Thesis
If one had to pick a thesis statement for the book, it would be the following: “every presenter has the potential to be great; every presentation is high stakes; and every audience deserves the absolute best” (pp. xix). This situating of presentations as a tool for high-stakes communication is crucial for understanding the advice throughout the book.
Duarte approaches presentation slides as a crucial visual aid for getting one's ideas across and being a successful communicator. Though many presentation slides are filled with dense textual information, Duarte argues for the use of these slides as an opportunity to help audiences visualize and connect with the speaker's message.
Duarte approaches presentation slides as a crucial visual aid for getting one's ideas across and being a successful communicator. Though many presentation slides are filled with dense textual information, Duarte argues for the use of these slides as an opportunity to help audiences visualize and connect with the speaker's message.
In order to create these effective presentations, Duarte walks readers through a process of storyboarding, designing, rehearsing, getting feedback, and iterating on a presentation (see left). Following this advice will undoubtedly result in more effective presentations, as can be seen in the book's many case studies. However, the dedication of Duarte's estimated 36-90 hours (1-2 week's worth of dedicated work) of preparation with a team of individuals for a 1-hour presentation may only be reasonable or possible for those in the most high-stakes of communication situations with the greatest access to resources. This potential resource gap is something readers will have to address, but it should not deter anyone from reading the book - a great deal of the advice is widely applicable.
Even in situations where readers need to operate with a smaller monetary or time budget and compromise is necessary, understanding the guidelines offered in the book will still help readers create and deliver more visually effective and compelling presentations. Readers will need to take all of the recommendations into the book and determine the situations for which this in-depth process is plausible, which situations will call for compromise, and where they can most reasonably make these compromise. |