Organization and Preparation Tips

#1
1. The author's three most important points are: 1) Remember your audience. Make sure that you keep their interests in mind, tell them what they need to know, and find a way to make the information relevant to their lives. Don't throw too many figures at the audience because that will bore them. 2) Organization and clarity are key. One of the first things you should do to prepare for a presentation is decide what information to include, and what information to leave out. Brainstorm, and write down some ideas with pen and paper before you start with a powerpoint. This will help ensure that the presentation flows smoothly and sticks to one central message. 3) Make it interesting and relatable. Often times, telling a story is a good way to keep the audience's attention. If it's a personal story, most likely it's something others can relate to.

2. Before all, my partner and I need to decide what one message we want to send to our audience. After deciding what the focus will be, we should, like he says, write down the key points we want our audience to walk away with. Throughout the whole process, we'll make sure to keep in mind who our audience is, what they need to know, and why what we have to say is important and relevant. We need to make sure we have sufficient information to present, without boring them with facts and figures. As long as we have enough content and good structure, we should be able to present a logical analysis. The most important thing to remember is confidence. In order to stay confident, we should make sure that we have practiced what we will say and know the information.

3. Presentation preparation and product design both require that the presenter and designer keep an end goal and purpose in mind from the start. Both must keep the audience in mind, fulfilling their expectations and making sure what they are doing relates in some way to their lives. Both must "keep it simple"; the designer shouldn't complicate the design, just like the presenter shouldn't ramble on and throw out useless figures that the audience will forget once the meeting's over. Both have to begin by brainstorming ideas. An idea isn't going to just pop into your head, you have to sit down and come up with ideas before you begin building from nothing.

#2.
I would be interested in exploring the reflective area of design. I think reflective design is the most interesting kind of design because it's all about relationships between people and products, and not just how things function. How people view themselves through what they own, and how others view them through their possessions, is something that extends way beyond design and into other territories, like psychology. Being able to make a connection between design and other areas of study is fascinating.