Creating Effective
Power Point Presentations
M. Reber
© 6/27/2016
Overview
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Planning Your Presentation
Writing Your Presentation
Designing Your Presentation
Presenting Your Presentation
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Overview
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Planning Your Presentation
Writing Your Presentation
Designing Your Presentation
Presenting Your Presentation
3
Planning Your Presentation
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Audience
Purpose
Topic
Presentation Management
4
Planning Your Presentation –
Audience
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Who is your audience?
 Is your audience a layperson, executive, technician,
expert? Or a combination?
 What are the characteristics and concerns of your
audience?
 How will you meet the needs of your audience?
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Planning Your Presentation –
What Your Audience Wants
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A presentation that is more than just reading
slides
A clear idea what you are talking about
Information they can actually use
 Not so much information that they can’t remember
 Not so little information that they wonder why they
even listened to you
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Slides with enough information, but not too much
A lively, interesting presentation that doesn’t
send them to sleep
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Planning Your Presentation –
Purpose
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Why are you giving the presentation?
 To inform and increase level of expertise on
presented topic
“My specific purpose is to inform the audience about
the role of the two-party system in American politics.”
 To persuade listeners with presented argument
“My specific purpose is to persuade the audience of
the need for stiffer penalties for running red lights.”
 To sell a presented product
“My desired outcome is to have you buy this product.”
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Planning Your Presentation –
Topic
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What is the purpose of exploring this topic?
 Determine if your purpose is:
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To provide an overview of a broad topic or related topics
To provide an in-depth presentation of a specific subsection
of a topic
How do you break the topic down?
 Determine the natural subsections of your topic
 Delegate tasks/subsections among group members
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Planning Your Presentation – Project
Management
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How do you meet your deadline?
 Create an internal timeline with milestones and
reviews
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Build in time for content reviews, grammar edits, merging
document portions, and ensuring format and styleguide are
applied consistently
 Consider choosing a facilitator to oversee project
management
 Create checks and balances for completing
assignments
 Notify the instructor of any issues
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Overview
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Planning Your Presentation
Writing Your Presentation
Designing Your Presentation
Presenting Your Presentation
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Writing Your Presentation
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Flow
Information
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Flow
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Establish Flow
Develop Flow
Build Cohesion Through Structure
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Flow –
Establish Flow
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An effective PowerPoint with good flow:
 Organizes information logically
 Transitions smoothly between slides
 Presents information in context, e.g. from general to
specific
 Breaks down complex ideas into smaller concepts
and addresses them one by one
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Flow –
Establish Flow (cont.)
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A presentation with good flow:
 Answers your audience’s questions before they think
to ask them
 Leads your audience through the topic and
subsections
 Keeps the audience focused on content through
clearly developed slides
 Helps your audience link concepts
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Flow –
Develop Flow
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Develop the flow of the presentation on paper
before you create slides
 Write out all information to be presented on paper or
in WORD.
 Use individual pieces of paper or Post-Its for each
point if useful for arranging flow
 Group related items together and ensure information
flows smoothly from one group to the next
 Organize and move around groupings until the flow
becomes clear
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Flow –
Build Cohesion Through Structure
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Create overview slides to outline for the
audience what you are going to tell them
 Make the 1st or 2nd slide an outline of presentation
 Repeat overview slides at the beginning of each new
section if presentation is lengthy
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Follow the outline for the rest of the presentation
Place only main points on outline slides
 Allow audience to orient themselves during the
presentation by repeating section titles in individual
slide titles
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Flow –
Build Cohesion Through Structure (cont.)
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Introduction Slide:
 Contains title of presentation, date, presenter name
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Outline Slides:
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Use several hierarchical levels of overview slides if necessary
State main points of presentation
Follow described structure
Start broad, finish specific
Rank Information: include only what NEEDS to go on the slide
Content Slides:
 Cover detailed information based on outline
 Use as many slides as needed, as many as 1-2 per minute
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Final Slide:
 Audience will remember last thing they hear, so make it matter
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Writing Your Presentation
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Flow
Information
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Information – Research
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Use reputable sources for research such as
academic articles, interviews with professionals,
books, etc.
Document information sources with citation
numbers throughout and corresponding
reference slides at the end
Collect more information than you need for the
slides
Anticipate questions the audience might have
when researching your topic
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Information – Selection
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Present essential information: not too much
 Leave out minute details
 Limit use of examples and tangential information
 Exclude unnecessary or contradictory information
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Information –
Selection (cont.)
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Present essential information: not too little
 Information on slides should be self-explanatory and
complete
 A number, cryptic sentence, or unexplained image is
not useful information
 Slides should clearly present the topic and content of
presentation in an obvious way and develop the basic
ideas comprehensibly
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Information – Grammar
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Avoid abbreviations and acronyms not obvious
to audience
Eliminate personal pronouns or articles when it
makes sense
Use whole sentences or fragments, but be
consistent
Limit punctuation marks
Use present tense when possible
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Information – Slide Density
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Write a maximum of 2 lines per bullet, if possible
Limit to 6 bullets per slide
Avoid long sentences
Keep slides simple and understandable in a few
seconds
If a slide contains too much information, split it
in two
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Information – Structure
Slide Structure – Good
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Use 1-2 slides per minute of your
PowerPoint presentation
Write in point form, not complete
sentences
Include 4-6 points per slide
Avoid wordiness: use key words and
phrases only
Slide Structure – Bad
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This page contains too many words for a ppt
presentation slide. It is not written in point
form, making it difficult both for your
audience to read and for you to present each
point. Although there are exactly the same
number of points on this slide as the previous
slide, it looks much more complicated. In
short, your audience will spend too much
time trying to read this paragraph instead of
listening to you.
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Overview
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Planning Your Presentation
Writing Your Presentation
Designing Your Presentation
Presenting Your Presentation
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Designing Your Presentation
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Templates
Format
Font
Visuals
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Templates
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Choose template carefully
 Background images and busy templates distract from
content
 Unobtrusive templates showcase content
 Text should contrast strongly with background
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Dark text on a light background are easy to read both on the
projector and on handouts
Choose a color scheme and template that will not empty the
toner when you print handouts
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Templates (cont.)
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Use slide master feature for consistent and
simple design template
 Change slide master settings at
View – Master – Slide Master
 Make changes to the fonts, sizes and look of master
slide as needed
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Add copyright, name, date, and phrases like
“confidential” in slide master footer for company
slides
Design your own presentation template if you
have the time and ability
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Designing Your Presentation
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Templates
Format
Font
Visuals
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Format
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Use font, size, and color consistently and
parallel in titles, text and bullets
Use the same transitions and animations for
whole presentation
Use only basic animations and transitions
 Fancy animations are distracting and become
annoying quickly
 Transitions should be quick and unnoticeable
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Designing Your Presentation
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Templates
Format
Font
Visuals
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Font
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Use font size 24 point to make sure slides can be
read from the back of the room
Font size under 20 is nearly unreadable from a distance
Use basic serif and sans serif fonts since fancy fonts can be
hard to read
DON’T WRITE TEXT IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, IT IS
DIFFICULT TO READ
Be careful with colors
Use colors for emphasis but plan well
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Font (cont.)
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Use as few different fonts and sizes as possible
Use sans serif fonts for a clean look and
readability
Use font size to indicate hierarchy
 Make the font size of titles larger than text
 Use a smaller font for sub-bullets or body text
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Designing Your Presentation
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Templates
Format
Font
Visuals
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Visuals – Types
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Flowcharts and other conceptual drawings
Graphs and charts
Photographs and clipart
Tables
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Visuals – Uses
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Use graphics to depict:
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Objects, parts, or features of an object
Actions or movements
Orientation or position
Concepts or a progression of ideas
Summarize and condense information and make
it easy to access through a visual
Allow international communication
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Visuals – Flowchart
To create an MPEG movie file:
Import
audio and
storyboard
files
Adjust
length of
audio and
video files
Add and
edit
transition
effects
Create an
MPEG
movie file
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Visuals – Graphs
Graphs - Bad
Graphs - Good
Items Sold in First Quarter of 2002
100
90
90
100
80
90
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80
70
60
60
Blue Balls
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Blue Balls
Red Balls
50
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Red Balls
38.6
40
34.6
31.6
30.6
27.4
30
30
20.4
20
10
10
0
0
January
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20.4
20
February
March
April
January
February
March
April
Use graphs rather than just charts and words
 Data in graphs is easier to comprehend and retain than raw data
 Trends are easier to visualize in graph form
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Always title graphs
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Visuals –
Photographs and Clipart
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Use professional photographs, not clipart
Make sure images maintain impact and resolution when
projected on a large screen
Source: http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/slides.html
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Visuals –
Tables
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Tables organize information for quick
comparison
Visuals Comparison Chart
Type of
Visual
Flowcharts
Graphs
Photo-graphs
Tables
and Clipart
Level of
effectiveness
High
Low
Medium
High
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Visuals
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Generally, you should be able to explain a graph
or a table in a few minutes
Overly dense graphs or tables are difficult to
follow
 If necessary, break up into several slides
 Be sure not to use a font size under 22 points for
tables or graphics to keep them readable
 Tables or graphics imported directly from print
material are generally bad for slides
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Fonts are too small
Information is generally too crowded and dense
Made for close-up reading, not distant viewing on a screen
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Visuals – How Not To Do It
Pathogenesis of a BAD SLIDE that is
too crowded and confusing
Useful Information
Related information that is not connected to anything
Difficult use of color
That doesn’t clarify
Misplaced arrows that not exactly on target
Over
Colored
Inconsistent
Labels VE
?Label
Inc
on
R
T
I
C
A
L
sis
ten
tL
ab
el
Inconsistent Label
Inconsistent
Label
Boxed Text That Goes Out
Of The Box
How is this
connected
Poor Box
Total Confusion Hinders Presentation
Source: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&q=powerpoint+presentation+too+much+info&start=10&sa=N
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Overview
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Planning Your Presentation
Writing Your Presentation
Designing Your Presentation
Presenting Your Presentation
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Presenting Your Presentation
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Rehearsal
Testing
Interaction
Handouts
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Rehearsal
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Use slides as a guide
 Slides only give audience basic information you fill out orally
 Never consider slides a substitute for oral presentation
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Use the slides as reference, not as exclusive information
 PowerPoint slides are an aid for the presentation, not the
presentation itself
 Audience wants to hear what YOU have to say on the topic, not
just read slides
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Navigate slides with ease
 Spend enough time as necessary to explain a slide
 Split an information dense slide into more than one slide
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Rehearsal – Single Presenter
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Practice introducing yourself and the topic
Synchronize your spoken presentation with your
slides
If you encourage note-taking, allow audience
time to do so and include in timing presentation
Plan your presentation to allow time at the end
for questions and answers
Practice non-linear navigation in PowerPoint to
allow jumping ahead or back without paging
through all slides
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Rehearsal – Multiple Presenters
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Combine individual presentations into one
before presentation day
Determine how to break down total presentation
time among presenters and their respective
subsections
Decide who introduces the group and topic
Estimate correctly how long it really takes to
cover all information among presenters
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Rehearsal –
Multiple Presenters (cont.)
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Practice a smooth transition from one presenter
to the next
 Transfer the controls and move on smoothly without
interruption
 Practice introduction of next speaker and topic
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Do a practice run of the entire presentation with
transitions with all presenters present
 Ensure all presenters have sufficient time for their
portion of the presentation
 Allow for extra feedback on each presenter
individually
 Allow time for questions
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Rehearsal –
Important Navigation Shortcuts
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Practice shortcuts to make moving around in
presentation easy
 Up, Page Up, Mouse Wheel Up: Previous Slide
 Down, Page Down, Mouse Wheel Down, Left-Click:
Next Slide
 Type number and press ENTER: go to specific slide.
NO visual feedback as number is entered
 B – Blank screen: displays black screen. Useful if you
want audience to stop reading
 W – White screen. Displays white screen. Similar to
'B', but less jarring if presentation has a white
background
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Rehearsal –
Important Navigation Shortcuts (cont.)
 A – Hide pointer. Makes on-screen arrow
cursor go away. Cursor normally disappears if
not moved for a few seconds
 CTRL-P – Pen mode. Lets you write on your
presentation. Not recommended for many
laptop pointing devices
 E – Erase pen marks
 Esc - Terminate slide show
 F5 – Start slide show
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Presenting Your Presentation
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Rehearsal
Testing
Interaction
Handouts
51
Testing
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Test presentation on actual presentation system
BEFORE presentation
 Things can and do go wrong
 One system may have different versions and requirements and
than another system and the presentation cannot run
 Slides may be unreadable from back seats and have to be
changed
 Unusual fonts may be unreadable on a different system
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Bring presentation on several media in case one source
fails.
 Use a memory stick or CD
 Send as an attachment to an online email account
 Print handouts for audience
52
Presenting Your Presentation
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Rehearsal
Testing
Interaction
Handouts
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Interaction
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Don’t read from your slides. Slides are for the
audience, not you.
Don’t read to your slides. Face the audience, not
the screen.
Don’t apologize for your slides. If a slide is hard
to read or unclear, don’t use it.
Don’t turn off all lights. Light keeps the audience
from falling asleep and lets them take notes if
they want.
Do interact with and engage your audience.
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Interaction (cont.)
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Speak at a comfortable speed. Do not speed up
to cover more information!
If you have a hard time talking to groups,
present to a few members in the audience in
different locations of the room.
Remember, you know more than your audience
and they want to learn from you!
55
Interaction (cont.)
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Remember that a good presentation is a story
 Give a brief overview of information at the start
 Present information
 Review important points in the conclusion
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Allow for audience responses and questions
56
Presenting Your Presentation
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Rehearsal
Testing
Interaction
Handouts
57
Handouts
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Provide a hard copy of your slides to allow
viewers to focus on you, not note taking
If you are a knowledgeable and engaging
presenter, don’t worry that the audience won’t
listen to you
Handouts allow the audience to take notes
directly on relevant slides
Presentation should still make sense if all the
audience has is the handout
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