Presenting to an audience
Recommendations for designers
Speaking in front of any audience can be nerve-wracking — so much so that many rank it scarier than death! I’ll try to alleviate some of those fears by sharing some personal tips for preparing presentation slides and mentally preparing for speaking engagements. These tips can apply to any audience type.
Here’s what will be covered:
- Creating your presentation
- Reducing nerves before and during the presentation
- How to instil confidence in your audience
How to create your presentation
The construction of your presentation sets the stage for the narrative you’ll tell. It serves as your guide, bolstering your credibility and instilling confidence in your audience, leading them along the path you’ve set. Let’s explore tips for designing and structuring your presentation effectively.
Order is key: The stairway to approval
The key to any good presentation lies in its order, think of it as a stairway to approval. Each slide presents irrefutable facts, each slide builds upon the previous slide, until finally you present the solution to your audience. By establishing a strong foundation before unveiling your solution, you bolster evidence-based decision-making and make it more challenging for an audience member to challenge or find fault with your solution.
Text — Less is better
When designing your presentation, think of the mantra: ‘Less is better.’ Consider each bullet point on your slide as a prompt to discuss the key points of that slide, if you have 5 bullet points on that slide, you speak to those bullet points in the order presented. Anything left unsaid only serves as a distraction, undermining the narrative you’re trying to convey as the expert in the room.
Images — A picture tells a thousand words
Images are crucial for conveying evidence, ideas, and solutions to your audience, aiding non-creative audience members in understanding concepts more readily. For example, including photographs of raw research alongside findings illustrates the depth of work undertaken and adds weight to the shared data.
Editing — Build, review, cut
The first version of your presentation deck ideally is a draft and be constructed well in advance of the presentation. You want at least a day between the first draft and your first review so you can review it with clear eyes. Also, its great to get someone who hasn’t seen the presentation to review it. Anything they don’t understand might be worth considering editing or cutting from the presentation. The idea is you want your presentation to be a lean, you want nothing that doesn’t serve the purpose of building the narrative you are trying to tell.
Have an appendix
You can’t always fit everything in your presentation, that’s where the appendix at the end comes in handy. I recommend putting any links to raw research, raw design development, test results, or information that couldn’t fit into to the presentation here. It can be used as a great way to show the level of work that went into the solution but can also be used to help answer any questions a stakeholder might have that weren’t answered in the presentation.
How to reduce nerves
I don’t know many people who don’t feel at least a little nervous before presenting, so here are a few things I personally do to help ease my nerves before and during the presentation.
Collaborative mindset vs adversarial
Nerves often arise from the misconception that the audience is seeking faults in your presentation. Yet, in my experience, this is rarely true. Most people want you to succeed and present the solution to their problem. Approach the presentation with a collaborative mindset. View questions as opportunities for clarification or improvement, not challenges. Remember, your failure doesn’t benefit anyone.
Practice makes perfect
Practicing at least once before the presentation, whether going through it as if it’s the actual event or mentally rehearsing, helps develop a rhythm and comfort during delivery. Additionally, it enables anticipation of potential questions and preparation of responses in advance, ultimately increasing your confidence in what you are presenting.
Something for idle hands
If you’re like me and find it calming to have something for my hands to play with, I highly recommend bringing along a fidget item to your presentation. This can help conceal shaky hands and channel nervous energy. The key is to choose something that doesn’t look out of place in the hands of a designer or within the office space.
Take a moment
One of the toughest tasks during a presentation is granting yourself permission to take a moment if you feel lost or encounter a tricky question. Most people understand and respect pauses taken to consider responses. If pausing feels uncomfortable, consider bringing something fitting for the office environment that provides a valid reason for a brief pause.
How to instil confidence in your audience
It’s easy to forget that your audience wants you to succeed and to present them with a solution that meets their needs. The only reason they would oppose your solution is if they lack confidence that it meets their business needs. The following tips will help you instil confidence in your audience.
What you make needs to have a purpose
Your presentation aims to provide your stakeholders with the confidence to endorse your proposed direction for their project. Achieving this involves consistently referencing how your solution aligns with their business’s key objectives. Ultimately, stakeholders are primarily concerned with improving the business. By demonstrating a clear understanding of these objectives and illustrating how your solution addresses them, it becomes challenging for stakeholders to view subjectively.
Know your audience before the presentation
Learning more about your audience before the presentation is always beneficial. Take the time to inquire about who will be attending, their roles, how much they know about the project and their primary objectives for the project — whether it’s improving sales, increasing click-through rates, or other goals. Once you’ve gathered this information, anticipate the questions they might ask and prepare answers accordingly. This proactive approach helps tailor your presentation to their specific needs and concerns, enhancing engagement.
Respect peoples time
If you have 30 minutes to present your idea, ensure that your presentation concludes before the end of this time. It’s essential to leave some time for questions during and at the end of the presentation (the exact amount can vary). This approach can be a breath of fresh air for stakeholders in many corporate settings, where meetings often run right to the end or over.
Be honest
Another simple yet crucial point: if you don’t know the answer to a question, it’s perfectly okay to say so. Promise to look into it as one of the project’s next steps. Stakeholders appreciate when their questions are taken seriously and knowing that you’re committed to finding answers can strengthen their confidence in you.
Show you care
Demonstrating genuine care wins people over, and one effective way to do this is by actively documenting feedback. Tools like Figma’s comments allow your audience to see feedback being recorded in real time. Alternatively, anyone on your team can handle note-taking, as long as it’s made clear to the audience that their questions and feedback are being documented.
Let’s wrap this up
Presenting can be challenging, but by following these recommendations, hopefully you’ll discover that it doesn’t have to be as daunting (or more scarier than death). If you take anything away from this article, I highly recommend adopting a collaborative mindset and demonstrating genuine care for what you’re presenting. These two factors alone can significantly improve how your stakeholders respond to the solutions you present.
