The Art of the Gif
5 Tips For Using Animated Gifs in Your Presentations
“Animated gifs are a crutch”
If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard that statement, I’d have about six dollars.
Some people hate on animated gifs during talks. I love them. Gifs have the ability to be an extremely engaging tool for your presentation if used wisely.
Unsubtle disclaimer: always remember gifs are never enough. You must also have solid informational content related to your subject and not only a presentation full of dancing cats.
5 tips on using gifs
1. Gifs Should Have Context
Reaction gifs are fine if they help reiterate your point, but not if they don’t have anything to do with your story. Stop jamming random gifs in there and start choosing ones that solidify your knowledge share.
Is your talk about solving a problem that the audience can relate to? Illustrate how that challenge makes you feel with a reliable George Michael Bluth gif:
2. Time Your Gifs to Help with Learning
10 minutes is said to be the maximum amount of time people can concentrate on a lecture. I once gave a 30-minute talk on the state of code education and played 3 videos during the talk, each about a minute in length. I played them at 10 minute increments. The goal was to allow the audience to experience a change from my voice and take a micro-break from the lecture. Similarly, gifs can be useful to break up the information overload if they are interjected at appropriate and pertinent times.
3. Use Gifs to Build Anticipation
No one wants to be left out of a joke. Well-spaced comical moments will mean the audience has to pay attention to be “in” on the joke and catch the gif you show. Which leads to number four.
4. 95% of Your Gifs Should Not Be Looped
Awkward looping gifs distract your audience from what you are saying.
Jared Spool has given me a ton of invaluable feedback on my talks, including the advice above. I began to turn off looping for gifs within Keynote. Gifs now play once, giving me a chance to breathe and reiterate my last point, then get back to business.
In Keynote, you can adjust this under the repeat heading under movie properties:
For PC PowerPoint users, you can edit your gif file to only play once by altering the loop in an image editor. In Photoshop, view the Timeline options and then switch the loop to “once.”
This will not work on PowerPoint for Mac, but add that to the list of reasons I use Keynote on Mac.
When the gif only plays once, the audience must pay attention so they don’t miss it (#3) and it isn’t comic overkill.
There are a few exceptions, especially when it comes to subtle gifs or ones that loop well (or loop back and forth seamlessly), but generally, turn off the loop.
5. If Gifs Aren’t Your Thing, Don’t Use Them.
We all have different presentational styles. You might have loved a talk given by someone that incorporated some well-timed gifs and a dose of humor, but that may not be your personal style.
Remember, you don’t have to be funny to be engaging.
Bonus: Have a Gif Advisor
Mine is Sequoia Medley. I have her review and contribute to my gif usage. Review your presentation with colleagues or friends see if the gif delivers its intended reaction.
Always Remember
If gifs feel right for you, go for it. If it feels unnatural, forget it.
You do you. You do you. You do you. #irlgif
