How to make your presentation as clear as possible: Apple's secret

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Follow one simple rule and your performances will become more memorable.

Often, presentation authors try to put as much information as possible on their slides. The audience has to study texts with lists, graphs, sets of numbers, whole tables. Because of this, after a few minutes, the audience's interest in the speech disappears.

The thing is that the human brain is always trying to minimize the amount of energy expended. If he has to listen to the speaker and transcribe slides at the same time, he quickly gets tired and distracted.

However, there is a way to keep the audience interested for a long time. To do this, you need to reduce the amount of information presented on each separate slide to one main thesis. Take a look at how Apple does it. If the company needs to focus on some data during the presentation, it shows one number on each slide.

For example, if Apple CEO Tim Cook says that iOS user satisfaction is 97%, then “97%” is displayed in a huge font, and below “iOS user satisfaction”. One number and one sentence.

This rule is maintained throughout the entire presentation, whoever comes on stage and whatever it is about. If senior vice president of software development Craig Federighi says that the latest version of iOS allows small applications to update 60% faster, then "60%" appears on the screen, and below, in smaller details, "small applications update faster."

This technique was used by Steve Jobs. When he introduced the second iPad, only 33 words appeared on the slides in the first five minutes of his presentation. By comparison, the average business presentation slide is estimated to contain about 40 words.

Limit the amount of information you present on your slides to one number, one sentence, or one easy-to-read graph. Then your presentations will be listened to with interest and better remembered.