powerpoint presentations

powerpoint presentations

The Art of Creating Engaging and Effective PowerPoint Presentations

1. Introduction to PowerPoint Presentations

Welcome to the Art of Creating Engaging and Effective PowerPoint Presentations. Regularly creating engaging and effective PowerPoint presentations is part of the student and professional experience, so I know you will get a lot out of this course. You are likely starting this course with some experience with PowerPoint. Regardless of your comfort level, I want to ensure that you come away with even more ways to make your PowerPoint presentations engaging and effective.

As an instructor, I am often asked, “Is PowerPoint Dead?” In my opinion, it is not. PowerPoint as a visual aid, among many available tools, still remains a staple in our student and professional lives. It is therefore pivotal that students, working professionals, and the community at large keep abreast of the latest findings in order to continue to harness it as an effective tool for communication. Mastering PowerPoint can help you separate yourself from the competition. It is not enough to simply use your instructor’s old PowerPoints or the same drab slides to convey your research and elicit real change. You need to present with intent. When presenting with PowerPoint or any visual aid, as your audience changes, so should your visuals. A well-crafted PowerPoint means you want your audience to get something out of what you are presenting. Always question: who is my audience, and what do I want them to take away? In mastering PowerPoint, your command of the visual aid can further prove your command of your message. Check back to this video often and share it with peers and friends as you continue to grow in your engagement with PowerPoint. Let’s enhance our skills and harness the power of visual communication.

2. Design Principles for Visual Impact

Layout: The effective use of slide space can make the difference between an engaging visual and a distracting or boring one. The type of content you plan to include on your slide can help you decide which layout to use.

Color: Subtle use of color can increase the readability and visual appeal of your slides. The psychology of color can also have an impact on an audience.

Typography: The use of typography can evoke different associations. Each typeface has distinctive characteristics and can create a particular emotional tone or mood depending on how it is used.

Visual Elements: Using visuals in the proper way can draw attention to key points and reinforce learning, evoke emotion, or create an aesthetic quality that shows thought and detail in presentation preparation.

Good design principles can be a big part of how to engage an audience. Here are some of the most important design principles.

Visual Impact: This principle makes us think about how something can captivate or hold someone’s eye. Our natural attributes are related to how a slide is laid out on a screen.

Visual Appeal: This principle is about aesthetics. A great slide should have a look and feel that works as a great visual story either next to a speaker or with a speaker off the stage. Both need to be visually arresting.

Typography is also a part of how good design principles go into constructing a visually appealing and engaging visual. When trying to structure information in a visually appealing way, have depth of contrast. Ahrens recommends using a headline or title in a larger, heavy weight type to anchor the slide and to create appropriate contrast for a visual hierarchy.

3. Engaging Content Creation Techniques

To create more engaging and effective PowerPoint presentations, it’s not just about using all the features the software has to offer. It’s about creating content that is engaging, relevant to the audience, and tells a story. It’s about creating content that uses basic principles of good communication to break up the text and make it more approachable. This can help to create a narrative flow and guide the audience through the message being communicated. The idea of using ‘narrative’ is a powerful tool in visual and PowerPoint content. It’s what will connect with people and really can make a difference when delivering a presentation. It’s really about crafting the messages that matter and show the why, the who, the what, and the how. As a presenter, one needs to think about really connecting with the audience through the content and show how it perhaps relates to them.

The fundamental misconception that we can’t relate to things if they aren’t directly about us is what advertisers and marketers build whole campaigns around. The job of a PowerPoint presenter is to make it more obvious to the audience, more visible, more transparent, and clearer, so that the alternative will be unthinkable. Of course, in that process, it can evoke an “aha moment” or an epiphany or even catharsis in members of the audience, but that’s not an alternative, an alternative is refusing to accept what is made visible. So, this flaw of ‘The Flatland’ becomes visible when you make the invisible more observable.

4. Effective Delivery and Presentation Skills

It is important to remember that not everything is dependent on a visually effective PowerPoint presentation. There are a number of skills and habits that you should be adopting when you present your slides. The same message can be positively or negatively interpreted according to the way it is delivered. You need to be confident and engaging when speaking to your audience. Few people are born public speakers – the way they appear to be so proficient is the result of practice.

It is pupil’s capture that makes some people seem like great public speakers, and a great part of this is non-verbal – body language, eye contact, and vocal modulation. Try to make a habit of becoming aware of your performance when you speak to the people around you, e.g. during your regular contact. Make a mental ‘note-to-self’ to remember and attempt to incorporate the key points made above. When you practice your speeches and when delivering you’re often working on, try and apply the same habits to your PowerPoint presentation. Your slide show is supposed to draw attention and illustrate what you are trying to say, rather than decipher all the stuff for them. Ask for feedback on your practice presentations so that you can work on challenging areas.

5. Advanced Tips and Tools for Professional Presentations

In conclusion, there is already a lot you can do with basic PowerPoint, but you can do much more with add-ins and advanced PowerPoint techniques. The items discussed in this article are available at two price points, all of which provide significant professional value. If you typically make several presentations a week, these are features worth looking into at the very least. Over time, you’re likely to see a significant return on your investment.

Bonus:

One advanced visualization feature available in PowerPoint is the ability to add 3D animation to objects on individual slides. For example, spheres can be programmed to “fall” from the top to the bottom of the slide or to grow and expand from nothingness. Three-dimensional visualizations are useful with architectural and technical presentations but have little application elsewhere. While this feature is available to members of Office 365 who are willing to shell out a bit more money, it’s not something we recommend as a general feature for most professionals.

Beware, little effects like these can give your clients motion sickness when projected onto a large screen during a long presentation. Stand in the back and watch as you present a test slide to be sure. If it doesn’t hurt your eyes, then it’s unlikely to hurt theirs either.