Step 9: Presentations

Next Monday 27 May we shall celebrate our Final Presentations Session, starting sharp at 12.00.

Each Design Team has to make a 5 minute presentation of their work during this semester. You may use any kind of visual material you find appropiate (.ppt,  video, panels, ...). But the main part of your presentation, and the issues that will mainly be assessed on this Step are your Oral Presentation Skills.

This means you must deeply focus this aspect: prepare what you are going to say and how you'll present it.

You've got plenty of information, advices and examples on the internet about how to make good presentations. Both in it's visual and it's communicational aspects. I suggest you have a careful look at some of them before you start preparing yours. If you just write "How to make presentations" on google you'll find tons of information on the topic. 

There are quite a few different strategies. But most of them come to enphasize the same 4 or 5 basic rules. I'll quote some of them for you (but please do your own research):

- I've liked one that builds the acronime ACT as three basic clues for good presentations: A for Audience, C for Clarity and T for Timming.

- Structure your presentation: Introduction / Development / Strong conclusion.

- You may find some advices for thse three great stages of the presentation: 

1. Clear, brief start. Present yourself. Expose the topic you'll be speaking about. And comunicate the basic structure you'll follow. 

2. Go through your designs with a clear and structured presentation of the basic streghts your proposal contains. 

3. Make sure you end with a strong conclusion that the audience is able to understand after your presentation.

- There are many useful rules for visual material: 8 seconds rule (the audience will only pay real atention to a slide for a maximum of 8 seconds); 6 lines (nobody reads more that 6 lines on a slide); 6 words (nobody reads a title with more than 6 words); 3 ideas (nobody remember more than three ideas in a presentations)... I must say that, surprisingly, these rules really do work.

- A lot of advices deal will common errors in presentations: Reading, being too monotonous, not using different entonations to engage audience atention, etc... 

- And all experts confirm the only way to achieve a good presentation is PRACTICE. Rehearsal. They usually tell us to practice several times with a cronometer: In front of a mirror, to your dog, to a friend, to your parents... Practice and practice.

Go for it and we'll see you on Thursday to continue speaking about all these topics. It would be advisable that all Design Teams brought a sketch of their intentions to our session to discuss their accurary. Good luck.