Death by Screens: how to present high-stakes digital-design work and live to tell the tale

by Ben Sauer

The hardest thing to explain about a design, is the elusive ‘why?’ Why is it like that? It’s tough to communicate your design decisions, especially when everyone has an opinion about design. The remedy to this problem isn't what you say about the design, it's the story you tell about it. It’s more important than the design itself. Death by Screens makes it simple to craft a story about your design with an easy-to-follow process and a template presentation structure. You don’t need to be a rockstar presenter, you just need to get your story straight. You already know how to design a great looking presentation - Death by Screens covers the not-so-obvious what to say, what to show, in what order, and how to talk about it with confidence. If you’re in a hurry to present, you can use the suggested presentation structure right away, with a handy checklist at the back of the book for quick reference. In the first half of the book you’ll learn things
The final chapters of the book cover the emotionally-charged your speaking style, discussing feedback, and performance anxiety. Ben Sauer is a product and design leader, author and keynote speaker. He’s presented to clients and conferences around the world, and trained hundreds of designers, including at NASA, Amazon and the BBC. Whether you’re presenting in a high-stakes scenario or not, Death by Screens teaches you how to be a strong communicator, vital to developing a successful career. Engage your audience with a well-structured presentation, transform uninspired stakeholders into enthusiastic collaborators, and gain strategic influence. Presenting soon? Get this book. Death by Screens is practical and (mostly) skips the theory - be a better presenter, fast.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Communication

175 pages, Paperback

Published June 5, 2023

Reviews

[WitchyFires · Rating 5 out of 5]

I attended Ben Sauer’s talk at the DesignUp Conference 2024, and it was brilliant & compelling and it made me immediately rush in line to get my signed copy of the book.

I’m so glad because I’ve read this cover to cover and already used this as a reference to plan out some of my presentations. Its USP is that it is straight-up, brilliantly actionable. This was a captivating read with clearly illustrated sections that come together glued with amazing anecdotes. The concepts are explained so patiently and without any fluff. At the same time, the book is really comprehensive with so many graphs, and tables that keep the content interesting throughout. It sets the standard for stakeholder design presentations, which might seem like an unattainable ideal (at least for me) with real-world constraints & situations, but that’s what makes it really adaptable to your presentation & preparation style. I’ve amalgamated it in a few different ways to use the tools & resources most amenable to me in different scenarios.

It’s overall a super helpful guide (which is also insanely readable) to acing meetings and presentations especially when presenting design work.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick and easy read with a main focus on presenting design/research work in a business context. Some techniques for general public speaking too, but definitely not the core of this book. A very quick read, so you probably want to check out further reading if this one gives you some good tips but not enough depth.