I follow a few presentation/design related blogs and a quote near the end of one post recently caught my eye, as I think the following is instructive for those of us in the audit business, tasked frequently with presenting the results of our work:
Business presentation design is a blend of practicing good design, and making compromises to deal with the practicality of working with lots of non-designers. Being able to deal with frequent changes, keeping design standards up (also on page 5 to 20), and making sure that everyone can make decent looking edits in the presentation.
Now, I’m painfully aware that the majority of auditors don’t give a hoot about designing a beautiful report or presentation. It’s a reliable source of frustration for me!
But the quote above is something I need to keep in mind when I notice misalignment of elements of a slide or poor structure in a Word document report.
As a profession, auditors are aware that effective communication skills are critical to being able to do our job well and make sure our clients know the value we bring to the organization. The content of our reports and presentations is most important, but good design facilitates effective communication of that content.
Photo by Alex Litvin on Unsplash