Polite Type

Beth Fileti (she/her), a multidisciplinary designer exploring art and technology. I specialize in systems thinking, communication strategies, and design solutions.

Simple Shift

openFrameworks

|

2020

A video presentation tool, created to help present work with confidence

See the code on github
A gif of Beth, a white woman with short hair and glasses, waving with both hands at the camera and the words "Thank You" on the screen

Concept

SimpleShiftPresentation is a video presentation tool that allows you to easily toggle between the video of yourself and your slide deck. Slides can be shown in a minimal "news anchor" view or full-screen. After taking a virtual workshop with designer Mike Monteiro on “Presenting with Confidence,”  I realized that I was experiencing a great deal of anxiety whenever I had to share my screen during a presentation. A large point of emphasis in that workshop was to rely less on the slide deck, and more on your own presentation of the material. It encouraged presenters to work on “controlling the room,” even when that room is a virtual video call. To better facilitate my ability to maintain a level of confident control over the presentation, I realized that I needed the process of switching between my talking head video screen and my presentation deck to have less friction. So I spent a weekend building a very simple video presentation tool for that very purpose.

How it works

To set up your presentation, you simply drag an ordered list of your slides onto the video screen. Then, you use the arrow keys to toggle between the different views with an emphasis on the speaker rather than the slide deck. Available views include the full-screen speaker, a “news anchor” view (with the slide small and to the top), a large slide view, and a full-screen slide view. When the slides are large, the presenter can easily relocate the video screen, ensuring that viewers can see all of the content you need them too, without sacrificing your personal narration. Additionally, the presentation tool supports transparent png’s which are a fun way to create an additional visual impact to your presentation.

Read more about how it was made in this process book: https://www.politetype.com/ux-portfolio/simple-shift

A screenshot of a video presenter in front of a screen that says "01. Easy to Switch Displays"
A video presenter is speaking the camera in front of a slide and then the slide view shifts to be in the upper left corner of the video screen.
A slide with the words "01. Easy to Switch Displays" and on top of it is a video of the presenter and the video is moving around the screen like a mouse.s
A gif of Beth, a white woman with short hair and glasses, waving with both hands at the camera and the words "Thank You" on the screen

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