Have you ever heard this term called “death by PowerPoint,” or do people around you exclaim, “no! no! not another presentation, please..” PowerPoint presentations have attracted a lot of bad names to them. It really sucks to be a part of the audience and see the presenter pulling out one slide after the other. The truth is that it sucks to be on the other side when you are presenting a dead slideshow.
Powerpoint presentations are ubiquitous, and you will see everyone doing it almost everywhere. But the catch is not half of them do it well. It is important to understand what an effective presentation is before you embark on the journey to make one. An effective presentation is not what you learn and recite in front of an audience. Instead, it should exist in the background and support the message you are trying to get across.
An effective presentation has a huge impact on the speaker. If the PowerPoint presentation is not good enough, it consequently undermines the credibility of the person/ executive presenting. A typical bad PowerPoint presentation stands out. It is awful when recited by the presenter standing with the back facing you while he/she reads the slide (containing infinite lines of text, zero coherence, ugly pictures, and no design).
The following are tips and tricks you can adapt to add a little life to your presentation.
1. Have an outline
Planning is the foundation of having an effective PowerPoint presentation, and it goes a long way. Most of the people make their presentation without having any structure or a storyline. The entire point of having a presentation is to communicate and expand it to your audience effectively. The idea is to pin on what you have to say and then think of ways to visualize it. Unless you are really a pro at improvising, you should stick to the outline before bringing all of your slides together.
You must make sure that there is a consistent flow maintained throughout. Follow a storytelling convention: give it a beginning, a middle, and an end. There should be an arc that leads to some high or a climax. While you are presenting, keep in mind that you make sure your audience appreciates all the slides and is anxious to find out what is next, and if possible, leave them when they want more.
2. Focus on one thing at a time
Make it a point to display only the information that you are talking about during the presentation. The audience, in general, read the content that is displayed in front of them. If you display the 5 points that you’re going to talk about, your audience will read up those points first, and then they will wait for you to catch up instead of really listening and understanding what you have to say.
Plan your presentation in a way that every new line appears as you start to talk about it. So it is always a good idea to have bullet points revealed one by one as you reach them. If there is a chart to be displayed, it can be put after the data for the reference purpose. As a presenter, you manage the flow of information seamlessly so that your audience can be in sync with you.
3. No big paras
This is where the majority of people fail in making an effective PowerPoint presentation. Their author fails to understand that they do not have to make a chunky piece of standalone document. They put everything they have got onto the slides in big blocks of text. Remember, I mentioned the ‘death by PowerPoint.’ This is how you can kill a roomful of people.
One thing that you should never forget is that your slides are merely a glimpse of your presentation and not the presentation at large. Powerpoint has this feature of making notes that you can use for your own reference while presenting that wouldn’t be displayed to the audience via projector. Or carry cue cards, make a note, or a script if need be. But for the love of God, never, if you have to write blocks of text on the presentation, never stand with your back facing the audience while you read through the slides.
4. Design matters
Powerpoint presentation offers a lot of visual effects that can help you transform your slides. Many of these visual effects are “flashy” like most of the transition effects: fades, swipe, flashing text, and other annoying features. These can be incorporated into the presentation in just one click. You must avoid the temptation to dress your presentation like a bride on her wedding day. Follow the simple design basic:
- I prefer Sans Serif font over other fonts: Sans Serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri are some of the preinstalled fonts. They are very conveniently read.
- Use fancy decorative fonts only for the headers, that too if it is necessary: Decorative fonts -calligraphy, futuristic, psychotic, are nouveau and flowers are some. These are large fonts and are hard to read. Reserve them solely for the headings. However, please stick to the serif fonts like Georgia, if possible.
- Put dark fonts over a light background: Again, it is simple logic. Having a light background and dark fonts makes it much easier to read. Or let’s say if you have to use a dark background, make sure your fonts are light in colors like white, cream, or pastel. Also, increase the font size by a couple of units.
- Watch your text alignment: Know that it is much easier to follow text if properly aligned. As a matter of fact, text aligned towards the center is hard to read and looks amateurish. It would be best if you stuck to either left alignment or right alignment.
- Avoid making a mess on the slide: There should be ideally three things on your slide: a headline, few bullets, and an image (optional). If there is even a single thing that you add to the slide, your audience will have difficulty figuring out the message. Therefore it is always advised to keep slides clutter-free.
5. Use Images wisely
There are basically two schools of thought on the idea of images. Both schools have some merits attached to them. The first one says that images add visual interest and ensures the engagement is there from both sides. The other one says that you should use images if it’s important for communicating your ideas better.
Since we’re talking about images, please ensure that you do not use Powerpoint clipart, which is pre-installed. All the clipart that exist has been through the audience thousands of times, and they do not want to see it anymore. I believe it does not need to be reinstated again as to why you shouldn’t use these cliched images. Therefore, please use fresh images from authentic sources that blend with the presentation’s tone.
6. Focus on what is not on the screen
Like I mentioned earlier, the slides are just a part of the presentation and not the entire presentation. It is you who should be under the spotlight and nothing else. The entire purpose of having a presentation is to help you communicate your message in the best possible ways. So, focus more on yourself. Know what you are going to wear, how you plan to keep yourself tight, and even how you move around. You must realize that you are the focal point during the presentation, no matter how good your prepared slides maybe.
7. Remember the Hooks
Like great literature, have hooks in it, especially in the beginning, and you inevitably reel into it. During the presentation, your aim should be something similar, which should make the audience sit on the edge of the seat and listen to the presentation carefully. I realize that it is easier said than done, but it sure can be achieved with practice. The most popular and effective hooks are the ones that straight goes for your audience’s emotions. Please think of how you can get them hooked. It could be by offering them something awesome or make them scared. For the rest of the presentation, you have to ensure whatever emotions you have invoked are sustained.
8. Never forget to ask questions
The best thing about questions is that they churn your mind, arouse your interest, and to some level, excite you. To make a good presentation, questions make an important ingredient. When you pose a question to your audience, you stew their minds and make them think with every slide you switch to. When you ask questions, you make the audience realize how little they know and what is in it for them to learn.
Use this hack called one question after one line. All you have to worry about is memorizing the first line you have to speak and the first question you will have to ask. As you ask your first question, give yourself some space to relax. After the audience’s response, you can move forward with the rest of your “un-memorized” speech. For example, if you share your experience dealing with the new operating system on your devices in the office… “My first experience using the new OS was pathetic. The system hanged in every 5 minutes. Has anyone of you experienced anything similar to this?”
9. Keep the psychology of colours in mind
Colors play a significant role in every kind of presentation, and every color implies a set of emotions. If your organization doesn’t hand you the pre-formed template to work on, you should totally know the psychology of colors. There are ample studies that prove that colors have a lot to do with the sustenance of interest and knowledge retention. You do not have to be an expert in color theory, but it is always good for a business professional to know its basics.
Colors can basically be divided into largely 2 categories: cool and warm. Cool colors include greens/blues, and warm includes oranges/reds. Cool colors tend to look better when in the background as compared to warm colors. Warm colors anyway appear to be coming at us. This is why the most popular PowerPoint presentations tend to have blue backgrounds and yellow foreground/text. Although you don’t have to follow it this way, you may choose these colors’ variation.
While you are choosing your presentation’s color scheme, you must consider where you are giving the presentation. Suppose you are going to present in a dark room. Then you can go for a dark background and a light foreground (for texts), and it will work just fine. But if you present in a room with lights on or ample natural light, it is already advised to keep the background light and the text dark.
10. Break the rules
There is a reason this point exists in the end. Like everything around, there will be a point when any of the rules you have learned would not apply. If you think you have a good reason to break a stated rule, then you should go ahead and break it. It is an absolutely acceptable behavior since it is your presentation, and you know best about it. There will come the point when you have to take your figurative mask and wear your supposed cape. You will have to leap, ignoring the rules, or breaking them. If breaking the rules is all it takes to prevent shoddy boring presentation that can consequently lead to severe boredom to masses, depression, emotional breakdown, psychotic breaks leading to death by the presentation. I am sure you absolutely do not want that, do you?