About

At the conclusion of your design project, you will have much to talk about and explain. There are many ways to present a design project, and a slide presentation is a simple and effective way to explain something that complicated. This handout gives you a template for presenting a design thinking project and its process to an audience of teachers, students, parents, and other stakeholders. By showing the process and the results of your design work, your audience will appreciate the effort that you put into your project.

FIGURE: A plan for a design project presentation slideshow. It is helpful to plan your slideshow first with pencil and paper before committing time to making the slideshow itself.

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What you need

• A4 notepad, pens, and pencils.
• PC computer, with presentation software, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, LibreOffice Impress, or a free web-based slide presentation application.
• Set the slide size to the size of your slide projector, which is normally 16:9, or HD size.
• Scans of your notes and sketches of the design project, including.
  • Use an A4 scanner to scan your work, as the quality is much better. You may use a smartphone to photograph your work if you do not have a scanner.
• Photographs of your prototype, if applicable.
   

Presentation slides

Prepare a slide presentation consisting of the following slides. The list below describes the slides, and what you should say during the presentation. Take one minute per slide. Your entire presentation should take no more than 15 minutes, plus time for questions. Add or remove slides as needed. The demonstration slide, below, is when you will show your design concept to the audience.

1. Course title slide
   1. ​​​​​​​One slide with the title of the school course for official purposes.
   2. School name and symbol. Course name. Teacher’s name. Student names. Date.
   3. ​​​​​​​What to say: Don’t say anything, display this slide before your presentation, while you are getting ready, and the audience is settling down.
2. Project title slide
   1. One slide that summarises your design project for the audience. Make this slide attractive to grab the attention of the audience, and whet their appetite for the rest of your presentation.
   2. Your project name, that is, the name that you have given to the thing that you have designed; for example, say you have designed a home robot that you have called ‘Robbie Robot’ — that can be your project name. A single sentence summary of the design topic. Designer’s names. Photograph or sketch of your designed artefact.
   3. What to say: Welcome and thank the audience, introduce yourself, introduce your design team. State the project name, and summary of the design topic. 15 seconds.
3. Design process slide
   1. One slide with a figure showing the design thinking process that you followed in this project.
   2. The design thinking process figure, from here: Supervising Level IV Design Thinking, Part 1, or here: The Design Thinking Process Poster (IV).
   3. What to say: Summarise the design thinking process that you followed. You may add personal observations about the process from you or your team. 1 minute.
4. EMPATHISE stage slides
   1. One or two slides that summarise your EMPATHISE stage, with photographs and text.
   2. What to say: Summarise your EMPATHISE stage, what were the most important things that you learnt in this stage. 1–2 minutes.​​​​​​​
5. DEFINE stage slide
   1. One slide that summarises your problem statement from the DEFINE stage, in bullet points.
   2. What to say: Summarise your DEFINE stage, explain your Problem Statement (IV) from this stage. 1 minute.​​​​​​​
6. IDEATE stage slides
   1. One or two slides that summarise your IDEATE stage, with scanned sketches and text.
   2. What to say: Briefly summarise your IDEATE stage, describe how the most important ideas emerged in this creative stage. 1–2 minutes.​​​​​​​
7. PROTOTYPE stage slides
   1. One or two slides that summarise your PROTOTYPE stage, with photographs and text.
   2. What to say: Briefly summarise your PROTOTYPE stage, describe the biggest challenges that you experienced in this stage. 1–2 minutes.​​​​​​​
8. TEST stage slides
   1. One or two slides that summarise your TEST stage, in bullet points.
   2. What to say: Briefly summarise your TEST stage, explain what you learnt from the results of this critical stage. 1–2 minutes.​​​​​​​
9. Demonstration slide
   1. One slide with the word: ‘Demonstration.’
   2. More slides, if your prototype is actually a slideshow, or if you have slides to accompany a physical prototype.
   3. What to say: Now you demonstrate your design concept prototype to the audience, to show how it works.​​​​​​​
10. Project title slide
    1. Copy of the same slide to the end of the presentation. Add the text: ‘Questions?’
    2. What to say: Thank the audience, ask them if they have any questions. 5 seconds, plus time for questions.

​​​​​​​Tips

• Allow for questions at the end of the presentation.
• The REFLECT stage of the design thinking process for Level IV should normally take place after the design project presentation, to allow you to include the presentation experience in your reflections.