So how do I make a Power Point presentation that doesn't suck?

In My Humble Opinion
21

The conference I’m involved with has guidelines - no more than 6 bullets per slide, no more than 8 words a bullet, no sentences. However, from my experience in seeing hundred of presentations at all levels of quality, the effectiveness of the presentation is inversely proportional to the number of words on the slides. If your audience can read ahead, they’re done long before you are and will miss anything you add, since they’ll be asleep until the next slide appears. Pictures force them to pay attention.

I agree with the fade in of each bullet point. If you need to use words, that at least keeps up the interest.

My slides are usually awful, since I’m too verbal, but I’ve seen good ones. My goal before I retire is to give a talk using only the four mandatory slides that the conference requires. That would force people to read the paper, at least.

22

Speaking as a guy that uses PP a lot, Don McMillan will tell you everything you need to know. Pay particular attention to his slide on charts.

23

Well, I think I can do this. I’ve already got the whole speech written out*, and I’ve done it before, so I’m not worried about structure of the presentation, and I’ll avoid the “writing IN PowerPoint” pitfall. My intent is to use PP mostly as an illustrator, and perhaps stick up some words that will be unfamiliar (monoterpenes, esters, aldehydes, etc.) on one slide each with a photo of a plant high in that particular kind of chemical structure.

I’m going to use this map, but with the verbal caveat that “the details aren’t important, but essential oils come from all over the world” - I want to show the scope of the practice, but I don’t want people feeling like they have to read every word on there.

I’ll use photos for the various application techniques: diffusers, sprays, soaks - and here would be the perfect place for a naked naked ape picture of a massage, except I can’t find a single bloody picture that’s pretty, interesting AND has proper massage technique going on! And, as a former massage therapist, I can’t stand for a picture of some poor therapist with her elbows akimbo and thumbs being tortured because it looked better for the camera. I may have to steal my gorgeous neighbor and give her a massage while my husband takes pictures. (I’m sure neither one will gainsay me! :wink: )

Voyager, that “put it all on the slide and then read it” is exactly what makes me snooze in class. I can read faster than he can talk, so why is he talking?! I’m definitely going to limit my words on each slide and do more with pictures.

Do y’all think that a lot of slides is bad if they’re pictures, not words? I know someone said a 15 minute presentation should only have half a dozen slides, and if it was words, I agree, but I feel like using pictures I can get away with more…yes? No?

*ETA: this doesn’t mean I read it. I write out my speeches as very detailed outlines, with the outline part bolded, and then I more-or-less ignore what I wrote and extemporaneize from the bolded part. But having it all written out means I CAN fall back on it if I get lost or nervous or blank. I’ve never read it, but knowing that I can if I have to means I’m relaxed enough to not need to, if that makes sense.

24

Take some tips from British comedian Dave Gorman, who uses PowerPoint extensively, effectively, and entertainingly, in his standup.

25

I think if you have a lot of picture-heavy slides, the audience will be inclined to tune you out and pay attention to the pictures. I think this tendency may be worse as your pictures get more interesting, less obviously related to your topic, and more numerous.

So, be careful with your pictures. Think about what you can show a picture of so that it keeps the audience engaged with you, rather than contemplating the minute details of the pictures.

26

Here’s everything I know about creating effective PPT presentations. I wrote it for an old employer (who pretty much ignored it, near as I could tell).

Most of what you’ve heard from the others here is covered I suspect (I didn’t read everybody’s responses), with possibly one or two contradictions.

Good luck.

27

One more thing to make a good PPT presentation - practice giving it. Back before PPT we had people use 35 mm slides, and despite a big effort to check them for formatting, bad slides was the #1 complaint of attendees. We still check the PPT, but it is much easier to make good slides, and the program committee member can even change really bad ones. But good slides don’t help when a speaker drones, or is boring, or just doesn’t have a lot of energy. It also helps when arranging your slides. I sometimes reorder things if I find myself covering the points made in slide n+4 in slide n. You also sound like you really know about the subject when you aren’t hemming and hawing. I’ll take a good speaker with crummy slides over a bad speaker with good slides any day - but quality of slides and speech usually go together, in my experience.

28

If you have the time, take a look at Garr Reynolds’ blog:

http://www.presentationzen.com/

Reynolds’ approach to PowerPoint is to simplify things to the point of zen. This approach may or may not work for you, but take a look:

What is Good PowerPoint Design?
http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/whats_good_powe.html

29

For what it’s worth…
do not read what is on the slide to me. Use the information on the slide to compliment what you are saying. If you read it to me, I become surly and lose interest in even tormenting you. Not good. :smiley:

30

Everyone else has offered good suggestions. My own: what is important is your speech. The PowerPoint is only meant as a visual aid. It should not detract from you or what you are saying. Slides can detract by being too “cute,” too bright, too congested, too confusing, to cluttered, etc.

31

I’ve done a ton of presentations, for classes and work and professional meetings.

My must-dos include:
use the same background for every slide
don’t use goofy, distracting backgrounds
never animation and never 3-D
every slide needs an informative heading
something should be funny
if the font size is less than ~22, start cutting text
it’s ok to re-state the heading, it’s never ok to read the rest of the slide
(i.e. continuing with the results of this study, we also observed that … expand on bullet points)

This is my secret trick:
I go in to the “notes” view and write down what I’m planning to say for every slide. Including my spontaneous, off the cuff joke(s). Print those out when you give the talk and turn over each page as you move to the next slide. You’ll have the current slide in front of you, and what you meant to say about it - this works best if you have a podium, but makes you look prepared anywhere. No stage fright, no worry that you might forget to mention some special point. Also gives you paper to take notes for feedback.

32

WhyNot, that is not a good map to use. It is far too busy. Even if you tell people not to get hung up in the details, they’ll get hung up in the details.

See if you can find a world map without anything else on it, then put that image on a slide. Then you can use the drawing tools in PowerPoint to make a dot on each of those countries. That would convey your message without the distraction of a messy slide.

Sorry to nitpick, but I work with maps for a living. If you have a problem or questions, let me know.

I also wouldn’t put extra pictures in unless they have a specific purpose, part of the story you want to tell. If they are placeholders, they will feel like placeholders and your audience’s attention will wander.

As far as the number of slides goes, it really depends. For me 15 minutes would be about 13 slides, because I put very little on a slide and I talk fast. If you want to get 2 minute2 from each slide (and that can be a long time) then you go for 6-7 slides. The most important thing is to practice so that you know how long it will take you to do the talk. Start doing the talk to yourself OUT LOUD as soon as possible. It feels silly, but that’s the only way you really know the timing, and you can sometimes see how something that worked visually just doesn’t work verbally.

Stick extra slides in the back in case you get done too quickly, and have a preset early stopping point if you go on too long. It’s embarrassing to be cut off in the middle of a point. And have a timekeeper if the prof won’t be doing it - someone to flash you at 10 and 5 minutes.

It means getting the talk done early and then working on polishing, but the polishing is what will get you the A rather than the B.

33

there are some great tips above.

whenever we hire a new staff person and they say powerpoint i make them read this article: Powerpoint is Evil

And give them the copy of the monograph mentioned at the bottom of the article. It’s only 7 dollars.

whistlepig, typing on a laptop with a missing left shift key.

34

Yes, I agree.

It’s worth it to find a pleasant template - there are ones you can buy or get for free on the web, and if you’re so inclined, you can design your own. Everyone’s seen all of the stock ones before so it makes it that much less interesting.

I always post my PPTs on my website as PPS files so the audience can download them later (or bring them to class) - and make sure they know your preference by announcing, “Hey, no need to take lots of notes, I have the slides uploaded,” or whatever. The slideshow’s purpose is to remind me and the audience of the point at hand, and I hate people trying to scribble along. Just listen and download later/before.

Content wise most of the good hints have been shared. Ultimately though, I’ve seen just about every PPT rule broken by presenters and I still thought the presentations were good - except for the dumping of extremely long passages of text. I like seeing graphics, key term definitions, and animations (if needed) on slides. And anything I should walk away from remembering.

35

Brilliant! I don’t know why I didn’t think of that, thank you so much! :smiley:

36

Actually, the most effective PowerPoint is this:

  1. Each slide consists of a full sentence in the heading.
  2. The rest of the slide consists of an illustrative example of the concept shown in the heading.
  3. Avoid bullet points, but if you have a couple of minor points, make then in one or two words at the end of the slide.

See http://lw.siena.edu/technology/demo/orientation2007.html for an example.

The problem with PowerPoint templates is that they are not particularly effective in conveying information and it’s best to ignore the heading and bullet format. People are used to it, but it just doesn’t work well. The title sentence and example method works much better.

37

Fixed first link

38

Disagree. Never animate just to animate. But I’ve seen talks where the animation added a tremendous amount to the presentation, and was very effective.

Same with 3D. I was presenting data on wafer maps, with numbers on the die locations, and found that a 3D representation of this was far more effective in letting people see what I wanted to show.

When I’ve heard people do this, it sounds unnatural. When I started, I wrote index cards with the important points I wanted to make. That was when we used a slide projector. Now that we use laptops, you can see the points on the screen. I think it makes the talk be more natural, but you have to feel comfortable up there. (I am immune to stage fright, which helps.) But the most important thing to do is to practice.

Jokes are good but dangerous. I only use jokes that are related to the subject matter. It really helps to practice in front of an audience - to see if they laugh the first time they hear it.

39

Another thing that works in certain situations is to involve the audience. A famous professor did this on a panel I was moderating once, and I found it very effective. It doesn’t work for talks giving information only, but one paper I did solved an old riddle, and I asked the audience at the beginning and ending of the paper what they thought the answer was, giving 3 alternatives. It makes the audience more invested in the topic. But it has to be something like the polling of the audience before and after a debate - it won’t work for most talks.