slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

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I have to rain on the parade of this book and Garr Reynold's book (and other ones).

The message is "I'm one of the best slide designers in the world (which is true) and I'm going to show you WHY."

The message should be "I'm one of the best slide designers in the world and I'm going to show you HOW."

You'll see plenty to interest you, but unless you're a full-fledged graphic designer you'll never recreate these slides. Imagine putting this book (and the Reynold's book) into a room with some of your worst slide creators, or even yourself. Would you see an improvement in their skills? I doubt it.

You might as well become a painter by reading books that have the world's greatest pictures in them. Even though there is explanatory text here it isn't enough to bridge the gap.

To see a book written for its audience, try the "Before and After" books by Jon McWade which deal with desktop publishing. Unfortunately John has not yet tackled slides, but you can see an page layout idea and make it yourself in minutes.

So, sorry about this, because both this and Reynold's book are "nice" books. The energy has gone into the book's design and production rather than the content. But that makes them coffee-table books, and unless you have a coffee table in your office I'd advise that you give both of them a miss.

20081214 DEPARTED AMAZON WITH OUTRAGE OVER THE MANIPULATION OF VOTES.

I just destroyed this book with folded pages and ink annotations, so the perfectionists out there may want to order two copies, one for eating and one for sharing. The price is phenomenally reasonable, especially for something that is all color and totally elegant.

This is not about powerpoint slides. If anything, it is a very subtle but explicit critique of how retarded they still are (e.g. no separation between bullet groups). This is an utterly inspiring combination of wisdom, education, visual excitement, and plain fun that "lives" what it preaches.

When I get back to the office I am going to read this book again while I create a briefing on the Earth Intelligence Network and educating the poor one cell call at a time that respects the deep knowledge being imparted by this author and her team. Mills Davis, visualization and semantic genius (Project10X) called my presentation "dense" yesterday, and I needed this book to understand just how polite he was being.

Bottom line mechanically: 10 slides, 20 minutes, 30 font size MINIMJM. For the advanced audiences, 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 6 minutes and 20 seconds total.

I read and reread sections, and the recurring thought in my head was that this book may well be all one needs to run a semester long course on the communication of important complex ideas. The author does not just show a correct slide, the author breaks down every aspect (e.g. fonts, color, grid layouts, use of images, creating your own art) into separate chapters with very ably-illustrated palettes covering all the options. I have a note on this, "nuances are unpackaged and illustrated."

I note the author's admonition that change across the presentation is a distraction, that animation should support the message and the continuity of understanding.

For large organizations, the author covers templates as a means of harnessing the diversity of knowledge of varied functions and employees, while maintaining a consistency of brand. BRAND is huge within this book, and in this book BRAND is not a legal term, it is a philosophical term. I am hugely impressed by a chart showing UK companies that treat BRAND as a design imperative being so much more competitive and profitable than those that do not. This book is not just asserttions and demonstrations, it is fact and case based and eminently authoritative.

I learn for the first time that powerpoint slides can be instantly made to be black and white to focus audience on the speaker, or made all white, by pressing B or W. Why didn't I learn that from Microsoft? Because their tool bar is not designed to teach....perhaps?

Special pages for me:

10-11 The Presentation Ecosystem (Message, Story, Delivery)
12-13 Time Estimate for world-class presentations (36-90 hours)
18-19 Rick Justice and 27 slides on eight topics (organization)
58-59 Making Diagtrams Work Together
64-65 Following the Five Data Slide Rules (Tell the Truth is Rule 1)
82-83 The (Financial) Value of Good Design
116-117 Lose the logo on every slide....
142-143 Dissecting a font (this section alone was HUGE eye-opener)
148-149 Typesetting a block of text (what powerpoint does not do)

The references are phenomenal, and comprise an instant library for any person, firm, or school of design. I only have ten links allowed, so below I list the reference categories, and link to a single book from the multiples identified--no disrespect intended for the others!

DESIGN
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)

BRANDING
The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design

VISUAL THINKING
Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands

INFORMATION GRAPHICS
Nigel Holmes On Information Design (Working Biographies)

DATA DISPLAY
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data

CONTENT
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

BUSINESS BOOKS
The E-Myth Manager: Why Most Managers Don't Work and What to Do About It

The index is very good, another manifestation of the utter devotion to quality of the publisher, O'Reilly (I dislike most of their book sets, this one very properly rose to a proper high level).

Lots of white space. There isn't an ounce of fat or irrelevance in this book. It is world-class in every respect, and most publishers are so crummy about price and color that I want to end with a tip of the hat to o'Reilly for getting this one "just right."

Nancy Duarte has designed a winner with her first book - and it's an instant classic on presentation design. Not only will anyone be able to make MUCH better presentations, they will have fun learning how. Whether beginner or expert, Nancy helps anyone get to the top of their game in making a impact through presenting their ideas visually.

It's also interesting and inspiring reading as well, and goes far beyond presentations. The success of Duarte Design is well deserved, and you'll see why in reading this book.

Bert Decker

...for your personal professional library. Or, for those of you who are mentors, coaches and teachers, the book should be required (or at least a supplemental class text) for either Business Communication, Marketing Communication, or Public Speaking. Slide:ology reaches a broad audience because it offers a new way to think about presentations. It also provides practical examples and inside tips for the beginners on how to turn words into visual images. Even if you are veteran slide-jock or designer, you should find Slide:ology useful and an enjoyable read. Chapters 2 and 3 alone are well worth the investment!

Keep in mind the definition of the English suffix -ology or -logy "denotes a field of study or academic discipline."
This is not a How to book for learning production tricks or shortcuts, or how to make a concise, interesting and informative presentation.
There are not enough big, bright eye grabbing pictures to qualify as a coffee table book.

Once you get used to the tiny grey text and lots of white space, you can begin to concentrate on communications & presentation theory. Then it will be a fair Presentations 101 textbook.

I found the book interesting but with the small print, very hard to read. More theory than practical help in putting together a presentation, especially in the instructional area.

I'm a trainer, offering live seminars which we convert to video presentations for our distance learners. I'm comfortable with creating good video, but not so with creating strong slide presentations. For years, we've felt the need for dynamic slide presentations that would heighten the excitement we work to build in our seminars. The slide presentations we created or had created for us, relayed information but they seemed flat to me, not what we were going for.

If you're hoping to create a great slide presentation or a great visual presentation of any sort, you will find that this book shows you how to do so. You will learn how to avoid kicking the audience into the yawn zone by creating presentations that have power and impact.

If you are even considering the possibility of creating a slide presentation, please consider picking up this book sooner than later. The author will help you to put together a strong presentation that will get your message across to your audience in a powerful and interesting way. This book is highly recommended.

I wanted to know how Duarte makes such an impact telling stories and now I know. Seemed a little expensive, but the value is there. This conversational book is a great read and reference.

Don't buy this book. The text is maddeningly small and poorly contrasted. With postage stamp size visuals it's like reading a telphone book.
Get The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams and check out the website of the author of The Craft of Scientific Presentations, Michael Alley for templates and research based design tips.
With these two resources you'll have everything you need without having to wade through the padding in Duarte's book.

This book had some great points and would be helpful for anybody that does PPT regulary to better understand some of the issues with powerpoint. Nancy is a good personable writer and the book was approachable and interesting. The book is more focussed on the overall presentation experience. I dont think this book would provide much new to a graphic designer but good for a non-designer to better understand ppt. I would recomment Presentation Zen as being another excellent book - perhaps a little better - at providing some good thoughts on how to present and what to avoid.

I'm not Steve Jobs, but I do take pride in designing presentations I need to make for life. I didn't know what to expect from this book after hearing some positive things- but I'd read almost all the recent books on the subject (most of which the author cites). Slideology's strength is that it covers every element of slide design from colors and transitions to use of charts. The book itself feels more like a coffee tab art book. Not much text, lots of negative space. It's nicely designed. The book is a great reference to have around - more so than other books on the subject.

A few highlights-
- Tons of chart types and their meanings
- Color coordination tips
- The idea to use post it notes for planning

Another treasure this book has a list of "Further Reading" at the end that includes works beyond presentations.

I found all the video or animated slides tedious even though the ideas were impressive. Also, almost all the case studies in the book were trivial at best. Sort of the, "I know this awesome guy and he makes presentations for work and they look like this!"

In any case, if you have never read one of these presentation books, buy this one. If you have read all of them, buy this one too, since. If you're Steve Jobs, you can pass.

Slide:ology is really an incredible book. I do some presentations part time for a music business. I really felt overwhelmed in starting it. It is not a primer. If you are experienced with PowerPoint you will get a lot out of it. If you are beginning, then use the PP tutorials on the web. This is advanced board-room stuff. Don't get me wrong. It is a great book with incredible visuals. I have gotten a lot out of it. The ideas are there. How to do what they say is up to you to spend time with the program. I would have given it 5 stars but for the need to really be an advanced user. I would have preferred a section for the novice advancing to the more detailed presentations. The pictures and graphics are great but I feel like I am watching someone who knows how and where to get these, but I don't. It is daunting!! Yet, it really is a must read if you are entangled in the corporate world of presentations. For me, an intermediate, I have to go back into the PP program and learn more about the how-to portions. Then maybe I can get my monies worth out of the book!

...this slick, lively and valuable.

When it comes to bullets, some of my co-workers buy their ammunition by the case. 17 bullet points in one slide?! Yes, we can do that. 50 slides?! "Well, I wanted to make everything clear..."

I intend to slip this book onto the department library and hope its sanity spreads.

§

Remember Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth slides? They were designed by this author. That initially caught my attention, but the great contemporary design and well-written information kept me interested. I've been looking for a good book on PowerPoint design for awhile...I've finally found a great one! Here's why. Most books about PowerPoint simply tell you how to use the program; however this book teaches about creating effective and dazzling slides. It walks you through the process of brainstorming, storyboarding, organization and finally design. It helps with developing a concept and especially the artistic aspect. Some tips she provides: use visual metaphors, the less text the better, and the 3 second rule (the audience must understand the slide within 3 seconds). She also provides many case studies so there are plenty of examples and inspiration showing good powerpoint design.

I'm a graphic designer and frequently have to design powerpoints for clients. I've found designing for powerpoints particularly challenging because it's easy for the presentations to look cliche, resembling too much of a template, with challenging color contrasts and text integration. To add to this, often I'm told by clients they want lots of bullet points and way too many slides. But now I've already begun to notice an improvement in my slides' effectiveness. I highly recommend this book!

I also recommend Presentation Zen:. It offers many great suggestions too and even has a case study featuring this author.

I had high hopes for this book. It looks very nice. It has the right nods to Tufte early on. But...

But the true content is very thin, includes a load of chart junk (the anti-Tufte - I guess the true cue is in the title, this is a PowerPoint book) and page after page of abstract diagrams demonstrating "flow" - much like the woeful second half of "Say it with Charts" which is about 50 pages of arrows.

Very very disappointing indeed.

Nancy Duarte, author of slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations has a wealth of resources on her Web site including articles, a blog, and extended content from her book. She cleverly adds a www symbol on some pages in the book. This sends a signal to check the book's companion site for extended content.

This great approach works well because it's visual with the green www taking little space. Thus, you don't feel like the book wastes any space to point you away from the book's pages. Some people don't care to go online -- they want their entire book within the book's pages. So it won't bother this audience.

A useful book companion site also helps market the book to those who don't have it. If they like what they see, they'll want the rest of it. Smart authors balance the print and online resource to avoid taking away from the experience of the print edition and providing bonus material that would not work in the book (videos of the presentation and downloadable PowerPoint files) while giving just enough information to those who don't own the book... yet.

Duarte refers to Sky McCloud's dynamic presentation containing 200 slides that she shows in eight minutes. Her book site includes her full presentation -- which you can't capture in the book. As a deaf person, I couldn't hear what she said. That girl's slides captivate me the whole time as they almost tell a story on their own.

What I like about these PowerPoint files is the site shows them like a movie. It also helps to watch the presentation in full first and then download the file to see its individual slides and how to make it work. Duarte provides the links referenced in the book so readers can click instead of type them.

The slick and colorful book shows how to create effective, intriguing, and visual presentations from the beginning of the process where you ask questions to know your audience better. It works through finding inspiration and coming up with the initial ideas and design.

slide:ology helps those who know all the tricks of PowerPoint, but struggle with the visual aspects of the presentation -- the art and design part. That's me. I'm a right-brain thinker who tells it like it is.

I struggle when it comes to creating and showing my thoughts with visuals. It's like when I tried to be a web designer. I knew how to do HTML, CSS, and create a site. But it was flat, lifeless, and boring.

This book blends PowerPoint and information visualization. Such visuals help tell the story. So the book covers space, typography, delivery, diagrams, color, animation, design value, and more.

This won't teach you how to use PowerPoint. Plenty of books covering that exist already. Instead, Duarte focuses on helping you tell your story in a dramatic and visually appealing way. You won't have to resort to cliché images anymore.

Case studies appear throughout the book between creativity and design discussions. Some zoom in on a specific feature of a real presentation while others share expertise from talented speakers and executives of organizations ranging from Cisco to a church pastor.

After reading slide:ology, I believe I can step up my presentations from a design perspective. I'm a pro when it comes to text, but visuals... kaput. Since I can easily create charts, it won't take much to make them more effective with the tips from the book. I'm in no hurry to do a presentation and test out what I've learned.

The book is easy to read and reference as it uses a lot of pictures and slides. Although a lot of the text uses too small of a font size -- very surprising considering the discussion on font size.

The book is so packed with practical and pragmatic tips, it's usefull as soon as you open it. Great format to keep browsing through to find inspiration and check how you are doing on your slide deck while you work on it. Thanks for sharing the results of so many years of experience and expertise, Nancy!

No business library should be without SLIDE:OLOGY, a guide to using presentation software for maximum effectiveness and eye-popping presentations. Skillful visual presentations can make or break a report or business; here, the Principal of Duarte Design offers concrete approaches to visual story development, blending conceptual thinking with case studies from leading brands. From creating graphics to help listeners visualize more effectively to turning ideas into graphics and using diagramming techniques, this book challenges conventional approaches to using slides and teaches the foundations of visual thinking.

Powerpoint sucks. However, it's pretty tough to _not_ include a Powerpoint presentation if you're trying to convince someone that's used to Powerpoint. Slide:ology leaves irritating presentations behind.

Great stuff.

If you are finding an advanced book for presentation skills and slide design, you should love this one!

If you are finding a cookbook or a step-by-step instruction of how to build a powerpoint, you should not read this!

It is for advanced learner who really want to put design into presentation and slideshow. It is about a style and art rather than a production of a presentation file.

I recommend you reading this with these two...
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)
Help with high impact presentations

Since four months a go, I have been focused on how to transfer knowledge in the best way posible, studing the brain, marketing tactics, etc, how ever the visual techniques are fundamental, because human capture 80% in a visual way, so, this book teaches you several, concreat and CREATIVE ways yo manage the visual cues elements in order to send an interesting, clear and strong message or idea.

You just start at morning and finish it at evening, is very well writen and published, so, is congruent with what she say.

Nancy Duarte is managing Duarte Design, a company that has created some high-profile presentations (Al Gore is one of the clients). They (her husband is the company's CFO) started out in the 80s when the Apple Macintosh brought desk top publishing and graphics design to the masses, and have now become one of the big brands in professional presentation design.

This is the perfect book for those who have mastered the PowerPoint (or Apple Keynote) technical skills and need to make the final jump to master concepts usually taught in art schools (rather than software manuals):
- Picking pleasing color schemes
- Slide composition
- Typography
- Etc.

The trained eye can extract almost everything there is to know about presentation design. However, this is not the book that will teach you magic that will turn your beginner-level PowerPoint edits into a professional presentation.

Many subjects discussed in this books are covered in other material as well (minimal bullet points, cut words, use professional images, etc. etc.) However, there are some very specific things that I picked up in this book that were new to me:

- Thinking about cinematic movement for animations or slide composition
- Creating one big map and using the PowerPoint push transition to navigate it: one presentation - one big slide
- A large library of chart concept sketches, there were many new ones I did not use before
- Stressing to adopt a "designer" mentality to presentations

Things that I found less useful/interesting (personal preference):
- (Many) direct references to the services Duarte Design can offer
- Case examples (many of which are the same as on Duarte's site) are not always useful
- The section on data charts was relatively weak

But overall, a warm recommendation to purchase this book. It is well written, nicely illustrated and brings all the presentation design essentials together in one place, including many references to further reading and almost all the big presentation "brands" in the industry.

I highly recommend this book! Great tips and insights and extremely helpful. One of the best of it's kind. Wwll worth the price.

My wife and I both read thru this book. Both of us are minorly visual people and do some design work in various mediums (me: web, her: sewing/arts and crafts).

The visuals and examples are all nice, and good testimonials.

The only thing I think was somewhat lacking, the book could have used a bit more text on color usage.

slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations

I enjoyed the book. It is well laid out with some really nice graphics and images to illustrate the points. The book covers basic design concepts with good examples on the do's and don'ts. I found the different iconic representations of abstract concepts in Chapter 3 particularly useful. The book is inspiring and by the time I reached the last page, I was looking forward to applying the new knowledge on my next presentation. The challenge though, would be to create amazing graphics like those in the book to inject the "wow" factor. I would have appreciated some mention on the tools used to produce the graphics in the book and how readers with no professional graphic design skills could bridge this gap.

This book may well get me the opportunity to move into corporate america. I had an interview with a forune 50 company. Because I was able to just reference the book, my interview went over so well that the Vice President of sales gave me a favorable interview. We will see if I am able to move to the next interview process. Without this book i may well have been lost in the shuffle!!!

Only since I've purchased Presentation Zen have I've been so changed by a book about presenting, education, and sharing ideas with others. This book is about the mechanics of assembling a better presentation; who better to write it than the queen of presentations, Mrs. Nancy Duarte. Just one of her claims to fame (and a rightful one at that) is designing the slides for An Inconvenient Truth, presented and turned into a movie by Mr. Al Gore.

I only wish I could afford to drop off copies of this book at the desk of every colleague that I interact and present with at DOSUG, DJUG, and beyond. The transformation that the ideas contained in this book would have on their presentations is simply phenomenal. Nancy builds incrementally on each step in the book, taking you to better and deeper approaches to improving your presentations. She gives away her insider secrets on assembling slide order (spoiler: post it notes, used in creative ways + thoughts about snow globes), and what to put (and not to put) on your slides. You'll be surprised what she tells you to leave out.

If you are a casual or professional presenter you owe it to yourself to buy a copy of this book. Your presentations will be transformed to a higher level of training for your audience.

This book is a great book to inspire one to push beyond the mundane, and enter into an Artful
and more complete type of Presentation-- and it can be applied to any type of Presentation. I found the content to inspire me to create a unique and brilliant Presentation, not just a Presentation. This book is also concise, well constructed to easily navigate through the parts of particular interest, and it touches on "flashes of genious"-- certain examples of great work.
The inclusion of a woman's successful Presentation (the brain doctor) because of a conscious decision to use very few Slides points to this book as a Visionary book. It is not a 'how-to' book but a "think about this" type of book. It was also very beautifully laid out. The attention to every design detail was remarkable and it has become a book I recommend to everyone trying to understand the communicative concepts behind any type of Presentation-- from a business one to one more along the lines of theatre or spectacle-- because those are the Presentation of Ideas too-- albeit emotional ones. I call this an Art Book on presentations.FAUST

Working in a world that is increasingly aliterate demands the best control of communications possible, and this starts with the tools of the graphics designer.

Clean, fast, powerful, effective communication requires using the tools to address the unique subculture of your market niche, and your graphics design team has been collecting bits and pieces, here and there, giving you the best of what they have.

If they don't have this book, they don't have enough.

This one book places all of their bits and pieces in a context of graphical communications, as well as providing many more, very useful, bits and pieces of graphic design.

Skip all you were taught, unlearn what hasn't worked, and get this book, which encapsulates the keys to the code of effective graphic communications.

It's almost a cliche to complain about how most presentations are horrible. But fortunately there are a select few books out there that take you beyond the mechanics of creating a presentation. Nancy Duarte has one of those books that need to be read by every presenter... slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. It's my hope that this book gets a wide reading by all who stand up in front of groups and convey a message.

Contents:
Introduction; Create a New Slide Ideology; Creating Ideas, Not Slides; Creating Diagrams; Displaying Data; Thinking Like a Designer; Arranging Elements; Using Visual Elements - Background, Color, and Text; Using Visual Elements - Images; Creating Movement; Governing with Templates; Interacting with Slides; Manifesto - The Five Theses of the Power of a Presentation; Reference; Index

Duarte leads a design firm that is responsible for shaping the message and images that define a company's message. In slide:ology, she distills down the important information they use to design slides and presentations that make an impact, both visually and emotionally. She starts with defining how presentations are meant to convey ideas, not slides. All too often, presenters use slides as a crutch to hide behind. If all the information is there, then they don't have to worry about forgetting anything. Conversely, they also aren't needed as part of the presentation, either. These text-heavy, multi-bulleted slides are really documents in disguise. They're meant to be printed off and read, not presented to a group. After the theory and concepts are presented, she gets into the mechanics of how those impact slides are created, everything from color and font selection to image use and placement. In many ways, the book is also an example of her work. Rather than pages and pages of text with standard images, the layout is designed to enhance the message and cement the concepts in the reader's mind. Although it feels like you're reading a work of literary art, you're also absorbing the message almost without effort. It's nearly impossible to come away from reading slide:ology without looking at presentations in the same way again.

Up to the point of reading slide:ology, I was convinced that Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds was the only absolute "must read" for presenters. I would now contend that slide:ology should be purchased and read at the same time. I've started to incorporate many of these ideas in my presentations, and it's made a major difference (positively, that is). You owe it to yourself, and especially your audience, to read slide:ology. You'll be happier with your efforts to communicate, and your audience will be MUCH happier listening to you present.

A very interesting book for people who uses to make presentations and want to do it different.
Very good graphics, many examples, Ideas, etc

Where to start?

Overall, this is probably one of the best books I've purchased for my own skills growth. I give the occasional presentation and I'm just blown away now that I review my previous slideshows having this book's information in my head.

For me, just the information found in Chapter 7 (of 12) was worth the price of the book. Don't know what Triadic or Tetradic color sampling are? You will when you're done reading. And the suggestions on the use of lighting an text feel common-sense now, but of course that's after reading this book.

The author includes a good mixture of Case Studies, with very simple examples from key companies and organizations that just hammer in the fact that there's so much to learn about proper slide design.

Add to this the discussion on the actual purposes of slideshows and I'm convinced that I can improve my presentations and make certain they fill the requirements of the audience and not my own.

Some random thoughts:

* Chapter 9 on Movement - short but sweet; I'm already trying to figure out how to incorporate some of these ideas into my slideshows.

* Chapter 4 on Data Presentation - another chapter that very well may be worth the price of the book. If you use graphs in your slideshows, this chapter will open your eyes to what we do right and wrong.

* Chapter 10 on Templates - Finally, some good advice on creating my own in-house standards that provide some consistency for my audience.

Overall, a 6-star book. The layout is easy on the eyes, the writing style is simple and relevant, and the examples are plenty and to the point. I wish I'd had this book in college and highly recommend it to any up-and-coming entrepreneurs who want to get attention. Great job, Nancy Duarte.

I teach people how to win in high stakes presentation situations. I have always advocated the power of verbal visuals (metaphors and analogies) to drive home a point particularly "when your audience just doesn't get it." I love Slide:ology because it is a brilliant book for anyone who needs to make a point with actual visuals. Rich in examples and case studies, its messaging and lay-out model what it is selling with grace, elegance and sophistication. A must-have for all communicators.

I typically post reviews of books based on technology topics like .NET, LINQ, etc. but I thought this book would be a could fit for the site. This book is about creating effective PowerPoint slides which many technology professionals, like myself, do on a regular basis. On to the review...

The author breaks up the book into multiple chapters but not your typically kind of chapters. These chapters are about the different parts that make up a slide; graphics, displaying data, diagrams, use of movement, etc. Each chapter is typically closed with a Case Study which demonstrates the use of the technic or recommend. This is done by showing a before and after presentation. The author also reinforces her points effectively by using graphics, colors and illustrations.

The book is chock full of handy tips and suggestions that anyone can use to create dazzling and effective PowerPoint slides. If you present using PowerPoint, this is a must have.

This is a great book that I would give 4.5 stars if I could. I'm a Marketing VP, I bought it to help clean up our text-heavy, no-white-space slides. Now the Sales VP is studying it, and have you ever seen a sales guy study anything?

The best part of the book is it's step-by-step exploration of the whole presentation process, from creating ideas, through diagrams, images, colors, templates, etc. Most other resources focus only on the slides, which is just the visible end product of the whole process. This book does not slack on the slides either, with lots of color examples.

Why not five stars? After studying the book for a few days, I realized that there could have been a much wider variety of presentation samples. There is a bit of sameness to the examples shown. An example of a software product presentation, and of a consumer sales presentation, would have added great variety. In fact, one spread is devoted to an Audience Definition exercise, with a very detailed profile of the "empty nester" audience for a presentation about investments or timeshares. While the exercise was very well done, if we could have seen the resulting presentation, it would have gone a long way to getting this book its extra half star.

Make no mistake, this book is worth buying and reading. Buy copies for your staff. Maybe the expanded second edition will have a few more examples.

slide:ology:
The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations
by Nancy Duarte

As a professionally trained Educational Communications Specialist and former Graduate School professor, I read this book with skepticism. Nancy Duarte has capsulized all that I learned in a thirty plus year career communicating with professionals, and the public. This is the book I should have written so many years ago. Chapter by chapter, one is reminded of the many aspects necessary for effective visual communications. Although the book concentrates on slideshows it's lessons are applicable to all forms of visual presentations. It should be read and reread by anyone responsible for group presentations.

Duarte has been doing presentation design for a long time and it was nice to finally see a book from Nancy Duarte on their methodology of presentation design. It was informative and instructive, but not entirely prescriptive (which would have been better in some cases). However the insights she provides are worth the purchase and I found this book a keeper.

'slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations' is a fantastic book that shows you how to create better presentations, plain and simple. In 250+ pages you get a great guide that is perfect for all presenters or people that help in the presentation process. Not a book to teach you how to use PowerPoint better, this book goes through all the nuts and bolts and does it very well. From diagramming to arrangement to images and slides this book teaches you the fundamentals of how to get the most bang from your buck when you need to get a good presentation out the door. Relying on case studies and 20 years of industry experience the author tells you what has made her company successful and how YOU can be successful as well, getting ideas out in the most efficient way possible.

If you are in the field, pick up this book TO-DAY.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I don't see how you could read this book and not markedly improve your presentations. No, it won't improve your diction. It doesn't teach you how to make sweeping gestures. And there is no advice about where to stand or how to set up the room. There are other books that do that.

What Nancy Duarte has done however, is to write a book that seeks to transform the banal "more is better" bullet-pointed slide show into a presentation that creatively use visuals to deliver our thoughts and ideas to an engaged audience.

It's a step-by-step guide to building great presentations, yet not at all written like a "how-to" book. I loved Chapter 2 Creating ideas, Not Slides which was chock full of tips on thinking about our message. My favorite was Chapter 11 Interacting with Slides. Duarte begins the chapter with a discussion of constraints, and includes specific tips on how to reign in our unmanageable slide shows. She concludes with a well-reasoned plea to not just deliver presentations, but to connect with our audience.

It's a colorful, beautiful book even though the small grey type can be a bit hard on the eyes. For a great companion piece pick up Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen.

Tufte shook the PowerPoint world with his pointed critism of the program. What Tufte failed to address, however, is that the problem is not with the program, but with users who simply create bad presentations. . .

Now, there's no excuse. Slide:ology and Nancy Duarte provide the tools and techniques for visually effective presentations -- no matter what program is used.

This book is to the point and easily digestible. This book should be a required reading for anyone.

This book will help you get rid of those old presentation ideas that were imparted to you by those who don't even present well.