Presenting Skills

knowing your audience to structure your presentation.

Presentation skills are an important way to effectively communicate your goals and project deliverables, and depending on the audience, some skills are especially helpful for making your plans clear to your audience. In this instance, when presenting to a group of older people it is important to practice voice projection, clear annunciation, and make sure to have large text and images on your presentation boards.

Voice projection is an important skill to use in all presentations, but it is especially important when speaking to a group of older people, as voice projection allows those who may be hard of hearing to clearly hear what you are saying. Annunciating is another important skill to have when presenting because annunciating your words can reduce the chance of confusion or needing to repeat yourself. Lastly, having large text and images can be helpful at making sure everyone can read and see the information you’re trying to present to them. These methods are useful to design as they challenge us to look outside of ourselves and our understanding of the subject by making sure that the information we are trying to relay is clear and understandable to our audience. By practicing these skills when you present, you can achieve better and more detailed feedback as your audience was able to understand what you were presenting to them.

Suggestions on presenting skills

1. Practice your presentation in front of a mirror or practice presenting to your peers

2. Highlight any words you stumble on or aren’t sure of the pronunciation

3. Stand up straight and tall to appear confident

4. Use your hands to direct people’s attention to your presentation

5. When creating your presentations directed at a large crowd our older audience, use bigger images and fonts than you would normally use

6. Don’t be afraid to take pauses between ideas or slides to allow time for people to prosses what you just said

PRESENTING SKILLS

(1) Speak loud and annunciate

It is important to project and amplify your voice when presenting, especially when presenting to a large room or an older audience. By speaking loudly and making sure to annunciate your words, this can help your audience avoid confusion or miscommunication because they are able to hear you clearly. Speaking loudly does not come easily to everyone, but practicing your material will help you be more confident in what you are presenting.

(2) Bigger the Better

Creating presentation material can be challenging choosing which fonts, font sizes, and graphics to show your client. However, knowing your audience and their awareness of the material you are presenting can help you construct a presentation that will more effectively communicate your ideas. In my project our audience was residents of a senior living home and they did not have a working knowledge of landscape design. With this knowledge, we aimed to construct our deliverables in a way that would be easy for them to read and understand. To do this we tried to use a bold font and large text size that would be easy to read. We also focused on using large images, mostly our 3D model images, as we knew our clients would be able to understand these visuals easier than a plan view of our designs. So, by knowing your audience, you can create a presentation that will communicate your ideas and designs in a way that will be easily understood and apreciated.

APPLYING THE SKILL

Magnolia Manor Project Site

Site visit with our clients

Communicating with our clients about what they envisioned for the site

Presenting our concept designs to our clients

The project my group worked on this semester was designing a garden and nature area for a senior living home, Magnolia Manor, that is located in Buena Vista, GA. Our project partner wanted us to design a therapeutic garden for the residence to promote healing, physical activity, and engagement. We started our design process by researching how to design a garden to meet the needs of our client and promote wellbeing for the residents. So, in our design phases, we each came up with our own ideas using our research which we then presented on site for feedback. During this presentation, it became clear that there may have been times when the residents didn’t hear us clearly or understand what we had said as we had a few comments and questions that we had repeated several times in our presentation. As a result, I wanted to highlight the skill of presenting and how important it is to use certain strategies when presenting to an older crowd.

After our initial presentation, we unfortunately did not have the chance to go back down to Buena Vista to present our final idea to the client and residents. However, if we were to have gone back and presented to the same crowd we had initially presented to, we would have planned for our presentation a little differently. For example, we would have spent more time going over our presentation and practicing giving our presentation to make sure we knew all the material and could say our design confidently. We also would have dedicated more space in our presentation to have large blown-up images of our plan and details with lots of callout and labels so that we could clearly get our ideas across to everyone with minimal confusion.

One of the main takeaways I learned from this project was that there is a time and place to use standard formats such as text size and page layouts, but there is also a time to deviate from those standards to meet the needs of the people and audience you are presenting to. The technique for presenting is important for all types of projects as speaking loudly and clearly is a great strategy to use regardless of who the audience is. The main tip for this skill is to be confident in what you are presenting and know that it is okay to make mistakes as long as you learn from them.

Summary

Design phase: This skill is helpful in any feedback stage of a project. Wether you are presenting initial ideas, concept designs, or final designs, it is always important to know your audience and structure your presentations based on their needs and abilities.

Goals: The goal of this skill is to affectively communicate your ideas to your clients and project partners.

Suggestions: This method is suited towards all project types. I would suggest researching your audience and how best to communicate with them. Then I would practice your presentation until you are comfortable with the information so that you can present it confidently.

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