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Tomsk State University

Presentation skills: Designing Presentation Slides

Tomsk State University via Coursera

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Overview

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“Powerpoint slides are like children: no matter how ugly they are, you’ll think they’re beautiful if they’re yours” — Scott Adams, author of the comic strip “Dilbert”. Due to this cause or another, it’s a huge stress to look at most Powerpoint slides. Depending on the “design” skills of the speaker and audience’s taste slides create different emotions from a slight annoyance to physical sickness.

But that is not the worst thing. The worst thing is that instead of improving the presentation such slides confuse the audience, distract it and finally oblige the speaker to explain them rather than being quite self-explanatory.

The goal of this course is to change that by equipping learners with a set of tools to create simple, clear and aesthetic slides which improve the presentation of the speaker. The course covers universal design principles, templates, colors, typefaces, slides’ typography, use of photos and pictograms, composition rules and ways to create clear and meaningful charts and diagrams.

This course is not a PowerPoint fundamentals course. You should have a basic knowledge of either Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote software.

Don’t meddle, make your slides matter.

Syllabus

  • Part 1: Key principles of design
    • This week is about key principles of slide design. Non-designers usually can’t tell a good slide from a mediocre one. If they could we wouldn’t have had so many bad slides all around us. So this week we are going to fix this by learning the key principles of slide design.
  • Part 2: Templates and colors meaning
    • This week is about templates, colors and fonts. What's wrong with most templates? Which page decorations should you use to make your slide look beautiful? (None!) What information can we pass through the colors? How to choose a typeface? Does a proper typeface make all the difference? (Yes, it does).
  • Part 3: Typography and photographic illustrations
    • This module is about typography and photographic illustrations. Applying basic typography rules allows making decent looking slides only with text. The same goes to tables. If that’s not enough there are icons — do’s and don’ts of them when you try to spruce up your text-only slides. And finally using photos and vector arts to create really gorgeous stunning slides. Basic rules on how to search them on photo banks, how to combine them with text, when icons should be used instead of photos and vice versa.
  • Part 4: Diagrams and data visualization
    • This week is about typography and photographic illustrations. Applying basic typography rules allows to make decent looking slides only with text. The same goes to tables. If that’s not enough there are icons — do’s and don’ts of them when you try to spruce up your text-only slides. And finally using photos and vector arts to create really gorgeous stunning slides. Basic rules on how to search them on photobanks, how to combine them with text, when icons should be used instead of photos and vice versa.

Taught by

Alexei Kapterev

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 849 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Presentation skills: Designing Presentation Slides

  • very straight forward and easy to follow.
    I only gave it 4/5 because the quizzes and exams don’t always properly evaluate the objectives of each part of the course.
    great teacher, he’s a down-to-earth person and gives good advice for non-experts.
    i definitely recomend this course. both for beginners and more advanced users who want to improve.
  • Anonymous
    Excellent course. Probably the best designed course I've taken on Coursera and I've taken a lot of them. The presentations are interesting, entertaining but very educational. The quiz at the end of each chapter is not a push-over quiz, you actually have to go through the material to pass it, and finally the practice assignments are a real way to apply what you learned so you just aren't learning it academically but you put it into practice so the learning is real! Thank you so much for producing this course I greatly appreciate the amount of effort it must have taken to put this together so well.
  • Great course, great and funny instructor, great resources! Powerpoint is both the best and worst invention of a business tool. So many presentation slides are overloaded and look so amateuristic that they completely miss the point, and don't influ…
  • Anonymous
    I didn't always agree with the teacher's design suggestions, but that's understandable, because design is subjective and trends change. I loved how passionate he was, and how he was open about the fact that he's not a professional graphic designer.…
  • Profile image for Badar Muneer
    Badar Muneer
    Well, I would recommend this course to everyone who in one way or other uses Powerpoint presentation whether you are a student or a professional. Everyone should have design sense. Every university in the world should have some courses on design for all students irrespective of their majors. Although i was using PPTs in university but i realized the design importance when I started a job where substantial amount of my work involved working on PPT. I really needed a course to learn and I guess I did find a very good course and that free of cost :) Well, I applied for financial support and coursera team was kind enough to grant me.

    Well done.
  • Anonymous
    fantastic course, great presentor. I wish I had been able to take that course at the start of my career, 30 years ago.
    What I like most about the course is how the presentor develops a typical ugly slide into something appealing in a step-by-step approach.
    Interestingly, most of the steps are about REMOVING, not adding elements, such as color, decoration and so forth.
    Highly recommended for anyone who has to produce, present or look at slides.
  • Anonymous
    It was enjoyable, funny, full of amazing information and so great quotas.
    It was amazing course, focusing on the beauty , balance , smooth and clear presentation.
    I am really so lucky to find it and learn with each slide of it how to make my slides more professional and easier to read, and how to make my solutions more beautiful.
    Thanks a lot for it , I really enjoyed it
  • Anonymous
    Outstanding course, Alexei is an inspirational instructor and his experience and skills are true gold. Great lessons with the right percentage of humor in it.
  • Anonymous
    One of the easiest ways to start your journey in slide-design.One of the easiest ways to start your journey in slide-design.One of the easiest ways to start your journey in slide-design.One of the easiest ways to start your journey in slide-design.…
  • Anonymous
    this is the best course I've taken. Very exciting! Helps me become very creative and imaginative during the exercises.
  • This was my first Coursera course. And i must say I'm off to a great start. I loved this course everybit. I learnt so much about design.
    The only problem i had was getting reviews on time. And I think the instructor also needs to review his student's assignments.
    Thank you. This course was worth the time.
  • Sahar Iqbal
    I found this course very interesting...and the credit goes to instructor....

    His teaching style is very engaging....

    He used simple language n helps to illustrate very practical points from real life examples..

    The way he divided the the subject in weeks n assignments were perfect...

    I especially enjoyed the learning in week 3 & 4...about icons and image usage ..how we can design a well balanced and composed slide..

    Tips about Data visualization is also very helpful....

    Thanks to instructor and Coursera team ..

    I really recommend this....

    Regards

  • I complete this course in less than a week. It's really very interesting course. He is not a professional design but teaches very professionally on creating high skills in presentation. This is one of the best course on coursera. I will recommend it to all who pursue their career in business. This will really beneficial you.
  • The course teacher is really great. His learning style is very good and easy. The course teacher is really great. His learning style is very good and easy. The course teacher is really great. His learning style is very good and easy. The course teacher is really great. His learning style is very good and easy.
  • This was my first completed course on Coursera and it did not disappoint. It was informative, educational and presented in such a way that anyone could understand. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone who wants to improve their presentation skills.
  • Anonymous
    That was my first attempt to attend a lesson related to designing presentation slides. The content was interesting, the presenter was transferring the content in very clear way. It was also the first lesson I attended in Coursera. I got surprised that part of the assignments were reviewed by peers and not the instructor. Overall I really enjoyed the course, I would recommend to others.
  • Anonymous
    I found this course very interesting, straight forward and easy to follow.

    Special credit goes to instructor, great teacher, he’s a down-to-earth person and gives good advice for non-experts. His teaching style is really very engaging. (Hats off)

    Thanks to Instructor and Coursera team.

    I definitely recomend this course. both for beginners and advanced users who want to improve.
  • Excellent course. Completely changed perspective about design, and how we can communicate to different audiences. Also, realized the futility of using default Powerpoint options to design meaningful and 'unique' presentations.
  • Anonymous
    The worst course I've ever seen! It's more like a person throwing random ideas here and there, without deeply explaining certain steps or methods to apply those ideas. I mean, I'm a slides-design virgin -and many of the course students are as well-.…
  • Anonymous
    Thank you for a great course. Great presentation style with lots of opportunities to ask questions and talk about real life examples which all made for a really enjoyable and informative course." "This has more than met my expectations." "A wonderfully practical course - both personally and professionally

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