You know your subject.
You're the presentation —
not your slides.
A self-paced course grounded in memory science and cognitive load research, built for people who present complex information and are tired of watching their audience check out.
You've done the work. You know the material cold. So why does the room go quiet ten minutes in?
It is not a confidence problem. It is not a design problem. It is a cognitive load problem. You have packed more onto each slide than working memory can hold, and your audience's brains are doing the only thing they can: discarding most of it. The information you spent weeks preparing is gone before you get to slide four.
Most presentation advice tells you to rehearse more, add better images, or just "tell a story." None of that addresses the real issue: the gap between what you are saying, what the slide is showing, and what the brain can actually process at the same time. That gap is where your expertise goes to die.
This course closes it.
This is not a public speaking course. It's a design studio for your next presentation.
This course is about knowledge transfer: how to move complex information from your head into someone else's, in real time, with slides that help instead of hurt.
Every lesson is built on research you can verify: the serial position effect, cognitive load theory, the redundancy principle, the Stroop effect. You will not be asked to take anything on faith. You will run experiments on your own memory, see the patterns for yourself, and then apply them directly to your next presentation.
Working memory has a ceiling.
When you overload a slide, the brain does not process the overflow. It discards it. This course teaches you how to stay under the ceiling.
Memory is predictable.
People remember what comes first, what comes last, and what stands out. Once you see the data, you will never organise a presentation the same way.
The eye and the ear fight.
When people read text on a slide while you speak, both channels degrade. Your slides are upstaging you, and you designed them that way.
Eight lessons. Four tools. One complete redesign of how you present.
The first four lessons ground you in the science. The last four put tools in your hands. By the end, you will have built a presentation from scratch using every principle you learned.
You're Speaking. How Fast, and Why It Matters.
Calculate how fast you speak and get feedback on whether you're speeding, too slow, or just right.
Speaking, reading, and thinking rates
Are They Even in There? What People Remember.
Where does memory actually form during a presentation, and where does it fail?
Serial position effect, primacy, recency, Von Restorff
If It's Not Organised, It's Not Memorable.
Why does structure matter more than content volume?
Chunking, schemas, and organisation as memory aid
When Does a Visual Stop Being a Visual?
Evaluate some of the slides you're using now.
Stroop effect, redundancy principle, visual vs. handout
Calculate How Much Content to Include
Before you write a single word, how many pages can your time slot actually hold?
Pages calculator tool
Analyse Your Audience and Write Your Objective
What is the one sentence that makes every other decision easier?
Audience analysis + objective framer tools
Organise Your Presentation
How do you get from a pile of ideas to a structure your audience can follow?
Brainstorm board + chunk organiser
Design Your Presentation and Slides
How do you put every principle into practice, slide by slide?
Chunks & Bits design studio with live slide preview
Ready to see how it all works? The course, the experiments, and all four tools — for $47 CAD.
Start The Presentation LabNext presentation, different.
Text-based. Self-paced. Research-grounded.
The Presentation Lab is a text-based course, deliberately. The irony of teaching presentation design through a lecture would not be lost on either of us. Instead, you read at your own pace, run experiments on your own memory, and apply what you learn immediately using the built-in tools.
The Design Studio is embedded directly in the course. It is where you build your objective, brainstorm your content, organise it into chunks, and design your slides with a live preview that updates as you work. When you are done, you export to PowerPoint.
The course is hosted in Rise 360 and works on any device. Take it in one sitting or spread it across a week. There is no schedule, no cohort, and no expiration.
Who this is for.
This is for you if:
You are a subject matter expert, trainer, or instructional designer who regularly presents technical or complex information to colleagues, clients, or learners.
You have been presenting for years and know the basics. You are not looking for a beginner course on how to use PowerPoint. You want to understand why your current approach is not landing the way it should.
You care about whether your audience actually retains what you say, not just whether they sit politely through your deck.
Nearly three decades of facilitation, instructional design, and training, delivered everywhere from corporate boardrooms to university classrooms. The Presentation Lab distills that experience into a course you can take on your own time.
One-time purchase. Lifetime access. No subscription.
The full nine-lesson course, grounded in memory science and cognitive load research. Four embedded workspace tools, including Chunks & Bits with live slide preview and PowerPoint export. Downloadable reference sheets for every lesson. Self-paced, no expiration, works on any device.
Opens in Rise 360 · Instant access after purchase