Using color: part 1

Theoretical and Practical approaches

There are no rules in choosing a color, partly because it is such a subjective thing, but there are some guidelines that can help the presenter make appropriate choices.

There are a variety of physiological and cultural factors that need to be taken into account when considering color. But underlying all this theory is the idea that color has meaning. When designing visual aids, the presenter can use the meaning, connotations and signifiers that various colors have, to create layers of meaning. Tufte talks about this a lot in his books). When a visual contains layers of meaning, it becomes information rich, but not crowded or cluttered; relationships between components or data points are easy to recognize and comprehend. Two good examples of meaning contained in layers are shown below.

Well designed maps for instance, depend on color to convey elevation, points, roads, contour lines, etc. When we think about it, a contour map like the one below contains a lot of information; yet the use of colour helps to organize this information and convey the relationships between data points.

When designing visual aids, presenters need to also be aware that they can create layers of meaning. A well designed set of presentation visual aids can draw their coherence from the effective use of colors. In a largely text-based slide this can be as simple as the headings being one colour and details or minor points being another. When used consistently, the audience quickly and easily starts to see the connection between points and recognizes the structure of the content. The slide below uses color to identify the hierarchy of ideas and separate headings from definitions.

Likewise, the slide below uses color to demarcate different functions within the text. In this example, the students were analyzing the components of the CARS model in a writing class. We looked at a variety of examples, but each example used the same colour identifiers to examine the organization of the text.

In a more visual or pictorial slide, colour can be used to effectively demarcate conceptual boundaries. For example, labels in one color and objects in another. Likewise, color can be used to highlight a visual element (such as using a colour overlay to indicate a key component in a photograph):

 

A Practical Approach to using colour in presentations

Teaching Academic Presentation Skills (some comments)

Over the past two years most of my work at Seoul National University has revolved around the teaching of Academic Presentation Skills. This has been a challenging but rewarding experience, in large part because I have had to really think about what students really need when they take my courses, and what I can really, and realistically, teach them. Over time, I have found that the course has organized itself into the following three key areas:

• Content – Deciding what your message is and why you are talking to us about it
• Language – Improving academic vocabulary and pronunciation
• Presentation – The physical and emotional presence you bring to a presentation

The content component deals with the actual content of the presentation, how this content is important to the audience, and how this content needs to be described orally. In my own experience, novice presenters tend to focus on just presenting facts, while neglecting to emphasize the importance of their topic. For more experienced academics, often the problem is surfacing above the research and looking at it with a new perspective – one which the audience will be able to understand and find meaningful.

Language issues address a broad range of issues including pronunciation, cognitive chunking, familiarization, and the vocabulary used in public and academic speaking. I prefer to have this element layered on top of the content area. Once the speaker has a clearer idea of the content, the area of vocabulary and pronunciation practice becomes more meaningful. Two areas in particular that I have found under-used have been the use of transitions (now, next, and so) and the use of hedging (phrases to mitigate or distance the speaker from a claim – In many cases, other researchers have found…)

Presentation issues consider such things as body language, using PowerPoint, visual aids and presenting style. Often, almost exclusively, presenters have never taken a presenting class in their mother tongue. They recall few good examples of presenters/presentations that they have seen; and more importantly, are unaware of what made a particular presentation a good one or a bad one.

In my own experience, the learner needs to address each of these issues in sequence in order for the presentation to be a successful and meaningful one.