Tips for a better Power Point
Will Death by PowerPoint soon be a thing of the past?
Hilary Perkins, AICP, GISP, URISA's President, recently discovered a post on the National Staff Development Council blog talking about Death by PowerPoint. Often times presentations are so overwhelming with written information the spoken information is lost in the crossfire. Below are a few suggestions for improving your PowerPoint presentation.
- To make good presentations we need to think like designers.
- When we prepare slides, we should remember that the visual sense is dominant. Use pictures, color, contrast, and simplicity to communicate your message.
- Our audience is either going to read our slides or listen to us, not both. People have a hard time listening and reading. If we put too many words on our slides, they'll be reading, and we want them listening.
- Each one of our slides should convey one idea and one idea only.
- Handouts that are made directly from slides, or slideuments, should be replaced by proper handouts that complement our presentations. The presentation should not be directly reflected in the handout. We want people to listen to our presentation, not read our slides at their tables.
- We should think about our presentation as a movie, with each slide being a scene.
- Stories are an incredibly important part of presenting; people will remember our stories, not our data.
- We should develop our presentations by using Post-Its, white boards, and pen and paper. Remember Alan Kay's quotation, "Most ideas you can do pretty darn good with a stick in the sand."
- The goal of an effective slide is simplicity. As John Maeda states, "simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful."
- According to Nancy, the company that communicates well will win.
- Be very careful to have a clear structure. Everyone thrives when a presentation has structure.
- Strive for naturalness during your presentation. Garr quoted John Coltrane in stating, "You can play a shoe string if you're sincere."
- When I asked Nancy how a beginner should start to think like a designer, she suggested we start by surrounding ourselves with beautiful things, reading books about design, viewing great photography, and visiting galleries. ﾠ
To learn more click here and see fantastic examples of Before & After slides or Brain Rules for Presentations , watch these presentations and prepare to end Death by Powerpoint!
