University of Illinois at Chicago

Giving Presentations the EVL way

Jason LeighElectronic Visualization Laboratory

University of Illinois at Chicago

“Jason you maybe a good programmer but it don’t meanbeans if you can’t tell a good story!” - Tom Moher

University of Illinois at Chicago

The Introduction

• TELL A GOOD STORY!

• Rehearse an opening.

• Know your audience. Give them a copy of your slides.

• What is the motivating problem?

• Why is it important?

• Sound enthusiastic.

• Everyone wants to hear a good presentation- the only one who can screw it up is you. Ever gone to a movie that you wanted to suck?

• No outline slide please- everyone knows you are going to give an intro, a middle and a conclusion.

• Stay on time! Rehearse! Stay on time! Rehearse!

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The Content

• Speak slowly, boldly and clearly.

• Choose good visible fonts, sizes and colors.

• Dark backgrounds, light text, consistent color scheme.

• Use slides as notes, not a book. Don’t read your slides.

• If you put up a formula you better explain it so that your audience understands. Pages of formulae will lose people.

• Interact with your audience.

• Look at your audience, all of them. Not just one person or the floor, or the screen.

• Define your acronyms if audience does not know them.

• Test your slides on the projector- Stand where the audience are & see what they see.

White background, Black Text- Agh!Tolerable if you have only Overhead Transparencies.

• Dark backgrounds, light text.

• Choose good visible fonts, sizes and colors.

• You’re from a graphics lab, you better have pictures!

Step back

• This is 40pt font• This is 32pt font• This is 24pt font - This is the limit• This is 18pt font• This is 14pt font• This is 12pt font• This is 10pt font

Dark Background Example

• Dark backgrounds, light text.

• Choose good visible fonts, sizes and colors.

• You’re from a graphics lab, you better have pictures!

• This is 40pt font• This is 32pt font• This is 24pt font - This is the limit• This is 18pt font• This is 14pt font• This is 12pt font• This is 10pt font Step back

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Another Dark Background Example

• Dark backgrounds, light text.

• Choose good visible fonts, sizes and colors.

• You’re from a graphics lab, you better have pictures!

• This is 40pt font• This is 32pt font• This is 24pt font - This is the limit• This is 18pt font• This is 14pt font• This is 12pt font• This is 10pt font

Step back

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Choose a good font size

• This is 40pt font• This is 32pt font• This is 24pt font - This is the limit• This is 18pt font• This is 14pt font• This is 12pt font• This is 10pt font

Step back

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Choose colors that’s easy to read

• This is text - good!

• This is text - good!

• This is text - good!

• This is text - agh!!!!!!!

• This is text - no!!!!

• This is text - good!

• This is text - borderline

Step back

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Alternate colors if you have lots of bullets (optional)

• Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah• TELL A GOOD STORY!• Rehearse an opening.• What is the motivating problem?• Why is it important?• Sound enthusiastic.• No outline slide please- everyone knows you are going to

give an intro, a middle and a conclusion.• Stay on time! Stay on time! Stay on time! Stay on time!• No outline slide please- everyone knows you are going to

give an intro, a middle and a conclusion.

University of Illinois at Chicago

Compare to all white text

• Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah• TELL A GOOD STORY!• Rehearse an opening.• What is the motivating problem?• Why is it important?• Sound enthusiastic.• No outline slide please- everyone knows you are going to

give an intro, a middle and a conclusion.• Stay on time! Stay on time! Stay on time! Stay on time!• No outline slide please- everyone knows you are going to

give an intro, a middle and a conclusion.

University of Illinois at Chicago

Choose a good font

• This is 40pt font• This is 32pt font• This is 24pt font - This is the limit• This is 18pt font• This is 14pt font• This is 12pt font• This is 10pt font

• This is 40pt font• This is 32pt font• This is 24pt font - This is the limit• This is 18pt font• This is 14pt font• This is 12pt font• This is 10pt font

Arial/Helvetica Times Roman

Step back

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You’re from a graphics lab, you better have lots of pictures!

• Use pictures to wake-up the presentation.

• But use meaningful pictures.• Explain the pictures to the

audience.• Are the labels in the picture

readable?• Make it match your slides.

You match your tie to your shirt don’t you?

• Show a video of your application running.

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Pictures

• Remember white background & black text bad!

• Don’t accept what Excel gives you. Fix the colors!

• Everything that applies to your slides applies to your pictures & graphs.

• Read the text for the audience if it is unavoidably too small.

Do you have a title?

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

1 3 5 7 9

What are the UNITS of your axis?

Do

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ave

a la

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axi

s?

Series1

Series2

Series3

Series4

Series5

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The Conclusions

• Don’t end with: “well uh that’s it.”

• End with: “And that concludes my talk, If there are questions I’d be happy to answer them.”

• Rehearse the close of your talk.

• Show a fast 1 slide overview of your work.

• Show a WEB site where they can get more info & your contact info.

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Answering Questions

• Step outside of yourself.

• If you don’t know the answer just say so.

• Repeat the question so that everyone can hear.

• If a question will take a lot of time to answer tell them that you’d be happy to discuss this further after the talk.

University of Illinois at Chicago

Giving Demos

• The demo is a play that must WORK!

• Rehearse your demo. Sound enthusiastic.

• Test your demo and all its components the day before.

• Book the CAVE in advance. Email out a message to tell everyone not to screw up your settings & equipment.

• Arrive 1 hour early & check all the equipment AGAIN because people will have screwed up your equipment- welcome to EVL.

• Do you know who all the tech experts are? Greg, Hiroshi, Jim, Mike?

• What is your backup plan if some component fails? What is the backup for your backup plan?

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Giving Demos (cont)

• Speak slowly, boldly, clearly, competently. Give the audience a context. They are not psychic!

• Encourage your audience to play with the application.• Give them the tracked glasses. Keep the wand initially & then

gradually relinquish control to audience.• Don’t hack in a fix in the last minute.• Don’t develop new code right up to the moment you have to

demo it. Make a firm decision of what you can show and go with it.

• Don’t say anything in your slides & then later in the demo say you had a problem & disabled it.

• The demo is a play that must WORK!

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Tools for creating presentations

• Netscape

• Powerpoint

• SGI Showcase

• Photoshop - picture touch up

• XV - file format conversion

• snapshot - image capture

• ivview - 3D model view

University of Illinois at Chicago

Just Do It- but do it GREAT!

• Tell a Great story ALWAYS.• Make the demo work flawlessly and brilliantly.• You’re not doing this for course credit. This is a personal

reflection of YOU and your competence.• Imagine everyone in EVL has died, WORK THE

PROBLEM, MAKE IT WORK.• Speak clearly, boldly, slowly and enthusiastically.• Do or do not, don’t waste your audiences time.• Stay on time! Rehearse! Stay on time! Rehearse!