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White Space Is Not Your Enemy

Creating the persuasive presentationAs business people, we create presentations for two purposes: to convey information and to persuade. If you’ve ever been responsible for creating or assembling a company presentation, you know how much time it takes to bring together and organize the information you want to share. Depending on the length of the presentation, it can take days…even weeks. And all this work is done for a reason: you, your boss, or a colleague will give this presentation to an audience, with the explicit purpose of informing and persuading.

When it comes to creating persuasive presentations, white space (also known as negative space) is not your enemy. It is your ally. White space supports information flows, and it helps direct the audience’s attention through the information you’re presenting. Ultimately, white space helps you persuade the audience, as it guides them slide-by-slide to what’s important in your presentation’s message.

The PowerPoint bullet patternA typical business presentation is built using PowerPoint’s standard bullet-based layout. Each slide in the presentation deck covers one or more topics, with information arranged in a series of bulleted phrases or sentences. Unfortunately, this layout is not conducive to white space for two reasons. First, the bullets often take the full width of the slide, pushing any available white space to the outside, and second, instead of being seen as individual elements, the bullets actually form a pattern or a grouping.

From the Appsifter Blog

White Space Is Not Your Enemy January 8, 2012

Saturday, February 4, 12

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With a pattern or grouping, each element becomes indistinguishable from the rest. All the bullets look the same and it’s hard to tell which one is more important than the next. Imagine slide-after-slide of this and you’ve turned your once-attentive audience into a bored and glazed-over group.

A quick example to illustrate our pointWe’ve put together a quick example to illustrate our point. Let’s say you want to take a weekend getaway trip with your spouse or significant other. Using a typical PowerPoint slide, we’ve put together the points you might make in your presentation. What do you think? Would this influence your spouse or significant other?

How does it make you feel? Does this slide persuade? We think it’s missing something. There’s not enough white space to evaluate each bullet and it’s also missing an emotional argument, which is critical to the art of persuasion.

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Now with a generous portion of white spaceOur second slide takes a different approach. It includes exactly the same information but it’s presented in a more meaningful way. There’s plenty of white space, and your eye follows the path the designer intended. Most importantly, it persuades. It comes off as real, tangible, and is much easier for your audience to connect with.

The value of white spaceWhite space is at the heart of persuasive presentations that matter. It can turn a presentation dense with content, into one where information flows smoothly and the audience connects with the message. With white space, it’s easier for a presentation to convey information and to persuade.

Imagine your new company presentation is your one shot at a successful sale. Do you want to risk it with a PowerPoint bullet pattern or would you rather bet on a sure thing, a well-designed presentation incorporating plenty of persuasive white space ?

www.appsifter.comWe specialize in custom content marketing projects for B2B and B2C organizations. Whether you're a non-profit, Fortune 500 company, or a startup, we can help you develop a strong content strategy, create unique and engaging content, and build successful lead generation activities.

Saturday, February 4, 12