Make your slide deck work FOR you (not against you)

Ever heard of “death by Powerpoint”?

“Death by Powerpoint” is watching a presentation that never, ever, ends. Every slide is crammed with too many charts and graphs, and you feel like you’re drowning under all the confusing data, ideas and bullet points. 

Visuals and slides are standards now (there are over 300 million Powerpoint decks created daily around the world). But to make an impact, follow these tips to use them effectively. 

3 Simple Powerpoint Tips:

To make the best use of your slide deck, follow these guidelines: 

• Less is more: I can’t emphasize this enough. Most people recommend 1-2 slides per minute for your talk, which would be about 10-15 slides for a TED talk, for example. If you start adding in more, you run the risk of overloading your audience with too much information. Edit, edit, edit. 

• Don’t put the speech in the slides: Visual aids are meant to ADD to your talk and complement your speech, but some newbies think that slides are where you dump all the words they have written for their presentation. This is a big no-no. If you put the text of your speech in the slide, you will end up reading off the monitor and boring your audience to tears.

• Think visually: Use a consistent colour and branding scheme. Don’t mix fancy fonts and a lot of colour. Use visuals to share useful information, so keep your slide design consistent and simple. (If you want colour, choose visually striking photographs). Make sure you have limited text on each slide (like ¼ of each slide), and make sure you’re using photographs that add to your talk (not random space-filler stock photos). 

Also (and this is super important) - don’t rely on your visual slides as a crutch for your talk. Make sure you rehearse without your slide deck at first, so you know your material inside and out. Make it your goal to deliver a compelling talk…with or without your Powerpoint slides by your side.