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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-04-14
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpi1Lm6dFo
NQA a ladies and gentlemen welcome there is a question which is possibly for quite awhile and that is why do our power points look the way they'd or rather how when can we expect that they look the way do that do you know what's even more intellectually challenging for the sound is how can a person sick over here in this meeting room with ten others serving
this Billy Bob power point filled with charts graphical elements page numbers away king of all the things you know the feeling the boredom the waste of time a person after forty minutes he or she will trotting off to his own office coming through its own computer flipping up cannot go my god I've got a presentation tomorrow and I do have a power point to build now
what is the chance that this person will build an equally bad power point as the one that he or she was by herself tortured by now the conference room it's not a big chance now what is that is that why do we do that is that vengeance is not where you go like you did that to me proof I'm gonna do to you got coming Bravo
it's not the case I don't think so I don't think that's got to do vengeance I don't think that's going to do with intelligence I think it's got to do something else now my passion in life is the brain and even even bigger passion that is presentations and I love combining these two and about four years ago I got so so upset I blew my top
because the way that we need you do in your real executions all over our boardrooms today is just it's not fair to our intelligence as being home aside so I thought you know this could be something that we can do about this so I I search the world I looked for a seminar Sellick look for training programs to look for books sold the square but there
was none to be found so I thought well I'll just do as Franz Kafka said if it isn't written right to just four years later I have the great honor to stand here in front of you what am I talking about what other power points I'm referring to where they can live like this no this is one of the top three universities in the world advice
invest you dance and the teachers on how to build great power points I received this from a customer are you going to be a semi blind in order to even have something like this in the company I love this one this one was awarded the price of being the worst power points do delivered by public CEO in two thousand and ten some nice price to pick
up isn't it yes thank you up well that might and a lot this is bad Kenny get worse can no this is the UN in Afghanistan US military describing the situation in that area and %HESITATION when there are no comments on the but I get this one my talent David Phillips this us gotta be there thing this is got limited amounts of text it's got a
supporting image it's got a clear headline this is that truth well the thing is if you recognize yourself in any of this which I think you do nothing away I want to make you aware of the following but if you delivered a presentation with something live up behind you ninety percent and what you said gone within thirty seconds and then you go home now no way
Jose Maddie's way I know it's bad become without bad can it now really well just let me give you an example of really how bad you're working memory send mine slacking I want you to much in this situation you're at the train station and you're waiting for the train you to save coming in the horizon fiddling away you finally find where you put your ticket and
you take it up and go call five seafood to donate have you you have absolutely no idea you gonna sit there still lives this enemy or well I'm five foot here you put it on and have you got it from her yeah we got it you'll do this on an average of six times before you sit down I see from seeing people in the train go
five what did you find what is that yes this is my seats now they're the bad news in this situation is this you do not have a separate working memory for power point and a separate working memory for train tickets it's the same this many bad working memory for both activities so I might be harsh but there is one man on this earth who knows more
about the brain than anybody else one of the most leading irreligious call John Madden now and he puts it like this and it's with his words that I welcome you to hi how to avoid by partly now my objective for this evening for this eighteen minutes is to give you five design principles that will cognitively and psychologically optimize your power point slides if you haven't used
them before they will make a tremendous difference every power point you'll be delivering from this day on all so let's start the first one this five is one message I received this from a customer and I said Hey we've got a lot of issues in here well let's start with the first one you got two messages this move one of them out of the way and
just bring one message so why should we only have one message per slide well give you this beautiful example Europe is nice party you got the music going boom boom you got this person you're chatting away if you're having a good time check out you hear name you hear your name spoken somewhere your entire attention is now diverted in life or action and in with this
person just nodding away hoping that you're nodding in the right instances yeah after about a minute this one stops talking about you so you divert your attention straight again now that person will then say well don't you agree why don't we just love that situation we have got no clue what they've been talking a the same guy thing goes for power point if you got more
than one message chances big that they will be focusing on this one and not that one or that one in this not this one just make it simple for human beings have one message per slide we are extremely limited to understanding move on get to working memory I've already given you this bad vibe that you're working memories bad and I'm afraid I'm not coming with Beth
and you I'm coming with worse news I guess like this this equation has the basis of John swelling in my ear and they come to the conclusion that there is something odd wrinkled redundancy affected it works like this if you have text sentences on your power point and you persist with annoying idea of speaking at the same time what will be remembered by the origins is
zero well very close to Sarah now why is why stuff how does that come about well become look like this is just not practical you Constand have this and talk at the same time so what are you supposed to do well use power point for what is supposed to be used for pick it like this pull down your text into the documentation feeling use the area
up there for the presentation material short sweet bits of text and image that is what enhances your image that is what enhances your message use power point as it's supposed to be come to the third of these five principles not size for going to the I want to make you aware of something and that is the following every time you open your eyes for the rest
of your life you will focus on four things moving objects signaling colors like red orange and yellow contrast which objects big object for the rest of your life you practically something about someone just imagine yourself being home with a friend a really good friend now the television is on but the sound itself you're having a great conversation but you find it is to not look at
the television why not because it's the Cup moving objects it's got signaling colors it's high in contrast and they're used very big this so why not use this to our benefit if you look at this where's your attention drawn to without you even having a chance of controlling it it's going to the big three all the time we'll have a look at the practical situation I
look at this where's your eyes drawn to I can see the drawing to constantly to the headline now how often is the headline the most important part in a power point it's very rare even so every power point templates built like this where the headline is the biggest object and the content is the smallest Gary absolute opposite to our biological reactions so what does this look
like if we just Sherri Chilean example well now reduce the title and it looks like this you see how your eyes now fall down into the content now they're sucked into the headline another full and down into the content so I can control exactly where you are but why do power point why do people buy build power points where people will be spending seventy percent of
time on the headline when he's not the most important part so what I want you to take with you from this is the most important part of your power point shows to be the biggest nothing else moving on number four contrast contrast controls your focus so what does that look like physics if I show you list like Lewis your eyes are all over the place because
you don't really and I want to focus on so use a built in functionality into power point which goes like this I'll show you the first subject I'll take away with contrast not show you the second one and I'll do it again and again and again and again and again and again and again you now fully accepted the white spot if I do this nine down
down down down I can see your eyes just wobbling around and you have it like you know a kid thing going off their little lace appoint an organized basically since I got it I got it I got it because you're following where the white spot is not the rest now this is a beautiful example please do use this use it because you can show you can
sure masing the tables like this if you use the fact of contrast the principle of contract with this looks like your eyes are all over the place you don't know what to focus on but I just apply the principle of contrast new looks like about suddenly you know exactly what to focus on here they're all over the place and here exactly where I want them now
there's a big major drawback with power points and that is that the majority of companies on this earth to day they persist in having white backgrounds in power point look at that well it's bright and shining could you tell me who has the hot bit on their highest contrast many of the street screen researchers have the biggest near the screen while the screen so the only
option I have is dress myself up in signaling colors then jump around on stage you know to balance that problem out and I saw this thing not a good corporate strategy in the long time would it be I think the long term strategy just switch it around power point is not supposed to have white background if I do this your eyes to relax you focus on
me I'm the biggest object I'm the most contest which object I got you focus why is that important important because I am I would have been and always will be cetacean that is my visual aid moving into the last lies object now this is one of the most severe it goes like this how many objects do I have here you're counting quickly you'll see that I've
got sixteen you see this in the beauty of them as well which ghosts page twelve of ninety five what is that why do we do that but only tracing society if anything you know because I can't take a to three more of those Bucks channel six great hope because imagine imagine when it's ninety out of ninety five I can see the life I can see the
end of the tunnel kidding aside now there are so many ideas out there on how many objects suppose to have in power point and once and for all I just want to put my foot down and states you that this is the perfect amount in order to do that I want you to feel it yourself how many objects I suppose to how we gonna do that
by showing you a couple of bowls all throughout the bowl someone to do not to me when you counted them simple instruction it with me cool Hey we're boom right takes your bra oh two seconds good well done New Mexico bulls count them and not to me when you come to them area so then yeah I took about one point two seconds if you normally which
about ninety percent of you seem to be we'll have the third set of both the last one look at this onto me when you come to them paw what's left I just press the button and you know did simultaneously that will if you are normal take you over point to say tape two tenths of a second this will take you one point two this'll take you
two tenths of a second and for anyone of you who you were good at maths you'll find out that that number is approximately five hundred percent difference how is that even remotely possible there only to Bob Dixon difference well might I suggest the following this one you have to count and this one you said about the correct Sir would you just experience is the following the
cognitive process of counting takes five hundred percent longer time requires five hundred percent more energy resources then just so what I want you to in mind at all times even your head is a Swedish number for this the magical number is six it's not five it's not seven it's six I want you to make you aware of this when you go into presentation in the future
and you built this amazing power points if you've got more than seven object to seven no more objects you have to be aware that all the people in that they have to use five hundred send more imaging couldn't resources to understand what it's in your power point I hope you think their energy saving brain by nature behaves will go live who are least invest five hundred
send more cognitive resources in join us on this we have slide or I went I won't and you just think codes death by power point now what does this look like in real life we'll have a look at this sting objects can we agree that that's too many so what does it look like you Fareed you sit look at this we go from this to this
and this is where you bring ghosts ha ha this is where you bring goes %HESITATION I %HESITATION yeah I use you baths in the future when you deliver power points to your colleagues to your fellow people you want them to go %HESITATION when you show them your slides you don't want them to go %HESITATION now the area say I'm you see in this movie the sound
the rain man by dusting off it isn't it comes in this kept hearing somebody drops toothpicks and it goes like two four seven masing isn't it he's perceptive limitless heya your perceptive limits is here now what amazes me is that whichever country I go to whichever company I see seems like they build power points in the hope that dole their fellow colleagues are autistic because some