Better Design Starts on Paper by

Takeaway: Your Newspaper Headline

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:31:37 UTC

A takeaway inspires and motivates your audience to want to learn what is being presented. It is the point of your content. Think of it as a newspaper headline; if it doesn’t grab attention, people are less likely to read the article.

Activity Instructions: Think about an upcoming (or previous) presentation or project.

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:32:26 UTC

Answer the following:

Level 1: What was the main takeaway?

Level 2: Write it in motivator + means format.

Level 3: Can you distill it 5-8 words?

You can comment below or live in the chat.

Structure your Takeaway

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:34:29 UTC

The first part of your takeaway statement (motivator) gives your learner a reason to care, and the second part (by what means) tells them how they will achieve the promised goal.

Motivator: Better design

Means: starts on paper.

Purpose

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:36:26 UTC

It is the point of your entire presentation

Drives your content development

Connects the learning objectives to the resulting benefits

Lowers level of effort when building new presentations

Lowers the number of slides made and reworked because only content related to your message matters

Improves outcomes and increases learner engagement

Method

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:36:45 UTC

Always write your takeaway before developing your slides

Implicit or explicitly share the takeaway with your audience early

Include no more than three benefits in one takeaway to avoid diluting your message or lessening its impact

Takeaway

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:43:54 UTC

Storyboard

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:47:40 UTC

C.R.A.P. Framework

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 17:59:27 UTC

The Non-Designer's Design Book

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 18:00:42 UTC

CRAP! 4 Basic Design Principles Every Creator Should Know

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 18:03:03 UTC

C.R.A.P. Presentation Applied to Academia

jegirald1 — 2025-01-08 18:03:50 UTC

Slide Deck

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:18:00 UTC

Storyboard: Your Plan

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:19:04 UTC

Storyboard is your plan. It connects the dots between the takeaway and the narrative. It saves time and ensures your presentation tells a story and supports your takeaway. When you create the slides first, you are making a presentation for you by you. When creating a storyboard:

Tell a story

Keep it simple
Use hierarchy and structure

Applying the storyboarding process saves you time and increases the effectiveness of your content.

Purpose

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:19:41 UTC

Your storyboard is your plan

It is meant to be fast and agile so that you don’t overinvest in any one solution.

Capture your thoughts quickly so you can move forward.

Method

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:20:48 UTC

Create your outline first

Each slide supports your takeaway

Tell a story and view your content as a dialogue

Use visuals in your slides to make it engaging

Use pen and pencil (or a tablet). It’s faster and you don’t determine aesthetics too early on in the process.

When you jump into PowerPoint first without outlining or sketching, it takes longer to produce high quality slides and the end product is less effective

Activity Instructions: Use your takeaway to briefly outline 1-3 slides.

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:24:07 UTC

Directions

Step 1: Outline

Step 2: Sketch 1-3 slides

Step 3: Review it. What are the muddiest points? Does it flow?

Outline

Main takeaway:

Supporting Point 1:

Supporting Point 2:

Supporting Point 3:

Here is a Word template you can use.

You can also use a few post-it notes, a sketching tool like OneNote, GoodNotes, or Noteability.

You can also use a PPT file (DO NOT USE ANY DESIGN FEATURES YET, Just text and sketches or quick image searches that you are NOT committed to).

Design Principles: The C.R.A.P. Framework

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:31:20 UTC

People use look and feel as their first indicator of trust.

Good design principles:

Build trust because it communicates information about your content and YOU as the presenter.

Helps your audience understand and remember your content.

The contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity (C.R.A.P.) framework was written by Robin Williams, the author of the Non-Designer’s Design Book ("The less you say, the more they will remember”).

Contrast

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:32:13 UTC

Contrast is one of the most effective ways to add visual interest to your page and to create an organizational hierarchy among different elements.

Repetition

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:32:58 UTC

Repetition can be thought of as consistency. As you look through a brochure, it is the repetition of certain elements, their consistency, that makes each of those pages appear to belong to the same brochure.

We need repetitive elements to clarify and unify.

Alignment

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:33:37 UTC

Every item should have a visual connection with something else on the page.

Otherwise, without order, there’s discomfort; it appears to be unorganized; we don’t know how to be effective.

Proximity

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:34:40 UTC

Physical closeness implies a relationship. The basic purpose of proximity is to organize, making the information more likely to be read and remembered AND BONUS, by organizing, you also create visually appealing white space.

Activity: Capture what you learned

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:37:28 UTC

Directions: As you go through the presentation or immediately following the presentation, comment on this card using the template below:

Summary (A few sentences summarizing the material):

Take Home Points (list 3):

Other Facts/Opinions/Ideas to share

What did you learn? What are you applying right away? What did you want to know more of? What was useful!?

jegirald1 — 2025-01-23 15:39:07 UTC