Business Week’s article “Rethinking the Presentation”supports the presentation principles that I’ve covered in past sermons blog entries. In summary, the article reinforces the mantra: avoid bullet points, cut the noise, picture superiority, and other facets of the new design methodology.
As a team member on a redesign of our new employee orientation presentations, we featured many of these techniques, starting with Continue reading
From Eric Burke’s Stuff that Happens blog, his graphic “Simplicity” blog entry speaks for itself.
Funny, yet maddenly true.
This is not knocking enterprise-specific apps designed for data-intensive entry. It’s to point out there are SOME usability guidelines designers often overlook for the sake of getting in every last system requirement or user requested feature.
But before those of you in Information Technology division start to get hot under the collar, remember this is just a comic strip, meant to be funny.
Andy, whose life mission is “to simplify the complex, serve others, and sing of creative problem solving.”
What’s a wiki?
Our intranet pagemasters participated in a lively discussion surrounding the use of wikis for collaborative workspaces.
I’ve been waiting for more than a few months until the right topic and collaborative space idea appeared. Finally, today, I played with the wiki and here’s why.
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With the cold night frost turning the lawn a crisp white, I turned my attention to the header photo image on my geewhiz blog.
I was about to put up a photo of a beautiful white forest and lake by photographer Jeff Klassen 
and suddenly realized I was about to violate his copyright. OK. I’ve deleted the image. But, visit his site from whence this image would have come from. G’head and click that thumbnail image to see his other photos.
Until I shoot my own winter white photos, I’ll leave you with an image of Lisa in the snow.
This is a great time to educate the new bloggers that one of the cool features to look for in a blog theme is the customizability of the photo image in the header. If you have followed Geewhiz through recent blog entries, you’ve noticed I periodically changed the photo in the header. The PressRow WordPress theme I use (thank you, designer Chris Pearson) allows customizable header photos.
So, toss another log on the fire, grab a mug o’ hot cocoa, wrap that blankie a little tighter around your shoulders, and sing along to “Chestnuts, Roasting on an Open Fire.”
This is how to drive your user or customer away from your site. I was eagerly filling out an online form one day, when I suddenly came to a screeching halt at the phone number.
Check it out and see if you can spot what’s wrong with this.
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Instead of just “rebranding” our new employee orientation slides, a team is giving them an extreme makeover. I’m excited to report that the team is saying “no more boring bullet point slides!”
I’m jazzed that we’re considering overall presentation flow, identifying key takeaway messages, reminding ourselves of the mental perspective of a new employee, and connecting that audience regardless of their division or department.
For starters, check out Presentation Zen’s summary of (continued)
Before the July 21 release of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Amazon.com sent an email reminding me that I’d pre-ordered the book. The email recommended I upgrade my usual shipping option so the book would arrive on Saturday, July 21, the book’s international release date.
This was an excellent example of a company using e-mail notification based on my purchase data. If my daughter and wife had to wait several days for the book to arrive by the slower shipping option, they would have had to deal with the (continued)
WordPress themes do more than just change the look of your blog. A carefully-chosen theme can enhance usability, affect findability, and potentially boost reader satisfaction. I’ll explain. Continue reading
Coincidentally following my recent post about the poor use of presentation software, I was delighted by the visual style and delivery of our new CEO and his team of presenters at our recent corporate -wide staff meeting.
Gone were the typical bullet points, pie charts and bar charts of regional sales, and overused company-logo-based background themes. Instead, our eyes were treated to high-quality visual images that supported the messages, in non-traditional asymmetric page layouts that intentionally bled images off the edge.
Originally posted in flickr by Zach Graham, his photo of a presentation slide symbolizes what not to do with presentation slide software. I can only imagine the painful looks on the faces of the audience. The presenter’s use of a microphone indicates either a large room or a large crowd. Imagine how far back you sat, trying to squint at the slides. Continue reading
Why do some creative teams run brainstorming sessions like futbol instead of paintball?
I first thought of this analogy while channel surfing between a futbol match and a paintball game on TV. Both were at world-class competitive levels. In both sports, you could argue that, to win, you must score more goals than the other team.
Surfing to the futbol match, the score was 0-0. On the paintball channel, a quick win, I saw hundreds of paintball splats all over the field (missed shots), and several shots that hit the intended targets, wiping out the opposing team of seven players. Back at futbol, the score was still 0-0.
So how does this relate to brainstorming?
Bored by 50-slide presentations that drone on, bullet by bullet, slide by slide? Having a hard time keeping audience interest in your point. Then start practicing these five research-based techniques for reducing PowerPoint overload: Continue reading
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