Tips for speaking at tech conferences

http://pydanny.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-tips-for-speaking.html

by rytis • 15 years ago

10 3 15 years ago

pydanny.blogspot.com

tintin• 15 years ago

I always use white text on a black background for presentations. I thought that would give the best contrast. Does anyone know why black on white would be better?

goblin89• 15 years ago

AFAIK light text on dark background might improve contrast between different colors, which is useful when coding; however, for better overall contrast and readability, dark on white is preferable.

- Various studies suggest that white on black is easier to read and comprehend, which is important in presentations, especially for people who stand far from screen.

See: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/498698/white-light-vs-bla..., http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/07/code-colorizing-and...

- In printed media, the general recommendation is to use larger font for text displayed on dark or complex backgrounds, as it's considered harder to read. (This is from my experience and what they taught us at university, so no references here.)

Also, if there's need to include inverse text which should look to reader the same size as regular one printed elsewhere on white, the slightly larger / ‘bolder’ font is used. The same size font would actually be perceived as smaller.

(Edit: formatting.)

ben_hall• 15 years ago

From my experience of speaking at tech conferences there are a few points I don't agree with, but that may be my own experience.

1) Black backgrounds work best in a dark room but rubbish in a daylight room. I think Presentation Zen also made this point. If you can, think about having a theme switch can be easily swapped.

2) Don't fear the terminal, just fear the default colours. Modified it. More important than colours is font size - make it BIG! This is the same for your IDEs. iTerm2, increased size and full screen mode are great for presentations.

3) I think it's best to take questions there and then as other people in the audience may be wondering the same thing. If you've missed something then it's easy to fix and clarify which would allow everyone to move on with you. If you leave it to the end, people will be distracted for the rest of your presentation and that's much harder to fix at the end.

If the questions get too specific then simple say "Can we take this offline afterwards or grab a beer later" and move on.

For me the most important thing is to remember that the audience have taken there time to see you. If you have a 60 minute slot and 100 people, that's 100 hours your wasting by giving a rubbish talk. Make every minute count.

Tips for speaking at tech conferences

Related Stories