Mastering the Prezi Zoom

As cool as it is, there is such a thing as too much Prezi zoom. If you’ve ever sat through a presentation that felt more like a rollercoaster ride than a speech, you know what we mean. That 180º flip may feel from the stage, but you don’t want to send your audience running for motion sickness bags—they want to be taken on a visual journey, not a wild ride.

The good news is that there are a few simple rules that will help you find the balance between making your presentations dynamic and making them easy on your audience’s eyes. Take a look at the quick tutorial below to learn how to master the art of Prezi transitions, so you can start zooming effectively:

Now that you’ve become an expert, learn how to put your new skills to use. Here are three different ways to take advantage of Prezi’s zooming capabilities, complete with examples to help you get started. Take a look, and you’ll be creating “aha” moments of your own before you know it.

SHOW SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN YOUR DIFFERENT POINTS.

You can pan across Prezi’s infinite canvas to show your audience how your ideas relate to one another. Whether you are leading them on a journey across different points on a map or walking them through the different steps of your customer life-cycle, fluid movement from one point to the next will help your audience better understand and remember your message. (To learn more about the science behind this, read this blog post about spatial visualization and how our brains work!)

To see meaningful panning in action, take a look at the prezi below. The state of Colorado comes to life as the audience moves from city to city.

 

DIVE INTO THE DETAILS.

Whether you’re explaining a complicated process or diving into heaps of data, your audience will appreciate seeing the details within the context of your larger message. Out of context, details can get lost in the shuffle or become meaningless. By zooming into the details from the birds-eye view of the big picture, you can help your audience understand their importance within your story.

Take a look at the chart in this presentation—by zooming into the inflection point, you can highlight information in context that would be difficult for your audience to glean from the big picture.

 

REVEAL THE BIG PICTURE.

Just as you can zoom in to highlight details within your presentation, you can also zoomout to show your audience how your ideas fit into a bigger picture. This kind of big reveal serves as a lightning rod moment within your talk—the moment when you bring your ideas together to become a much larger message.

In the presentation below, data scientist Sandy Pentland reveals the network laid by each of his main talking points by zooming out to show them all in a single frame.

 

When executed properly, Prezi’s zooming features can allow you to visualize your ideas in a way that will make them clearer and more engaging. Get started on a prezi for your next presentation—and don’t be too surprised if you see hear gasps and see jaws drop.