presentation slide

presentation slide

The Art of Effective Presentation Slides

1. Introduction

This e-book contains 12 chapters. In each chapter, the author explains the things you should consider when making good presentation slides. Let me try to summarize all the chapters in this book for you. In the early beginning, in “Chapter 2: Developing an Effective Presentation,” he explains how to make the presentation itself. So it is not about the slide, but about how to structure the idea and put the right content in your presentation. He states that a good presentation starts by thinking about what your audience wants. Then you can start by making an objective for your presentation and later create a presenter’s outline. Only after that can you create your presentation content.

Effective presentation is the main factor to succeed in your business or work. It is important to have this skill to catch people’s attention to your product or idea and make them willing to take action. There are a few areas that you need to consider in doing your presentation for better results. One of them is designing a good slide. A slide is important because it describes your idea with visual elements such as images, graphics, charts, and videos. It is the medium we use to provide more detail about what we are talking about, replacing the role of a board or flip chart that was usually used in presentations in the past. That is why we need to pay attention to it and try to create the best slide possible. However, many people still don’t know how to make good presentation slides. This e-book is trying to help you design or redesign your presentation slides to make them more interesting and clear for the audience.

2. Designing Engaging Slides

A common misconception about creating slides is that they all need to follow the same template. Your audience will likely switch off if you have 20 slides that all look exactly the same. Make frequent changes to keep your audience engaged, whether it is moving from different areas of the same diagram, using a variety of graphs or pie charts, or simply using an image for comical effect. On that note, providing you are comfortable with design software, trying to create your own graphs rather than resorting to what the spreadsheet software provides can do wonders for individuality. Take these two slides below. Which is more engaging?

Not all slides should look the same

– Keep slides short and sweet: Slides with too much information are overwhelming and not memorable. – Bullet points: These are often the best way of getting information across, provided this information isn’t too complex. But, it is important to.

As mentioned earlier, your slides should not be a summary of your talk. They are there to amplify your message. They are a visual aid to your audience and visual aids are as much about impact as anything else. There are many ways you can make your slides engaging and hopefully they should all be a good investment of your time if it makes your message more memorable. If a slide doesn’t add to your message, it should go. Here are some tips:

Ways to make your slide design engaging

3. Crafting a Clear Message

The essence of good design is to create something that makes an immediate impact on the audience. As such, it is imperative that you have a clear message that you can articulate in one sentence. This may appear overly simplistic for a research with multiple concepts, but it provides a solid framework in which to build. If you can explain what you hope to get across in the few minutes that you have someone’s attention, then it is likely that you can create a slide to visually depict this. Each slide should have a clear reason for why it exists for key points. The slide title represents a statement of this reason and should clearly communicate the overall message of the slide. An assertion-evidence structure thereafter provides a clear way for you to effectively communicate your message. The title serves as the assertion whereby your evidence should be a visual representation of what you are trying to get across. This could be a graph, photo, or diagram, but the golden rule is that it must help get your point across. If it does not, then it is likely not necessary on the slide.

4. Delivering an Impactful Presentation

Want them to be seeing what you’re saying [Billboard]? Never trust a PowerPoint slide. PowerPoint has invaded the business world. It follows that what we have to say becomes of secondary importance and the slide of primary. The purpose of the presentation is lost. But delivering an impactful PowerPoint is not difficult. Step 1 shows you how to “Plan an effective presentation”. This applies equally to an impactful presentation and will be revisited in this column. From brainstorming to organizing your thoughts in an introduction, body and conclusion; this is the base upon which the presentation is built. In gaining the audience’s interest, you must find a topic which appeals to the audience and makes them want to learn about it. A positive attitude and good experience with the topic will become evident and is vital to maintaining interest throughout. Smile and the world smiles with you. Step 2b has some useful advice on maintaining that smile. Visual aids are another way to capture interest. A picture says a thousand words and an effective visual aid is the equivalent of a great anecdote. The eyes of the audience will also be upon you and it is your demeanor which will guide their level of interest in the presentation. Clarity of speech, good posture and eye contact are all equally important in portraying confidence and interest in what you are presenting. Confidence is the mark of knowledge and is contagious. If you believe in your presentation, the audience will too. This is the most important facilitator in maintaining audience interest. An audience with no interest is an audience half asleep. The content of the presentation must be comprised of key points. This is great for you as a presenter as it leaves much room for elaboration. A knowledgeable presenter is a good presenter and Step 3 provides good advice on the research required to know your audience and what they will learn about your topic. Always try to relate what you are presenting to gain the interest of the audience and make them understand why it is important to them. Your presentation will answer its own silent question, “So what?” A strong conclusion will pay dividends for the interest and retention level of the audience. A lecture which raises more questions than it has answered is incomplete. Keep a clear objective in mind and your conclusion will naturally tie up all the loose ends. With all this in mind, it is imperative to rehearse what you have to say. There is a world of difference between knowing what you want to say and knowing how to say it. A smooth presentation requires practice and time management to avoid going over time. The rest is up to the individual, but maintaining a video diary for the oration of your presentation is a great way to identify areas for improvement. A final word for the conscientious; it never hurts to ask a friend or family member for their input in critiquing your presentation.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, an effective presentation must be carefully planned while keeping the message and audience in mind. With regard to presentation software, simple is better. Although the data that was to be presented was complex, it was agreed that conveying the message was most important in this particular assignment. The tutors would start implementing changes in the design of their slides in order to more effectively reach the audience and add to the vitality of their presentation. Following this small-scale study, it is safe to say that there is a massive potential for students in the health field to improve the effectiveness of their presentations through the use of proper resources and carefully executed planning. Here lies a great opportunity for students to engage the audience and successfully get across information to improve long-term retention of knowledge. We would now like to share the experiences of each group in using the presentation software and how their strategy affected the way the message was delivered.

The strategic use of presentation software paid off for each of the student groups in the Communication: Public Speaking course at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte whom we have studied. The purpose of the study was to determine if effective use of presentation software would have a positive effect on the student’s overall effectiveness in their oral presentation. All groups used Microsoft PowerPoint as their medium between the audience and presenter. They were well aware that their work would be compared and contrasted with the guidelines for effective use of presentation technology outlined by the National Communication Association in the revised edition of their Core Competencies publication. The study was based on the notion that with careful planning, presentation software can add to the vitality of a presentation and aid in delivering a message with long-lasting effects. Although it is agreed that the overall effectiveness of a presentation is dependent on the speaker, it was assumed that the speaker could prove effective through means of a suitable aid to reinforce what is being said. All groups fulfilling the role as the speaker, prepared visual aids for a ten-minute presentation to explain the effects of a specific chronic disease on both the psychological and physical quality of life. They had different aims, strategies, and results with their use of the software which we would now like to share.