I'm concerned that this has led to a selection of presenters thinking: 'Hmm, well if I don't write this here, SlideShare viewers won't get what this means when they look at it later... "

Thanks!”

Notes for the win.

“ If I want someone to understand the slide without be being there, I add notes :).”

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