Strengths
Sara Wachter-Boettcher’s SlideShare presentation titled “Structuring Content, Restructuring Organizing,” created for Content Strategy Forum 2012 beautifully embodies the most crucial characteristic of presentation design: big imagery and minimal text. That’s the first thing we want to commend the designer on, and it’s certainly not the last.
The slides that feature quotes are some of the most powerful of the deck because of their bold design, which is suitable as the quotes featured in a presentation should be the most compelling possible. Another thing we admire about this deck is the imagery. The photographs used are consistent throughout. We also like how the designer keeps the images humorous and lighthearted, which contrasts nicely with the dark color scheme.
We also really like the use of just three colors, and using the gold color for emphasis was a great choice against the dark colors, as it really grabs the eye’s attention. Lastly, we like the use of different yet consistent layouts for each slide. Such a balanced mixture of variety and cohesion makes the deck look well thought-out and organized.
Content
(Quick aside: As a content writer at Ethos3, I found the content of this deck to be very interesting. I was even jotting down notes to myself throughout.) Wachter-Boettcher did an exceptional job of putting exactly one point on each slide, stealthily avoiding the trap of cramming too much information on one slide. Breaking up content to have one point per slide lends the presentation much more power than leaving it all on one slide. (Click through slides 16–23 for evidence of this. Notice how it flows along the lines of: example, example, example, main idea).
Additionally, we love how she follows the Rule of Threes by breaking up her main points into threes, i.e. “3 Challenges for our Organizations,” and “3 Ways to Make Change Happen.” And the latter is a great, subtle call to action. It provides three ways the audience can take action and work to change the situation at hand immediately.
Weaknesses
Though we think the deck is exceptional overall, we do have a couple of criticisms. First of all, one of our designers shrewdly points out that the color scheme is a little dark for a projection screen; it might be hard to read. Also, we didn’t love the mixture of photographs and illustrations. The deck could have gone without the illustrations, and we also think the screenshots look rather haphazard and out of place. She would have done better to make them look more consistent with the rest of the deck.
In Summary
Overall, we really love Wachter-Boettcher’s “Structuring Content, Restructuring Organizing” presentation. She embraces the quintessential presentation design style of big visuals with minimal text, and she makes her content incredibly compelling–– and perhaps most importantly–– necessary for the target audience: content writers and strategists.
