10 Tips for More Effective PowerPoint Presentations
“Oh no! Not another boring PowerPoint presentation! My eyes, my eyes…!!!”
How much does it suck to be in the audience for yet another drawn-out, boring, lifeless slideshow? Worse yet, how much does it such to be the one giving it?
The truth is, bad PowerPoint happens to good people, and quite often the person giving the presentation is just as much a victim as the poor sods listening to her or him.
Here are ten tips to help you add a little zing! to your next presentation. They are, of course, far from comprehensive, but they’re a start. Feel free to share your own tips in the comments.
1. Write a script.
A little planning goes a long way. Most presentations are written in PowerPoint (or some other presentation package) without any sort of rhyme or reason.
That’s bass-ackwards. Since the point of your slides is to illustrate and expand what you are going to say to your audience. You should know what you intend to say and then figure out how to visualize it. Unless you are an expert at improvising, make sure you write out or at least outline your presentation before trying to put together slides.
And make sure your script follows good storytelling conventions: give it a beginning, middle, and end; have a clear arc that builds towards some sort of climax; make your audience appreciate each slide but be anxious to find out what’s next; and when possible, always leave ‘em wanting more.
2. One thing at a time, please.
At any given moment, what should be on the screen is the thing you’re talking about. Our audience will almost instantly read every slide as soon as it’s displayed; if you have the next four points you plan to make up there, they’ll be three steps ahead of you, waiting for you to catch up rather than listening with interest to the point you’re making.
Plan your presentation so just one new point is displayed at any given moment. Bullet points can be revealed one at a time as you reach them. Charts can be put on the next slide to be referenced when you get to the data the chart displays. Your job as presenter is to control the flow of information so that you and your audience stay in sync.
3. No paragraphs.
Where most presentations fail is that their authors, convinced they are producing some kind of stand-alone document, put everything they want to say onto their slides, in great big chunky blocks of text.
Congratulations. You’ve just killed a roomful of people. Cause of death: terminal boredom poisoning.
Your slides are the illustrations for your presentation, not the presentation itself. They should underline and reinforce what you’re saying as you give your presentation — save the paragraphs of text for your script. PowerPoint and other presentation software have functions to display notes onto the presenter’s screen that do not get sent to the projector, or you can use notecards, a separate word processor document, or your memory. Just don’t put it on the screen – and for goodness’ sake, if you do for some reason put it on the screen, don’t stand with your back to your audience and read it from the screen!
4. Pay attention to design.
PowerPoint and other presentation packages offer all sorts of ways to add visual “flash” to your slides: fades, swipes, flashing text, and other annoyances are all too easy to insert with a few mouse clicks.
Avoid the temptation to dress up your pages with cheesy effects and focus instead on simple design basics:
- Use a sans serif font for body text. Sans serifs like Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri tend to be the easiest to read on screens.
- Use decorative fonts only for slide headers, and then only if they’re easy to read. Decorative fonts –calligraphy, German blackface, futuristic, psychotic handwriting, flowers, art nouveau, etc. – are hard to read and should be reserved only for large headlines at the top of the page. Better yet, stick to a classy serif font like Georgia or Baskerville.
- Put dark text on a light background. Again, this is easiest to read. If you must use a dark background – for instance, if your company uses a standard template with a dark background – make sure your text is quite light (white, cream, light grey, or pastels) and maybe bump the font size up two or three notches.
- Align text left or right. Centered text is harder to read and looks amateurish. Line up all your text to a right-hand or left-hand baseline – it will look better and be easier to follow.
- Avoid clutter. A headline, a few bullet points, maybe an image – anything more than that and you risk losing your audience as they sort it all out.
5. Use images sparingly
There are two schools of thought about images in presentations. Some say they add visual interest and keep audiences engaged; others say images are an unnecessary distraction.
Both arguments have some merit, so in this case the best option is to split the difference: use images only when they add important information or make an abstract point more concrete.
While we’re on the subject, absolutely do not use PowerPoint’s built-in clipart. Anything from Office 2003 and earlier has been seen by everyone in your audience a thousand times – they’ve become tired, used-up clichés, and I hopefully don’t need to tell you to avoid tired, used-up clichés in your presentations. Office 2007 and non-Office programs have some clipart that isn’t so familiar (though it will be, and soon) but by now, the entire concept of clipart has about run its course – it just doesn’t feel fresh and new anymore.
6. Think outside the screen.
Remember, the slides on the screen are only part of the presentation – and not the main part. Even though you’re liable to be presenting in a darkened room, give some thought to your own presentation manner – how you hold yourself, what you wear, how you move around the room. You are the focus when you’re presenting, no matter how interesting your slides are.
7. Have a hook.
Like the best writing, the best presentation shook their audiences early and then reel them in. Open with something surprising or intriguing, something that will get your audience to sit up and take notice. The most powerful hooks are often those that appeal directly to your audience’s emotions – offer them something awesome or, if it’s appropriate, scare the pants off of them. The rest of your presentation, then, will be effectively your promise to make the awesome thing happen, or the scary thing not happen.
8. Ask questions.
Questions arouse interest, pique curiosity, and engage audiences. So ask a lot of them. Build tension by posing a question and letting your audience stew a moment before moving to the next slide with the answer. Quiz their knowledge and then show them how little they know. If appropriate, engage in a little question-and-answer with your audience, with you asking the questions.
9. Modulate, modulate, modulate.
Especially when you’ve done a presentation before, it can be easy to fall into a drone, going on and on and on and on and on with only minimal changes to your inflection. Always speak as if you were speaking to a friend, not as if you are reading off of index cards (even if you are). If keeping up a lively and personable tone of voice is difficult for you when presenting, do a couple of practice run-throughs. If you still can’t get it right and presentations are a big part of your job, take a public speaking course or join Toastmasters.
10. Break the rules.
As with everything else, there are times when each of these rules – or any other rule you know – won’t apply. If you know there’s a good reason to break a rule, go ahead and do it. Rule breaking is perfectly acceptable behavior – it’s ignoring the rules or breaking them because you just don’t know any better that leads to shoddy boring presentations that lead to boredom, depression, psychopathic breaks, and eventually death. And you don’t want that, do you?
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Dustin Wax
Dustin M. Wax is a freelance writer and project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
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Comments
TechieBird says on November 24th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Great post – it’s given me a couple of reminders and made me think about changes I can make to my latest slide deck.
My favourite tip for presenting: if you want to get the focus back on you and not the slides (usually around the ten minute mark people start to glaze over a little), you can switch to a black screen. In PowerPoint you can do it by pressing B. Pressing B again or clicking your clicker will get the slides back.
Garret Schneider says on November 24th, 2008 at 10:46 am
One good way to think about presenting a powerpoint well is to actually shut-off the powerpoint, and practice in front of people. That makes people focus on your ’script’, and if it’s still engaging without all of the whistles and pictures, then you’re on your way to having a good presentation.
CK says on November 24th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Having to do presentations for every graduate class (some more than others) I took on the view of presentations as TV commercials – hook them in the beganing, keep them interested and close (sell) them at the end!
I also figured that if I have to stand up there and make a presentation I’m going to have fun! If you show the audiance that you are into it and having fun (and high energy) they too will follow suite. I have had the audiance laugh (on queue).
And the MOST boring ppt slide of all … “are there any questions?” GAG ME! My slides NEver have that! I use a little creativity to ask that very same question in an entertaining way that I usually DON’T have a question after!
Stuart Herbert says on November 24th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Tip 11: take the advice of Psychology professor Stephen Kosslyn in his book “Clear and to the Point” :)
Olivia Mitchell says on November 24th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
There are some good pointers in this post. Here are a few more:
- When you put up a new slide, give your audience time to take it in before you start talking.They won’t be listening to to you until they’ve had the time to do that.
- You don’t always need a slide. If there’s a point in your presentation when you don’t need one, insert a black slide in your powerpoint file, so that the screen will look blank at that point.
- if you have control of the room set up, put the screen slightly to the side, so that you can take the power position in the middle.See http://www.speakingaboutpresen.....sentation/ for a diagram which shows how to place the screen.
- white or light text on a black background works very well in most situations. The only situation to avoid this is if you’re presenting in a very light-filled room eg: a conservatory.
- A visual is always useful if it helps to express the point you are making. Don’t think just of photos – would a graph, diagram or flow chart help make your point?
Vincent says on November 24th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Using less words and working on your presentation skills really helps in when using power point slides.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
Michael | Go Success Now says on November 25th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Great tips Dustin.
I would add to your list one more, i had many times a power point presentations and all your tips apply to get it right, what i would add is to have some fun, tell some jokes, it makes the audience be more focused on you and presentation, they will feel more comfortable and will start to like you.
Thanks.
Michael
Anusha says on November 25th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Excellent post Dustin :)
The best presentations I’ve seen are ones that break the monotony just as soon as it begins to seep in, usually with a high impact video.
If you’re presenting stuff you’ve been working on for a while and want it to create an impression on people who matter, my advice is to make a video that shows why the problem you’re working on is difficult, and maybe some field tests and experiments.
Andika Kusuma says on November 25th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Great tips, like olivia said make sure that the font color and background font are contrast with each others like white and black. otherwise it really hard to read.
Yong lee says on November 25th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Thanks a lot,
Im going to link on my blog!!
greatmanagement says on November 25th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I work with the World Champion of Public Speaking and he says ‘Only use Powerpoint to display images – no text’
Andrew
Dustin Wax says on November 25th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Greatmanagement: That’s one approach, paying homage to PowerPoint’s origin as a replacement for slide projectors. However, with new technology comes new possibilities. For example, I use PowerPoint (rarely) in the classes I teach, where it replaces a lot of the board work I’d do otherwise. To say PPT is to be used for images only and not text is to say, essentially, that presentations should be given without visual text for emphasis — which in my context would mean no board work. I don’t think anyone would encourage instructors not to use the board, but we use the board for exactly the same thing we use PPT for — to visually emphasize the high points of our lectures and presentations.
Andreas says on November 25th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Great post, most of the advices I already follow – yeah.
I like the first one with the storyboard, because I need to admit that I first set up a bunch of slides and then see what content I got and build the story around. Wrong way round, I know.
Another advice that I follow when preparing a presentation is to practise, practise, practise. Usually, I am holding the presentation minimum 10 times before I go “live” with it. There are goods ways in front of a mirror, your little baby-boy who will look a bit confused if you start over the 3rd time, or just alone in a room (mirror is best to see how you are moving and expressing yourself). The key is, to have really the presentation running on the screen and speak loud everything that you want to say. This will burn the text in your brain and will give you more confidence. A good idea is to stop the time you need so that you are sure that you do not overdo the timing.
SEO 101 says on November 25th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Nice post. I appreciate the attention to design basics and actually came away with something I never thought of before…
The bullet point, one at a time, suggestion is golden.
So is the attention towards a strong lead-in and even stronger call to action at the end.
Thanks.
Christian
SEO 101 at phatz.com
Dave Giusti says on November 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Hi Dustin,
Great post–#10 (break the rules) is what we are trying to do with our free tool you may find interesting.
Freepath 2.0 is an application that lets you create presentations that are mashups of web content and content from your PC. For example, a Freepath presentation could combine a PowerPoint file along with images, videos, music, websites, PDFs, Word and Excel documents. All of these files are saved into a playlist and are launched from within Freepath; no need to launch other applications. It gives the user the option to present in a dynamic non-linear way. Best of all, it is free!
Once you have added your content to a playlist, you can upload your playlists to myFreepath to share and collaborate with others. Again, this is free—both the tool and the space. Currently, we give new users 100mb of storage.
http://www.freepath.com
Dave
FrugalNYC says on November 25th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I find the point about lead-in to be very critical, for the reasons you stated. Being clear and to the point is best.
Simon says on November 26th, 2008 at 8:09 am
Another point – keep it brief. My heart sinks when a sales person comes in and it’s taken 5 slides to get to the customers logo’s slide. It drives me mad.
Mike Brown says on November 28th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Some great points for presenters!
Another key is for a presenter to understand their own strengths and limitations. That will help them know which rules to keep and break. Here’s a link to additional tips for those who struggle with presentations: http://brainzooming.blogspot.c.....to-do.html
Mike Brown
http://brainzooming.blogspot.com
ff-webdesigner says on December 2nd, 2008 at 8:55 am
nice tips, thank you!
I think it is some betterment if some people that read here make better presentations…
Al says on December 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 am
coool!
now how do you do this? :: PowerPoint and other presentation software have functions to display notes onto the presenter’s screen that do not get sent to the projector, or you can use notecards, a separate word processor document, or your memory.
that’s a cool feature i must have missed for years!
Dustin Wax says on December 22nd, 2008 at 10:05 am
Al: In PPT, it’s called “Speaker Notes”, and will work whenever an external display is detected. Here’s how to get to it in PPT 2007: http://office.microsoft.com/en.....71033.aspx
Nickolas says on January 1st, 2009 at 10:27 am
I have been a professional presenter for over 22 years and I agree with all of your points except one, “Use Images Sparingly”.
It is not uncommon for me to do a presentation with nothing BUT images or colors. The images become my background and I become the actor in front of that background. A simple static image can reinforce what I’m talking about, it can clarify a point, and it can keep the audience focused on what I’m saying instead of reading the screen.
Steve Bell says on January 4th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Excellent advice – all of it. May I add a couple more?
Always add a blank slide to the end of your show so you don’t get that annoying Powerpoint “This is the last slide” slide!
In fact, add two extra, so an accidetal extra press of the mouse doesn’t bring that up or return you to the PowerPoint software. Your audience, ideally, should never see “PowerPoint” itself.
Use 1 slide where others might use 1 bullet point. Yep – you’ll have 50, 60, 70, 100 slides to a show, but you’ll fly through them. I’ve used 112 slides in 10 minutes before now! :)
Next, try using light text on dark backgrounds. Its easier on the eyes. Less strain and your audience can see YOU better – they’re not blided by this white square beside you. Yellow on blue works best physiologically, because the eye and brain “sharpen it” but that’s not so much a cause for concern these days with higher definition laptops and projectors.
Oh and finally, cut each of your bullet points down to two or three words. Start with them verbose if you wish, but rehearse, rehearse and rehearse. As you learn the “show” cut the bullets down and down and down. Rememer it’s “Speaker Support” you’re creating, not “Speaker Replacement!
Good luck everyone.
Break a leg! :-)
Steve.
Eliza Kaiser says on May 12th, 2009 at 8:06 am
this site realy worked for me! I was about to lose mt job if i didn’t do a good job on this presentation. I was so lucky i found this site with all of these GREAT tips!
qaj says on September 2nd, 2009 at 3:05 am
wonderful!!!!!!!!!!1
Slrman says on October 7th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Here’s the best PowerPoint tip of all. Stop using it and start making videos! The things that ca be done in a video so far exceed PP, I can’t imagine anyone still using this outmoded piece of trash.
Even basic free video editors such as MS Movie Maker or iMovie for the Mac will create a far better presentation than PowerPoint. If you move up a little and use Final Cut Express or another video editor, you can produce awesome stuff.