Powerpoint Presentations: What NOT to Do

Nothing makes a graphic designer cringe more than sitting through a painfully inconsistent powerpoint presentation that has obviously been cobbled together from many sources without much thought as to the final impression of the slideshow. And trust me, your audience is annoyed too!

Here are just a few of the worst offenders:
The Boring Presentation: Slide after slide after slide of bullets that fill the screen and allow the presenter to read the information verbatim. You instantly clue in your audience that there is no need to pay attention because they can simply read the presentation on their own time, and MUCH quicker.

The Animation Junkie Presentation: The creator of this presentation knows how to fade, zoom, fly in and wave! And uses it on every slide. There is so much action going on that it’s hard to even grasp the information. Animation can be effective, but only if you know how to use it judiciously. A great example of this…Alice Pawley at Sciencewomen decided to create the worst powerpoint ever and has definitely succeeded! While this “mock” presentation was created to show the worst of the worst, I think you’ll see some things you’ve witnessed (and perhaps even used yourself??)

The “We’ve Got Charts!” Presentation: Just because you have a chart doesn’t mean it conveys the information easily. Simple. Simple. Simple. Complicated charts just leave your audience scratching their heads. If it doesn’t convey the one point you are trying to illustrate, it is NOT an effective chart. Break it up onto several slides or have a designer redo it in a visually pleasing and more digestible way.

The Identity Crisis Presentation: Combine all three offenders above and this is what you get…too many words on a slide, tons of effects and messy, cluttered charts.  This slideshow uses 7 different fonts, all different sizes and all the colors of the rainbow. The audience’s eye doesn’t know where to begin and is so distracted that most of the valuable information is lost on them.

Your presentation is a reflection of your company. After spending hours and hours pulling together tons of great information, if you don’t take the time to polish it up, all of that time has been wasted. Read these great tips to help you create successful presentations.