By Robert Lane     www.aspirecommunications.com

While training in the UK recently I ran across Jamie Garroch, a brilliant entrepreneur behind a potent new PowerPoint addin called “ActivePresentation Designer.” Interactive speakers may want to give this software a serious look. Although PowerPoint already contains basic tools for creating hyperlink-based navigation within slide shows, this software grabs hold of PowerPoint and automates many of the otherwise labor-intensive steps for creating non-linear navigation menus.

Using the addin, for example, it’s easy to build a 2- or even 3-teired navigation menu for a slide show within minutes. Then, during a performance immediately access any slide needed to answer questions or spontaneously display extra detail about a particular topic. I was impressed with its ease of use.

(creating navigation in a PowerPoint slide show)

Two other features caught my eye as well:

The addin automates the use of “triggers,” a very little-known yet extremely useful aspect of PowerPoint’s functionality. This feature lets you quickly display or hide popups on individual slides—on demand. For example, a presenter might wish to have several contrasting views of products available on a single slide, or control access to sensitive information that is appropriate for some viewers, but not all.

(automation of PowerPoint triggers to show popups on a slide)

And if you’ve struggled with the issue of how to make a “handout” when delivering interactive talks, check this out. Let’s say your interactive slide show contains 200 slides, but during a given performance you display only 30 of those slides. The Export Wizard in this addin can track which slides you showed, and note confidentiality levels set by the author for each one. Then it creates a customized slide show for you (that can be emailed or used to print a handout) based solely on the slides displayed during the talk and whether those slides may be distributed or not based on their confidentiality setting. We’ve wondered for years why PowerPoint couldn’t do that all along!

(tracking which PowerPoint slides were shown)

One need for future development—from my perspective at least—is expanding the ActivePresentation Designer current potential so that it goes beyond working only with single slide shows. In other words, it will be a stronger tool when the presenter can link together multiple separate slide shows as well, rather than working merely within a single show—basically giving PowerPoint the networking potential of FrontPage or Dreamweaver. Jamie says that kind of functionality is in the pipeline for an early 2011 edition. For the time being, manually linking to external shows using PowerPoint’s standard features is still a viable option.

The color combinations you place on slides significantly affect their visual impact and appeal. Keep in mind the following characteristics: Reds, oranges, and yellows are referred to as warm colors. They tend to pop out and attract attention, especially red. Greens, blues, and purples are cool colors. These colors recede into the background and draw less attention (Figure 1).White and very light colors also catch the eye, whereas black and very dark colors generally are less noticeable.

Figure 1

Interestingly, the above effects are not absolutely fixed. They can flip, depending upon the quantity of one color present compared with another. For example, if you were to place a small black shape on a solid white slide background, the black shape would pop out as more noticeable than the white background (Figure 2).

Figure 2

In this case, the brain is looking for meaning in the display rather than simply reacting to color characteristics. Not surprisingly, some optical illusions take advantage of this phenomenon. Realize, therefore, that the quantity and contrast of colors can be important to slide designs. This issue is most critical in a PowerPoint sense regarding text usage. Use opposite extremes of light verses dark between text and backgrounds. If the slide background is light, use black or very dark text for best results (Figure 3)—unless, of course, you are intentionally creating some form of subtle effect, such as making Navigation Elements less distracting.

Figure 3

There is an interesting and complex interplay between color characteristics, contrast, and quantity. We’ll focus here on color characteristics and interactions. How you combine colors definitely affects a design’s overall desirability.

NEVER do what is depicted in Figures 4 and 5.

color combinations in PowerPoint 4

Figure 5

If you stare at either of these images for very long (especially on screen), your eyes begin screaming. Mixing bright blues and reds is a terrible practice to inflict upon an audience, and unfortunately it happens more often than one would hope. The same goes with mixing reds and greens. The color interactions are harsh and fatiguing to the eyes.

A red and green combination also brings up the issue of color blindness, which apparently affects somewhere around 7 percent of men and less than 1 percent of women. Difficulty distinguishing between red and green is the most common form of color blindness. If you place green text on a red background, and there is not a lot of contrast between the colors, some viewers will not be able to read the text. Avoid such problems across the board by never mixing these two colors, especially in a text-background combination.

An interesting technique florists sometimes use is to fashion a bouquet of uniformly colored flowers—say yellows or oranges—and then throw in two or three bright red flowers, off center and at different levels in the bouquet. Your eyes are naturally attracted to these bright red spots, but your brain can’t really make up its mind which red flower should be the focus. So it shifts back and forth between them, causing you to inadvertently scan the entire bouquet. In a related way, dark green foliage is often included with a bouquet to act as a frame and allow bright, warm-color flowers to stand out and attract more attention.

When it comes to mixing colors, here are broad guidelines:

As a rule, mixing warm colors with each other or mixing cool colors with each other is safe. You’ll notice Aspire’s color scheme featured throughout the Web site and Relational Presentation books stays with warm colors. Most companies prefer a cool combination, especially blues, grays, teals, and black.

Black and white work fine in combination with all other colors, as does beige, surprisingly. For example, you can get away with having light beige text on a dark blue background equally with placing it on a dark red background. Browns, however, are best combined with warm colors (Figure 6). Grays fit better with cool colors (Figure 7).

Figure 6

Figure 7

Mixing warm and cool colors is risky and is best left to graphic design contexts. Such color combinations can look fine in graphics (Figure because graphics often use complex gradations and mixtures of colors. Without such subtleties, mixed warm-cool colors on slides tend to portray the gaudiness of sports uniforms.

Figure 8

With text, the same mixing guidelines apply. For text used as content, we almost always use white or beige on a dark background, or black on a light background. Above all else, you want observers to be able to read the text easily. When text is graphical in nature, such as a label or title that is part of a picture, just about anything goes. Again, such text should be easily readable, but color and design can vary considerably.

When building or modifying navigation elements in slide shows, it’s very important to be rigidly systematic with the steps followed. Developing good, methodical habits at the beginning of your journey not only helps preserve your sanity, it greatly improves efficiency. The more efficient you become in your design activities, the more time you will have for perfecting other skills. Even more critical, methodical building habits translate into less (and generally zero) errors at show time. The best way to guarantee your platform’s structure will work as expected on stageis to discipline the design process.

I realize those of you who have freeform and rebellious personalities (as do I)  are cringing about now because order and predictable procedures seem so … common. Think of it this way: The more efficient you become with the nitty-gritty details—the mechanics of relational design—the more energy you can put into creative activities. So take the plunge. It’s not that bad.

Figure 1

When creating any form of navigation, try to follow the formula in Figure 1 as much as possible. Let’s say you are building a panel navigation element. Create one button first, with all aspects of the desired look and feel. Copy and paste that button as many times as necessary. Then add your links. Finally, copy and paste your completed panel onto other slides if necessary. When making In-line Navigation, first build one strip on one slide. Next add your links. Then copy and paste the strip. Always complete these processes starting on Slide 1 and work your way down.

When editing navigation components, DO NOT change the individual links on all the slides. Change the links on Slide 1 only, and then copy this master set, delete the old navigation, and paste the new set throughout. If you are placing or editing navigation that spans multiple shows, first open all the shows at the same time. Place (edit) the navigation in one show only. Copy this navigation. Save and close the show. Go to the next show. Paste the new navigation. Save and close that show. Go to the next.

These procedures may seem tedious but they minimize the chances of making mistakes, such as forgetting to change a link in the middle of a show. Don’t take that chance. Discipline your design habits or spend a lot more time later fixing mistakes. Can you tell we learned these lessons by hard experience?

Placement Consistency is a very important principle in visually interactive presentation design, both for professionalism of slide appearance and as an aid to a presenter’s navigation activities.

Figure 1

Navigation: For example, primary navigation buttons (Figure 1)—navigation elements that allow movement between major branches in an interactive presentation platform—should ALWAYS be in the same place on every single slide. Don’t make exceptions here. If plans go awry during a performance, requiring a change of directions, the presenter must know for certain (without even thinking) that these primary buttons are available and where to find them. Nervous speakers sometimes have a hard time thinking logically as it is. They should never have to try and guess where to locate critical links. Finding primary buttons should be as automatic as pressing a car’s brake pedal in congested traffic. Consistency of positioning with other types of navigation is not as critical, but a certain amount of uniformity is comforting and makes a presenter’s job easier. For example, we almost always place navigation panels on the left side of the slide and bars at the very bottom (Figure 2), as opposed to the right side or the top. Technically such positioning doesn’t really matter, but it aids flow and visual consistency when moving both between slides and between shows.

Figure 2

Content: When several content pieces are the same size and each piece exists on its own slide (such as video clips included as part of a video switchboard—see Figure 3), we like to keep the positioning of each piece, on each slide, exactly the same.

Figure 3

That way moving between the slides creates an illusion that one piece of content simply replaces the other. Furthermore, if the backgrounds of all these slides are exactly alike, the content is the ONLY noticeable change. That is, the resulting transition is very smooth. You can improve this transition effect even more by adding a Fade Smoothly slide transition. Then one piece of content seems to fade gracefully into the other. If, on the other hand, content positioning is not consistent across slides, it appears to jump sideways or up-down with each transition.

Text: If you use shapes to create text boxes (our recommendation), be aware that text, by default, is aligned at the middle of the shape (vertically—see Figure 4).

Figure 4

This can cause a problem from an aesthetic standpoint. Let’s say there are several slides in a row and each contains similar text boxes, such as Figure 5 followed by Figure 6. What happens during transitions is that text seems to jump up and down when there is more or less text on subsequent slides. It’s a good idea, therefore, to change the vertical alignment of the text so that it is anchored at the top of the shape.

Figure 5

Figure 6

Then at least the upper position of the text stays stationary with each slide transition. In other words, there is less distracting movement.

To change the text anchor point, click the shape to select it.

On the Home tab Paragraph group, click the Align Text button.

Click Top.

A design technique that works as well in visually interactive presentation as it does in painting, floral arranging, and every other form of visually artistic expression is off-center placement. Off-center arrangements of content on slides cause the eye to be pulled in different directions simultaneously, potentially leading to more interesting visual displays. That’s not to say centered, symmetrical arrangements are bad. Ideally, presentation materials should contain both kinds of placement.

Figure 1

In Figure 1, the bold mountain draws your gaze upward and to the left, whereas the hiker’s image draws it down and to the right. This is called creating visual tension because your eyes are drawn in two directions at the same time.

On a PowerPoint slide, using opposing diagonal corners is the most common way of creating this effect, although stacking items on either side of the slide or at the top or bottom can work as well.

Figure 2

Figure 2 is an illustration of how primary navigation buttons work in an interactive presentation platform—what switchboards they open. This design combines top stacking and diagonal corner tension. Arranging navigation elements on one side of slides, with content on the other (nested or topical navigation style) produces an overall off-center design as well (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Figure 4

As demonstrated in Figure 4, off-center, unbalanced designs work well for creative graphical switchboards or content illustrations. There is no reason, necessarily, why navigation elements must be in a straight line or column, especially on switchboard slides. They can be artistically placed and interwoven into designs. We also sometimes refer to these artistic styles of navigation as decorative switchboards.

Figure 5

Notice one more interesting fact about off-center design. Even though the slide’s design components are askew in various ways, they normally still contribute to an overall sense of balance across the slide; tension pulls in at least two directions. For example, in Figure 5 the Navigation Models label pulls left and the arrowhead pulls right.

Creating decorative navigation buttons in PowerPoint 2007 is quite easy. All you have to do, really, is add a Bevel effect to a standard shape. The result looks pretty good on its own. You can do even better, though, by going a step further and adding a 3-color gradient fill to the beveled shape. That’s the approach we’ll take here. The result looks like Figure 1.

Figure 1: Decorative Navigation Button for Interaction

Open PowerPoint if it’s not already open. Before doing anything else, make a couple of adjustments to the standard slide. Delete the placeholder textboxes. They just get in the way. You want a completely blank slide. Then, right click the slide pane, choose Format Background, and change the background color to Black. That way the effects we create in the shape will show up a little better.

Next, add a shape to the slide pane by clicking the Insert tab on the Ribbon, clicking the Shapes button, clicking the Rounded Rectangle option in the list of available shapes (Figure 2), and finally clicking and dragging on the slide pane.

Figure 2: Add a Rounded Rectangle Shape

Remove the shape’s outline. We won’t need that. Do so by double-clicking the shape to assure the Drawing Tools Format tab on the Ribbon is active. Then click the Shape Outline button and select No Outline from the options.

Now, with the shape still selected, add a Bevel effect. Click the Shape Effects button, hold your cursor over the Bevel option, and then click the upper left bevel style called Circle (Figure 3). Click somewhere on the slide pane away from the shape to deselect it and observe its natural state without selection handles. See that it now has a three-dimensional appearance and already looks clickable. That’s good.

Figure 3: Add a Bevel Effect to the Shape

Let’s pretty it up a bit more, though, by adding a fill gradient. Click the shape again to select it. On the Drawing Tools Format tab, click the Shape Fill button. Next, hold your cursor over Gradient and click the More Gradients option at the bottom.

On the Format Shape dialog box that appears, toggle Gradient Fill. Your view probably looks something like Figure 4. Note, however, that if you’ve already assigned gradients to shapes on other occasions, PowerPoint may remember the last gradient you made and automatically assign that customized pattern to your shape here. In that case, your view may be different—but then again, that also probably means you already know how to work with gradients. If that’s true, adjust upcoming instructions accordingly to fit your situation.

Figure 4: Add a Gradient to Complete the Navigation Button

Click the gray arrow next to Stop 1 in the Gradient Stops area. See that by default, three Stops exist here. A Stop represents a gradient color, along with that color’s position in the gradient spectrum. As such, right now our shape’s gradient contains three colors that fade from one to another across the shape. You can add many additional Stops if desired. In this tutorial, we’ll leave the number at three.

To create the look shown above, you need to adjust the Stops a bit. Click the Color button for Stop 1. Then click More Colors at bottom, click the Custom tab on the Colors dialogue box, and adjust the Stop 1 color to be a light pink (almost white). This action gives our button an appearance of bright glow on its upper edge.

Next, activate Stop 2 and adjust its color to be a very dark reddish purple. Before moving on to Stop 3, however, stay here and adjust Stop 2’s position. Click and drag its Stop Position slider left until the percentage at right displays as 25% instead of the initial 50%. This action has the effect of decreasing the amount of upper glow, in effect sharpening it and expanding the amount of lower purple color.

The last action is to change the Stop 3 color to be a bright reddish purple. This action gives the impression that the shape has a subtle internal glow, as though lit from within.

And there you have it, a decorative button. If desired, add a text label by simply clicking the shape to select it and typing desired text. Adjust the text color and size to compliment the shape’s look. The button is ready for a hyperlink.

Figure 1 is an example of Topical-style navigation. Navigation buttons and thumbnails appear along the slide’s left side and the audience sees all these navigation elements. New relational presenters often observe this fact and ask, “Hey, is there a way I can hide those navigation components so that my viewers don’t see them?”

Figure 1: Visible Navigation

Yes you can, depending on which styles of navigation you choose. The question, though, is whether you really want to hide navigation. As a general rule, our opinion is no, you do not want to hide navigation. Here’s why.

Most people believe that a large column of navigation on the slide surely distracts audience members and therefore should be eliminated if possible. Actually, it doesn’t. People hardly notice navigation components after awhile. That’s because what attracts our brain’s attention is change and motion. Because the navigation elements change very little while the presenter moves around between slides, viewers notice the changing content at right (as they should) but quickly learn to ignore the left navigation panel. They see it, but don’t really see it at all.

Another argument for hiding navigation goes something like this, “Yeah, but those buttons take up a lot of space on the slide that I might need for content.” You know what? That’s a good thing. Giving yourself less space on the slide pane encourages simple design. By placing only one idea on each slide, in a limited space (our recommendation), you reduce unnecessary complexity and help people better understand your messages. You’ll find, in fact, that the reduced content area is still plenty large enough for almost anything you might want to show. And if you really do need the entire slide pane for a particular topic, all you have to do is jump out to an external show and then return again to the main platform when finished.

Consider, too, that being able to see navigation choices while presenting is extremely helpful to you as a speaker. Those navigation buttons give you subtle reminders about content options, as though glancing at a cheat sheet while taking a test. Audience members sometimes find navigation helpful as well and may use your own navigation buttons to request more information about a subject of interest. Some presenters even encourage such activity by making navigation elements on slides very large and easily readable.

You really like the idea of visually interactive PowerPoint presentation. One day you decide it’s time to take the plunge. Parking yourself at a big conference table with packages of index cards in hand, you begin planning a relational platform’s organization structure, all the individual ideas that might be needed while explaining points to audiences and answering their questions. Pretty soon you realize … geesh … the number of slides needed will be massive, maybe hundreds and hundreds. How in the world will you have time to get all that content in place?

The short answer is you won’t—not this week or this month, anyway. Large interactive platforms sometimes require years to complete. That’s not a big deal, really, because you don’t have to have all that content in place right away. In fact, you can save money, time, and sanity by following a simple principle called the Illusion of Completion instead.

Make the content look like it’s really there, even though only a fraction of it actually exists initially. Doing so is easy. Simply build switchboards that represent all the future content branches in your platform. You might even go a step further to link navigation elements on those switchboards to placeholder slides so links really work when clicked. In other words, build an empty shell that functions like a completed platform, without detail on slides.

Once that shell in place, decide priorities. Which slides do you need most for upcoming performances? Get those components in place right away and leave the rest of the platform empty for now.

Look at the switchboard shown above, for example. It appears to represent a massive amount of content but how much of that material is truly there? Maybe all these links are active, or perhaps only ten, or just one. You as the viewer have no way of knowing. The switchboard, nevertheless, creates an illusion that everything is waiting and ready. Audience members naturally assume your presentation materials are complete even if 99% of them are nothing but air.

Some years back, we proposed this approach to a group of presentation professionals and they responded with self-righteous indignation. “You can’t do that! That’s deception. That’s trickery.” No, guys, on the contrary it’s called practical reality. The biggest reason why people fail to become interactive speakers is because they reach a point of overwhelm. They discover how many slides their interactive portfolio should contain and then freak out.  No one has that much time or resources right away. They throw up the white flag and surrender.

Giving materials the illusion of completion, on the other hand, and gradually filling in empty spaces over time as opportunities allow, is much more practical. It’s what smart interactive presenters do and is a key to your success.

www.aspirecommunications.com

Over the years, many people have asked: “What is the best way of using PDF documents in a visually interactive presentation?” The answer is two-fold.

Getting a PDF document onto a PowerPoint slide is easy enough. All you have to do is insert it as an object. On the Insert tab, click the Object button on the right side of the Ribbon.

Then toggle the Create from file option.

Browse to find your PDF file and then click OK. The PDF file then appears on the slide.

That’s all well and good, but now what? What do you do with such an embedded object? The problem with merely inserting a PDF document and stopping there is that the document will be completely inert (that is, useless) while running the slide show. It’s true that while in PowerPoint’s edit mode, you can double click the inserted object to open it via Adobe’s Acrobat Reader, but if you try clicking or double clicking the object while running the slide show, all you end up doing is advancing to the next slide, as through slide doesn’t contain active content at all. Having the exit the slide show to open the document is simply unacceptable,

To use PDF documents effectively in an interactive presentation context, you need a few extra steps to build what is known as a PDF switchboard. We’ve put together a new video tutorial that walks you through that process. See how it works here or sign up for the tutorial here.

The idea is that you can have thumbnails for many different PDF documents on a single slide and then open and close any document, in any order, all without leaving PowerPoint’s slide show mode. Once the documents are open, of course, you can zoom in on detail, pan to different areas of the display, access links and media, and utilize all other PDF features.

A PDF switchboard allows you to create a kind of database of available files, giving dynamic access during normal PowerPoint performances. It’s a simple, seamless, convenient way of displaying such information to audiences and you don’t have to exit the slide show to go searching for components using Windows Explorer.

When I bought Bob Lane’s book Relational Presentation in early April, I knew two things about PowerPoint—I didn’t like using it for presentations and everyone expects you to have a PowerPoint. Every meeting, demo, and training I have attended in the last 10 years featured content delivered via PowerPoint—all linear shows with bulleted slides. When the lights went down, so did our eyelids.

I started reading Bob’s book, tried out the exercises, and decided to build a relational presentation from scratch.

In my small business, www.susanguggenheim-is.com, I train lots of different groups in basic and advanced computing skills—from older adults, to teens, to the newly unemployed—and I needed a way of delivering diverse topics at any time, often spontaneously. I thought relational presentation fit my bill exactly.

I spent a couple of weeks putting together a main, branded switchboard, several resource switchboards (videos, online/offline training applications, and one just for seniors), and a core group of four basic training modules.

I used Bob’s templates, added my graphics, and went for a Nested presentation. After editing and testing, I felt ready to use the new training show.

Soon enough, an activities director for a senior residence called and we made an appointment for a 1-hour presentation. Upon arrival, I set up, kicked off my entry slide, and waited for folks to arrive in the activities room. First shock: the seniors were all over 85 and one was 92—not my usual 65-year-old crowd. And no one in the audience had ever used a computer! There went my presentation on basic desktop and mouse skills, two shows in my new relational deck. I had to punt, and this was a tough, hypercritical crowd. Who knew little old ladies could be so … well … unladylike!

I went for the resource slides, fired up Web page after Web page, and gave them “a tour of the Internet” presentation. They didn’t understand much of what I showed them, but they really liked my resource slides, saying they were “very nice”. They also loved my main, branded slide, “Look how pretty that is, with her name up there”, and said it was “magical” when I moved from slide-to-slide and back again.

The slides themselves were so visually appealing (and that’s all due to Bob because I did not create much of my own stuff), it helped lower their fear of computers, which allowed them to not worry about what they were supposed to learn. Best of all, it gave me confidence that I could get out of there alive. I can’t wait to take my interactive show before an audience it was developed for, but I’m also very excited to know that even with an unsuitable audience, I can still adjust to the circumstances and capture a group’s attention.