Presentation Design
I have experience creating and facilitating online, hybrid, and in person presentations.
If you want to learn more about designing a presentation together, check out my Services.
Read on to learn about my process for designing presentations that are engaging and beautiful!
In Person Presentation:
Wellness:
Personal and Professional Considerations
Client:
Caryn Wells, Ph.D., professor at Oakland University and author of the book Mindfulness: How School Leaders Can Reduce Stress and Thrive on the Job
Audience:
Responsibilities:
I redesigned Caryn’s existing slides to be clean, organized, and visually appealing. I also did minor restructuring of the content to improve the flow.
Tools:
PowerPoint, Google Docs
Step 1: Analyze Needs & Goals
Caryn was asked by Henry Ford Hospital to give a talk about wellness to help address the issue of overwhelm in hospitals.
During our consultation, I gathered as much information as I could about her needs, goals, and practical limitations:
Audience: residents (licensed doctors in their postgraduate training)
Time limit for the talk: 1 hour
Setting: Henry Ford Hospital
Primary Objective: give residents practical tools for reducing stress during a high-stress time of their careers
She already had designed her slides but wanted my help with a visual redesign and increasing participant engagement.
She wanted:
Material grounded in research without being overwhelming
Interactive elements that were NOT a long meditation
For participants to leave with a personalized plan for improving their own wellness
To NOT share the slides with participants or record the presentation (to protect her intellectual property and allow her to give the talk again in the future)
Keeping all this in mind, we worked together to brainstorm idea for in-session activities and alternative resources that participants could walk away from the session with.
Step 2: Design with Intention
After our initial consultation, I reviewed her existing materials, then proposed a variety of changes that I thought would elevate the presentation.
Suggested changes included:
Adjusting the slides to use Henry Ford Health’s brand colors - This would make the presentation fit in amongst all the other professional development participants received in-house, and it would encourage participants to be more receptive to her message because the format would be familiar.
Removing excess background details to simplify the look and reduce overwhelm
Making the website logo smaller and in a more consistent spot on each slide for a more professional look
Moving all images to the right side of the slides for consistency and less mental load when reading
Adjusting the layout of the text and increasing spacing throughout for easy reading
I also proposed creating a worksheet for guided notetaking to assist participants in applying the material during the session and remembering the material after the session was over.
Step 3: Develop Resources for Smooth-Sailing
After my recommended changes were approved, I got to work on developing the materials!
I edited her PowerPoint file for the primary slides to guide the flow of the workshop and ensure it would run smoothly. I also created a Google Doc file, designed with Henry Ford Health’s brand colors, that could be printed as a one-page double-sided handout.
Combined together, the updated presentation included a brief mindfulness activity (noticing distractions) in the middle of the session, brief micro stress pauses at the beginning and end, and guided brainstorming throughout the session for wellness tactics participants could try as they learned about different topics.
To protect Caryn’s intellectual property, full files are not available for viewing, but here are brief samples of the designs:
Step 4: Implement Plans & Pivot as Needed!
After sharing my initial edits, Caryn and I met again to finalize the slides and handout. She was pleased with the slides, but the handout needed a few adjustments to fit with the flow of the talk and the practical limitations of printing it out. With a few minor tweaks, the materials were ready to go!
Once everything was finalized, I assured Caryn I was available for any further adjustments if she needed support leading up to the event.
Step 5: Evaluate Results for Wins & Growing Edges
Overall, this project was a success! The slides were clean and easy for Caryn to present from, and the handout was simple and practical for the participants to use throughout the session.
In the future, if I have more time to plan activities for a talk, I might explore incorporating more interactivity between participants, such as having brief breakout discussions or having the presenter design a tailored plan for a participant in front of the others. For this project, there was not time, but it would be great to add more of those elements if possible.