Preparation and Organization

1) The three main points of Reynolds piece are that the presentation has to be clear and understandable to the audience, good presentations are planned out thoughtfully on paper before they are put into PowerPoint or other similar programs, this helps with organization and flow. Finally, good presentations need to be practiced many times before it will given, this will almost eliminate nervousness.

2) This advice is very applicable to the presentation we have been assigned to give. Before I jump right into putting my ideas into PowerPoint, I’m going to write them down and outline them on paper. I also will practice the presentation over and over, and formulate possible questions so that I am not caught off guard. It will also force me to think about the audience that I’m presenting too and how my partner and I can best capture and maintain their attention throughout the presentation.

3) Presentation preparation and product design have a lot of similar aspects. Reynolds explains that if one opens PowerPoint and starts making a presentation, it will be confusing and unclear because it needs to be planned on paper first. This tip holds true to design teams too because they cannot just sit down and build the finished product. The designers need to plan for months the best and most efficient way to manufacture their product and that helps by planning it out on paper and making models prior to the final product. Just like presenters and speakers, design teams need to make usability of the product simple. If a complex product is too difficult to use, it won’t be as efficient, usable or economically beneficial to the company as if it were simple to use. If a presentation is too jumbled and confusing, the audience will divert their attention minimizing the effect the presentation will have.

An area of design that I would like to cover in class is the advertising and marketing aspect and also I would like to explore the reflective level of design more.