Presentation Link: docs.google.com/presentation
This week in IXD501 we presented our project in front of Daniel, Paul, and Kyle, as well as some of our classmates.
I spent last week crafting my presentation to show some of my research, ideation, and the brand. The main aim of this presentation was to sell my project idea and present information that backed it up.
I included a lot of facts that I recently discovered from a couple of TSNI’s yearly reports as well as some statistics that I have found from environmental expert interviews. Most of my presentation was backing up my idea, with only a few slides on my ideation as I haven’t done much ideation yet. I’ve spent the past few weeks researching to ensure that my project is solid and firmly backed up.
My idea is to enhance the experience of traveling in the local area to encourage the adoption of public transport to further reduce pollutants in the air.
The night before my presentation I rehearsed it as much as possible so that I didn’t have to rely on presenter notes, and also to ensure that I covered everything that I wanted to cover in each slide. This made my life a lot easier when it came to presenting the next day in front of everyone.
When presenting on Tuesday, I considered a lot of the feedback that I had previously gotten from a presentation I did in June. Stand up, look at everyone when presenting, don’t look at the screen too much, and talk confidently. To encourage myself to do this, I didn’t put any bullet points on the screens so that I couldn’t be distracted by them when I was talking.
In all honesty, I was nervous when standing in front of everyone, especially the longer I was talking, but I still tried to speak with confidence and acknowledge everyone even at the back of the room.
I think my presentation went as well as it could have, and I’m glad that I got the opportunity to speak in front of everyone again for a second time, as this has increased my confidence in public speaking.
Whilst on placement with Rapid7, I didn’t do any physical presenting. I had the opportunity to present work in front of 107 people on my own for 10 minutes, but it was still so much easier doing it over a screen than it is in person. I realise that presenting is such a big part of a designer's career and so I will learn to get better at it for that reason.
I think there is a lot I could improve upon with presenting. I think practice makes perfect and knowing exactly what you are talking about is obviously the most important thing. Next time I have a presentation I will want to spend a couple of days gathering the information, and then a day putting it together, and spend another few days practicing it in front of a few people to ensure it is perfect.
I would have liked to have spent more time thinking about the facts I presented on Tuesday as afterward, I realised I missed out on a few very interesting facts that I should have included.
As well, I think I could definitely speak with more confidence, not only louder but had movement and body language. Maybe a little more relaxed.
Overall though, I am happy with how everything went, from planning to presenting. I feel that I got my idea across just fine and that everyone understood what I was talking about.
It’s now time to develop my brand more and continue with research. The research now will be on competitors and how they are doing things. From this, I will categorise patterns and similarities as well as differences in the products to truly understand how they work. This will enable me to begin ideating and structuring my product with wireframes. When I have some wireframes done, I will test them out with a couple of people to see if they can get through processes, etc.