- Presentations should support what the speaker is saying and act as a supplement to the information presented
- If slides are too busy, it distracts from the speaker’s message
- Slides should have a lot of negative or white space
- Less clutter on slides = more powerful message
-The best powerpoint slides will be meaningless without the narration of the speaker
-Do not bore your audience with a slide full of text, they will be reading instead of listening to the speaker
-The audience will benefit more from a handout with more detailed information on it to take away from the presentation than a copy of the slides
-If a handout is involved, it should be given out AFTER the presentation
-Lastly, NEVER read directly from a slide
-You may use animation on slides, but do so sparingly and professionally
-Your audience will get bored if the presentation is full of slow moving animations
-As a rule of thumb: use two to three different types of animations in the presentation, and do not put transitions between each slide
-Never use small graphics and stretch them, or clipart
-Use unique images that your audience has not seen time after time
-If you are not using your own photographs, be mindful of copyrighted images
-using images of people in your presentation helps the audience connect on an emotional level
-Decide if you want the image at the focus, or the background of the slide, this will determine the amount of text
-Keep a consistent visual theme throughout your presentation, but avoid using templates that the audience has seen before
-Make your presentation unique- No two presentations should be alike!
-Make your own templates
-Use the appropriate charts for the data you are trying to display
-Pie Chart: percentages, no more than 4-6 slices with contrasting colors, highlight the most important slice by exploding the slice
-Vertical Bar Chart: used to show changes over time, limit to 4-8 bars
-Horizontal Bar Chart: used to compare quantities, limit to 4-8 bars
-Line Chart: used to show trends, highlight if the change is positive or negative by adding a graphic such as an arrow
-If you are using a chart of data, convert the information to a graph for your audience, it will be easier to understand
-Keep it simple and to the point
-Be aware of the way you want to make your audience feel, color is emotional, different colors evoke different emotions
-Cool colors (blues and greens) work best for backgrounds
-Warm colors (oranges and reds) work best for objects in the foreground
-The best slide color combination is a blue background with yellow text
-Be aware of where you will be presenting and how the color will be effected
-You do not need to be a color expert, but be aware of simple color tricks
-Use the same font set throughout your presentation
-Use no more than two complementing fonts in the presentation (ex. Arial and Arial bold)
-Know the difference between a serif font and a sans serif font
-Use a sans serif font in your presentation
-Use fonts that will be easy to read from the back of the room
-Use video and audio to show examples of what you are presenting on
-Embed media into your presentation
-DO NOT use cheesy sound effects found in powerpoint (ex. horn sound)
-Spend time organizing slides so the delivery will be easy to understand for the audience
-Seeing all of your slides in order helps you to see the logical flow of the overall presentation
-This also help you catch small mistakes that you may not see if you look at the slides one by one