The M.O.V.I.E. Framework

Making a PowerPoint slide for work, school, or any other purpose can be difficult even if you know the material well. When trying to express yourself, it can be incredibly difficult to find the right words. When you have a limited amount of time to complete the project, your boss is putting you under pressure, or you just don't feel creative, it's easy to feel like you're staring at a blank wall.

The MOVIE framework is a straightforward five-step process that can be used to quickly produce professionally designed slides.

Now, before we begin, a quick disclaimer Of course, this won't apply to all presentation slides; title slides, keynote slides, and agenda slides, to name a few, all have their own distinct formats. This method is highly effective.

Message

Finding a central message to convey is the first step in creating slides. You might think this is a tedious process, but it's actually quite important.

I've seen many people make the mistake of selecting a pre-made slide template and then trying to cram their content into it. However, this can become a problem if you find yourself having to restructure your words to fit the illogical structure of the slide. It doesn't take long before you're trying to stuff your slide with meaningless bullet points just to make them all fit.

Instead of rushing into things, it's smarter to plan out your thoughts beforehand. Then you can determine the most effective visual method of communicating the data. The title of a slide is crucial because it directs the reader's attention to the relevant information.

The point at this stage is simply to establish your core message as a foundation upon which to build the rest of your project.

Organise

The second phase of the MOVIE structure involves the compilation of relevant data. After deciding what you want your audience to take away from your slide, you can begin organising your information to back up your claim.

As your audience understands how you came to your conclusions, your slide will be clearer and more likely to make sense. That's where the pyramid principle comes in handy. In case you're unfamiliar with the term, "pyramid principle" refers to a simple communication strategy in which you present your "big idea" first, then "little ideas" that support it.

If you write each statement correctly, it will serve as a summary of the statements that follow it. Professional slide designers frequently employ this method. In this stage, all you have to do is take the information you have, sort it into categories that support the title, and put it all on a slide so you can examine the structure of your presentation.

The primary idea is now conveyed by the heading. The subtitles aid in conveying this message, which is reinforced by the remaining arguments. The reasoning is logical, compelling, and simple to understand. It should be stressed, however, that this is by no means the only option. If you want to arrange your data from the bottom up, you can do that too. On the other hand, you could take a top-down approach, in which you pick your subtitles first and then look for evidence to back them up. There are benefits and drawbacks to every approach; therefore, you should choose the one that best suits your needs. It's not necessary to include every single piece of information you have.

Making careful choices about what to include in your story is crucial if you want to make a strong impression.  

Visualize

Visualization of your data is the next stage in the MOVIE framework. With this, you can quickly convey information on your slide without overwhelming your audience with text or numbers.

As much of the data as possible should be visualized. Simply put, you should try to incorporate charts in cases where there is sufficient data. However, this may also involve the incorporation of visual elements like icons, graphics, or images. As long as the addition of such icons, graphics, or pictures improves the readability of the message; it's amazing how persuasive even the simplest of images can be. As a bonus to making the information easier to absorb, it also serves to visually separate the various sections of the slide. Although a slide with only bullet points isn't necessarily bad, including some images can help keep the audience engaged.

Visualization is used by some of the best slide designers to give their slides more personality, and it's very effective.

Insights

The next step in the framework is to make your insights clear. This is a critical step in the slide-building process that often gets forgotten, even by experienced slide creators. Most slides in the business world tend to be pretty dense, full of text, numbers, charts, and other visuals, and this can be overwhelming for the audience.

Live presentations require the audience to pay attention to the speaker, review the content of each slide, and plan their footnotes and responses in advance. Getting your point across can be challenging, even to an intelligent and well-informed crowd. That's why it's important to be very specific when explaining your thinking.

The insights can be stated explicitly, but there are other options as well. The working title, which represents the most important aspects of our slide, will be highlighted first, followed by the subtitles, which provide context and explanation. Then, to ensure that our point is made without ambiguity, we can revise the subtitles.

Using visual aids like bolded text, callouts, arrows, and lines can also help readers easily spot your key points. The end result is an effective slide that might otherwise have been really hard to read. There are a few different things we can do to highlight the insights. First, we can draw more attention to our title and subtitles with large text, bolding, and the use of lines. The next thing we can do is call it the main insight of the chart. Charts are typically an easy place to do this because the data is distinct, so you can highlight a specific bar or line to help emphasise your message. Bolding the most crucial keywords and text will really help the target audience focus on the information we want them to see, even though numbers will already stand out a little more than words. In this way, we aren't overwhelming our readers with too much information at once; we're in a position to point them in the direction of the most vital information on the slide.

Extras

The fifth and final step in the MOVIE framework is to take care of the extras. This can refer to things like formatting, alignment, or anything else that's going to clean up the look and feel of the slide. Depending on the specifics of your business, this may also involve adhering to established procedures and formats.

Take a few minutes to look for typos, misaligned visuals, or anything else that looks out of place, and make sure you have all your supporting details, such as sources, footnotes, or anything else someone would need to understand when looking at the slide for the first time. This might seem like a simple step, but any good slide creator is going to take this part very seriously.

The truth is, the overall quality of your slide is a reflection on you, a reflection on your team, and a reflection on your company.

Conclusion

This article provided a fairly comprehensive overview of the MOVIE framework; however, with some experience, you can use this framework to construct slides in a matter of minutes. Choose your message wisely. Organize your information. Visualize that data. Make your Insights clear. And of course, don't forget the Extras.