Have you ever sat in on a PowerPoint presentation and been bored to the bone? Perhaps during a work-related seminar or back when you were at school?
Well, no doubt you have. And the only thing worse than watching a boring, unengaging presentation is being the person responsible for it! It can be embarrassing and completely demoralising, so don’t let it happen to you! Instead, follow these six top tips to help boost engagement.
Perhaps the biggest mistake you can make is cramming each slide with as much text as humanly possible. Doing this is a surefire way to make your audience uninterested and unfocused. Instead, limit the amount of text on each slide to a few key points. They should be there to support what you say. So instead of reading the board, your audience is actually listening to you.
A quick way to engage with your audience is by using videos and pictures. Include these throughout the presentation, on as many slides as you see fit. Once again, it’s important that you don’t fill the page with them and overwhelm the audience. Similarly, only use high-resolution images and videos that will hold up well when projected onto a large screen.
Nobody wants to sit and listen to you drone on through a seemingly endless supply of slides. It all comes down, once again, to you realising that your presentation is about you, not the slides. The slides are there to support you, not to be focused on. As such, think of the bare minimum your slides should say, and then find the minimum amount of slides needed to help convey your points.
Animations and transitions can quickly help to improve the perceived quality of your slides. Don’t try anything too fancy, but some simple wipes and fades will go a long way. They also allow you to gradually reveal more information on a slide as and when necessary. Displaying everything all at once, before you’ve had time to explain it, will leave the audience confused and overwhelmed.
If you’re relying on lots of data and statistics in your presentation, then it’s best to find ways to make this more digestible. The best way to do this is by creating bar charts, graphs, pie charts and any other means to help display your findings. If people want anything more detailed, then print this off and issue it as a handout to be viewed later.
Finally, take a look through your slides and put yourself in the shoes of the viewer. How easy is it to read and understand your text? Especially from a distance. Any number of problems could crop up, and it usually comes down to these three things:
If you have an upcoming presentation and are really worried that your slides aren’t up to scratch, then stop panicking! Here at Outlook Creative, we offer a complete PowerPoint presentation design service. Helping you to ensure your slides are the highest possible quality, and allowing you to successfully engage with your audience. Discover more today.