Avoiding Death by PowerPoint

Avoiding Death by PowerPoint

Picture the scenario.  You arrive for a Presentation.  You walk into the room.  And there whizzing about on the screen are lots of jumping and spinning letters and graphics.  Another PowerPoint treat!

To avoid boring your audience to death take time when preparing your presentation and take into account the following:

Slide Master

Use it!  You can use this option to create a consistent and clutter free look.  Don’t copy your logo onto every page.  Put it on the slide master and then it will appear on every page, in exactly the same position and it will be the same size.  This will help prevent the messiness that occurs when different fonts, colours and sizes appear on each page.

They don’t want your life story

Don’t write an essay on each slide.  Keep it simple!  Just write short phrases and only include essential information.  Remember these are prompts for your talk.  If it is all written then they don’t need to listen to you.

White Space

Make use of white space.  Avoid clutter.  Use bold, italics and shadow to enhance points.  Avoid using CAPITALS.  Capitals do not make text easier to read.

Don’t be too Fancy

The audience is there to hear your message not to see how brilliant at PowerPoint you are.  Make a nice clutter free master that uses contrasti ng colours for text and background.  Avoid patterned backgrounds at all costs.  It is often though that dark text on a light background is best.

Don’t Make it Too Busy

Yes I know.  Animations, sound, transition – it’s fun!  Yes it is when you are learning but not when you are presenting.  Keep those special effects to a minimum.  Use them sparingly and to highlight particular slides rather than every one.  Over use of animation and special affects can look unprofessional and reduce your credibility.

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Use of Images

When using images whether they are clipart, graphics or photos ensure they are good quality and that you have not distorted them when resizing or cropping.  It is best not to use an image at all than use a bad quality one.

What is Your Output?

Are you presenting this on a large screen?  If so test it out!  What looks good on your PC screen may look totally different on the big screen.  That nice photo may look grainy on the big screen.  Do not wait until the day to find out.

How many slides???

Gosh – do we really have to sit through 70 slides?  Yawn!!!!  Don’t bore your audience.  Keep the number of slides down and don’t be constantly flipping to the next slide.

Navigation Tools

Learn how to use PowerPoint’s navigation tools effectively.  Sometimes one of your audience may ask to see the previous slide again.  Make sure you know the best way to navigate back and forth without it looking messy.

Do Not Read Your Slides

Your slides are an aid memoire for your real content.  The bullets are simply there as reminders for topics on which you will enlarge.

Face Your Audience!

Don’t look at the screen when talking.  Look at the audience.

Don’t Rely on Removable Media

If your presentation is on a CD, USB or other form of removable media copy it onto the hard drive of the system you will be presenting for.  This will cut down the margin of error.