Memorandum

DATE: February 17, 2017

TO: Eric Gerard, Ylli Hasandjekaj, Michael Staudigel, Dylan Tavana, and Christian Valentin,
Original Presentation Designers

FROM: Stephanie Matos and Jacques Sullivan, Presentation Redesigners

SUBJECT: PowerPoint Redesign Project

We were tasked with having to edit and redesign your original PowerPoint. We have now completed the
task and are sending it back to you guys with all of our edits and feedback. After a little tweaking to the
original powerpoint, we were able to add and organize all your information in a more logical manner. In
addition we added contrast to the presentation by adding colors to the slides and changing the original
font and placement of the pictures.

Why This is Necessary

In order to promote professionalism and higher design skills, its imperative to work and strive towards
improvement. In the case of this PowerPoint redesign, proper technical communication is being utilized
as an example to future audiences. The audience will see these examples as models for future reference;
through this achievement they will know what needs to be done in order to become good technical
communicators. Therefore, by redesigning this powerpoint, we will better learn the different types of
technical documents. We will then use this better understanding to convey all the technical information
in the powerpoint more efficiently to our audience.

Presentation Design Changes

Although your original PowerPoint was abundant with examples, an element of cohesiveness was
lacking. The content was disorganized in a way that made it difficult for an audience to keep up with.
Your pictures were not always well adjusted or visible enough, and the text either had too much
unnecessary information or too little of it. We found it necessary for changes to be made slide by slide in
order to make the effort as a whole more complementary.

Specific Slide Changes

The color scheme that we chose added some vibrancy and identity to the PowerPoint. Although the
colors were not consistently sequenced, they alternated in a way that would disable audiences from
being lulled to inattentiveness. Slide animations were also added to your presentation, they alternated
between flip and fade. We felt that the animations would bring more life into your powerpoint and
not make the transition between slides too boring and abrupt. We also added titles to your presentation
for each slide under the font Impact and sized between 40 points and 55 points. The titles we created
were colored in gray, so there would be no distraction from the images and supporting text on your
slides themselves. Every image we decided to incorporate was cropped in the best reflection of your
powerpoint. The pictures from your powerpoint were cropped by us to enhance the strongest elements
of each image and to promote clarity. We made sure that all Images that were too big were separated
into two slides, one slide dedicated solely to the image itself and the second slide including only a
snippet of the image alongside text. We made this change to enable a more efficient use of space;
nobody wants to see a slide that is too overcrowded visually. Instead of leaving text in long paragraphs,
we condensed your text into three to four bullet points on each slide. Your other half of the
presentation contained text with double spaced bullets. That information used in the texts was written
concisely without any unnecessary information that would confuse the audience or detract from the
presentation.

Your original slide was removed from the redesign because it failed to serve its administered purpose. It
was a response to a sign welcoming immigrants and refugees to the campus, displayed with phrases like
No Muslim Ban, No Border Wall, and Our Communities Stand Tall. The sign was marketed as an
example of a poor persuasive document, which it wasnt necessarily from an objective view. The words
and phrases were concise and impactful, and we had only the image to prescribe context from. You guys
mentioned that it was placed in a poor location, but the location itself wasnt pictured. We couldnt
grasp onto the missing context so we were unable to adapt it constructively, in a way that would
challenge the document itself.

Beyond that, we also added three slides to provide an overview, summary, and conclusive input to the
presentation as a whole. We decided to do this to redirect attention to what was important about the
redesign process as well as the significance of technical communication and problem solving. In order to
fully understand the process, one must take into account the perspectives of both the presenter and the
audience members. You want to make your output as understandable/desirable to an audience as you
would expect others work to be understandable to you. Ease of communication is key in order to
promote mutual interaction and to prevent possible misunderstandings.

Closing Statement

In conclusion, we would like you all to look over the changes that we made. Take in consideration our
viewpoints and what is best for the presentation of the PowerPoint. However, if you feel that the
changes we made are not beneficial to the overall presentation feel free to respond.