Below we discuss the best practices for designing presentation slides. If your slides are more important than what you're saying then your message will lose impact. Your slides must be an accompaniment and not distract from your words.
Avoid slides with lots of text, especially if it's just a repetition of what you're saying. The audience may be reading rather than listening to you. If you need text-heavy slides then gradually reveal the text when needed. Ideally you should only include main speaking points in the form of short and concise bullet points on your slides.
If your slides are more important than what you're saying then your message will lose impact. Your slides must be an accompaniment and not distract from your words. Avoid slides with lots of text, especially if it's just a repetition of what you're saying.
We can agree that the first slide is the most frustrating. It is full of text, with no space for other media, and although the text is divided with bullets, even these contain many sentences. On the contrary, the second slide, contains less information in bullets, making it easier to read. The third slide, however, is the most clear.
We can agree that the first slide is the most frustrating. It is full of text, with no space for other media, and although the text is divided with bullets, even these contain many sentences. On the contrary, the second slide, contains less information in bullets, making it easier to read.
The third slide, however, is the most clear. There is only a sentence, that summarizes the topic of the Subject Matter. This, makes it easier for the audience to concetrate less on the presentation and focus on the educator talking and explaining the topic.
The number one mistake found in PowerPoint presentations is usually the amount of text used in a slide. Because they want to deliver more information about a subject , educators fill the slides with text, even with irrelevant information, leaving no space for images or other visual media. However, according to surveys, when there is a significant amount of text in a presentation, the audience prefers to read it, paying more attention to it rather than to the educator talking. For example, see the following slides. Which one is more frustrating to you?
For example, Comic Sans is inappropriate for a business presentation, but it is quite playful when used in a presentation created for primary school students.
Now that the most common mistakes found in PowerPoint presentations have been identified, it is important to mention that creating a presentation is not a simple task. It requires time and effort and enough attention, so that it can be successful.
The slides should have the same design, including colour scheme, font size, font type, etc. This makes the presentation flow better and emphasises that each slide is part of same story you're telling so this consistency will help with understanding and it's less frustrating for the audience.
The aim of presentation slides is to enhance learning and understanding, by supplementing what you're saying (not be the main focus of your talk).
Use the Slide Sorter view to confirm that your presentation's structure is effective. Slide Sorter shows you how logical the flow of your presentation is and it's easy to re-arrange your slides in this view.
Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a 10-20-30 rule: There should be a maximum of 10 slides - people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there's no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
Use visual aids in moderation - they are additions meant to emphasise and support main points. Ensure that your presentation still works without your visual aids in case of technical problems. Read our article on Using visual aids during a presentation for more information.
If an image is not the focal point consider decreasing its opacity and if it's the current focus then make the image more pronounced. Masking can be a useful way of achieving these results and it can also be used to direct attention to something important within an image.
Present data using charts and diagrams because they display data in a visually compelling way and you'll avoid overwhelming the audience compared to, for example, presenting a list of statistics. Select data most relevant to the points you're making and ensure that your charts are necessary.