3 Basic Principles for Designing Great Powerpoints

by | 15 December 2020 | Leadership, Online Meetings, Perception, Presentation Skills

Particularly in the corporate world, Powerpoint slides crammed with tiny writing, diagrams and complexity are entirely the norm. Many people complain about Powerpoint overload but still we are presented with huge decks of barely legible slides. Following on from our blog The Top 3 Traps Leading to ‘Death by Powerpoint’, this blog serves to give you some helpful design tips to create Powerpoints that enhance your presentation.
Firstly, what IS the purpose of Powerpoint slides?
Slides play a supporting or adjacent role, not a leading role. Your Powerpoint deck is not the presentation. YOU are the presentation. The slides should be a visual enhancement to support what you are saying.  It can be useful to think of slides as though they were providing a musical underscore to the presentation – setting a mood. Our brains are not cognitively designed to read and listen to two sets of information at the same time. It’s simply an overload. It’s stressful. No wonder we find Powerpoint presentations hard work. So, here are some design principles from our team to help make your slides work:
A slide should do one thing well
So many slides try to do several different things at once. This usually means they do many things badly. Ask yourself, ‘What does this slide tell my audience?’ If you can’t answer the question in one sentence, break up the slide or delete it.
The fewer words the better
Set yourself a high standard on this. See if you can limit the text per slides to 6 words. We know that seems drastic but if you go over this limit make sure every word earns its place on the slide. Make sure to use an easy-to-read, large font. If you are presenting to a sizeable audience, think – will the people at the back be able to read this?
Images rather than words
An image will not only bring to life the point you are making but serves as a visual way to embed the information which helps it to be remembered. If you are using a chart, make sure you strip it back to the most simplistic part which makes your point. A screen grab might be the easiest option but is likely to contain irrelevant information which will distract an audience. Once we put something on the screen our audience can’t stop reading it! We particularly like images that provide an emotional response, like a photograph. Especially if the image is slightly surprising – i.e. they trigger questions in our minds or reveal something we weren’t expecting. Images allow you to bring in some creativity and up the engagement of your presentation.
In summary
Choosing to follow these tips is a departure from the ‘norm’. It naturally might involve more work in the short-term. You might have to convert marketing material to display one item from a page at a time. However, the pay-off will be more impactful presentations where you give the audience the opportunity to stay focused on what YOU are saying rather than trying to decipher complex slides.  The paradox is that the more work you put in, the simpler your slides will be and your audience will thank you.

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