7 Tips For Powerful And Effective PowerPoint Presentations!
Here are some tips for producing powerful and effective PowerPoint Presentations!
1.Keep it Simple
PowerPoint is software that is designed as a convenient way to display graphical information that would support the speaker and supplement the presentation. The slides themselves were never meant to be the star of the presentation. Remember that people have come to the presentation to hear what you have to say and only want to read the slides as a support. Don’t let your message and your ability to tell a story gets derailed by slides that are unnecessarily complicated, busy or full of useless information. Also try and have lots of white space or free space in your slides. If there are white spaces in your slides then don’t feel compelled to fill them with unnecessary graphics or text boxes that do not contribute to the presentation.
2. Limit bullet points and text
Your presentation is for the benefit of the audience. But boring an audience with bullet point after bullet point is of little benefit to them. Next is the issue of how much text you should have in a slide? Some of the best slides actually may have no text at all. This may sound strange but the best slides will be of no use without the narration you give. Remember, the slides are meant to support the narration of the speaker. Some people who miss the presentation may ask you to send then the PowerPoint slides, but if the slides are good they will be of little use without you.
3. Use High Quality Graphics
Use high quality graphics, including photographs. You can take photos with your digital camera and put them in your slides. Never stretch a small, low-resolution photo to make it fit your layout- doing so will degrade the resolution even further. Avoid using PowerPoint Clip Art. Most of your audience will have seen these a million times before. Also the inclusion of Clip Art often undermines the professionalism of the presenter.
4. Use appropriate charts
Presenters are usually guilty of including too much data in their onscreen charts. There are several ways to display your data in graphic form; here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Pie Charts: Used to show percentages. Limit the slices to 4-6 and contrast the most important slice either with colour or by exploding the slice.
- Vertical bar charts: Used to show changes in quantity over time. Best if you limit the bars to 4-8.
- Horizontal bar charts: Used to compare quantities. For example, comparing sales figures among the four regions of the company.
- Line Charts: Generally used to demonstrate different trends.
5. Choose your colours and fonts well
The right colour can help persuade and motivate. Studies show that colour usage can increase interest and improve learning comprehension. Colours can be broken down into two general categories: Cool (green and blue) and warm (orange and red). Cool colours work best for backgrounds, as they appear to recede away from us into the background. Warm colours generally work best for objects in the foreground (such as text) because they appear to be coming at us.
Fonts communicate subtle messages in and for themselves, which is why you should use fonts rights. Use the same font set throughout your entire slide presentation and use no more than two complementary fonts.
6. Use video or audio
Use video and audio when appropriate. Using video clips to show concrete examples promotes active cognitive processing, which is the natural way people learn. Using a video clip not only will illustrate your point better, it will also serve as a change of pace, thereby increasing the interest of your audience.
7. Spend time in the slide sorter
According to the segmentation principle of multimedia learning theory, people comprehend better when information is presented in small chunks or segments. By getting out of the slide view and into the slide sorter view you can see how the logical flow of your presentation is progressing.
