Make sure you’ve read all of the general presentation guidance. This page adds to that information.

Purpose

Think about the purpose of your demo.

Are you pitching - trying to get someone to use/buy/support your product?
If so, you probably want to focus on features, value, and why your product is unique.

Are you seeking feedback - asking people for suggestions or ideas?
If so, you probably want to tell the audience what feedback you want, and make sure they know how to give it.

Are you teaching - trying to help someone understand something they don’t know?
If so you probably want to be checking understanding as you go.

Are you celebrating - showing off something you’re proud of?

Make sure you think about this when you prepare your demo. Make sure the audience know what you’re expecting from them too.

Pick what you show

If you need to log into your product, the audience probably don’t care about watching you log in. Set up a tab which is already logged in so you can jump straight to the interesting stuff.

If your project requires you to add some data, but what you want to demo is how the data is presented, add the data before your demo so you can jump straight to the interesting stuff.

You don’t need to show the audience everything in your app. Focus on what matters.

Pick what you tell

You should have already picked a focused message. Only tell your audience what they need to understand that message.

If you’re demoing a product experience, you probably don’t need to talk about creating a git repo. It’s something you needed to do, but it doesn’t contribute to your focused message.

Preparing for a demo

Know the scenarios you are going to demo. Practice them!

Make sure your product/code is already up and running. No one wants to watch you start your project. No one wants to watch you try to open a project and find it’s not working.

Have tabs already open and prepared for each scenario you want to demo.

If you need to be logged in as multiple users (e.g. as a buyer and a seller) log in to one in your regular browser and use incognito mode to log in as the other one.

Consider pre-recording anything that could go wrong - that way you can switch to a video if you need.

Anticipate questions your audience are likely to ask you. Think about answers to them!

Demoing as a group

Make sure you know how you’re splitting up the demo between the people.

Make sure everyone is talking for about the same amount of time. Don’t let one person take over.

If you’re handling questions, make sure everyone answers similar numbers of questions. One person shouldn’t answer most of them.

Don’t ever swap laptops. Have everyone present from the same laptop.

Giving feedback to a demo

At CYF we all have a responsibility to give good feedback to our peers when they present a demo. That’s regardless of being staff, trainee, volunteer etc. Because of this we should all know what good, supportive feedback looks like.

Good feedback has two components: what you say and how you say it.

What feedback to give

Demos might have a variety of different purposes. It’s important your feedback adapts to the goals of someone’s demo. If that goal is not clear, that could be a good piece of feedback in itself!

Things you might give feedback on:

1. Practical setup

   Do they need to spend more time opening new tabs or finding code? Do they have to do data entry to show the feature they are talking about? Are they ready to go, with artifacts🧶🧶 ArtifactsArtifacts can be anything used in the demo to show work e.g. an app, website, code snippet, Slack thread, data etc. pre-loaded and slick transitions between artifacts? Is their screen-sharing clear, zoomed in well enough, hiding any extra windows?

2. Did you follow the demonstration?

   Demos should be accessible to audiences, not assuming too much knowledge from them. So if something wasn’t clear, it is often a valid area to highlight. Maybe they skimmed over terms that needed defining. Perhaps they did not provide context to the problem they solved. Maybe too much detail was included and the demo lost direction as a result.

3. Did you hear the WHAT and WHY?

   We should know “what are they showing us” and “why this is significant”. To know if this is done right, a good thing to think is “Can I explain what they showed me and why?” - if you can’t then the demo may not have given enough context.

How to give feedback

1. Stay constructive

   Feedback is always here to help people grow. It might grow their confidence by highlighting what went well, or grow their skill by suggesting areas to improve. Regardless of what the feedback is about, it is always with the goal of improving our peers.

2. Use “I” statements

   It’s often easier for someone to hear constructive criticism when it’s given as an “I” statement more than a “You” statement. E.g. “I felt like there was a lot of text on the slides” can be easier to receive than “You put too much text on your slide”.

3. Highlight what went well!

   Specific praise helps good behaviour become repeatable — and we often don’t realise what we’re doing well until it is named.

4. Keep your comments easy to understand

   Try to make sure the person receiving your feedback can understand why you’re giving that feedback. Make it easy to digest, a headline takeaway for them so they can remember the feedback later.

5. Share the space

   This point really depends on how many people are part of the demo session. If you’re in a big group of people (5+ people listening) then it’s worth picking one or two points of feedback before letting someone else speak.

   In the same vein, if you are always giving feedback first, let someone else lead for the next round of feedback.