Avoiding Death by PowerPoint
http://www.virtualsalt.com/powerpoint.htm
Here is a list of bad presentation practices that contribute
to Death by PowerPoint, together with some ideas about how to avoid them.
Too many words. (You
can not resist reading from your
slide)
There are many different guidelines about the maximum number
of words that should be on one slide. The rule of 4 by 5 says four bullet
points of five words each. The rule of 33 says a maximum of 33 words per slide.
There isn't really a single, hard and fast rule. The basic idea is that too
many words make the audience a bunch of bookworms (screen worms?) instead of
listeners. And, of course, the more words
you try to put on one slide, the smaller the type needs to be, making reading
the slide an increasingly challenging activity. I've seen purported
presentations with 100 or even 150 words on a slide. Good thing the type was
too small to read because no one wanted to read all that anyway. If you have
that many words to present, use a hand out and, usually, distribute the hand out
at the end of the speech..
Too much time on one slide.
The idea of a PowerPoint presentation is to supply a visual
aid while you talk. Bullet points or graphics help support and clarify your
discussion. But if you leave one slide up too long, your audience will lose
focus and their attention will wander. There just isn't that much on one slide
to find interesting for more than two or three minutes. If you're really
dynamic and interesting and possibly good looking, and if you tell stories
well, you might squeeze four or five minutes out of a slide. The only
exceptions to a five-minute warning might be a slide with an embedded video or
a slide that serves as a place holder while the audience does an exercise or
discusses the points on the slide with the presenter. Otherwise, keep it snappy
and move along. But see the next issue.
Too little time on one slide.
Remember, it's a presentation, not channel surfing. Flashing
through slides is dizzying and confusing. You might even have had something
someone found interesting on one of those passing slides, in which case your
audience will be both confused and irritated. Relax and take the time to
discuss (not just read!) each bullet. Explain that graph. Interpret the photo.
If a slide isn't worth at least a minute or two of consideration, why did you
include it? A quick transitional slide for, say, humorous impact (like a slide
made with Word Art saying, "But wait! There's more!") can be shown
for just ten seconds, but slides with content need a longer life.
Too many slides.
One reason some presenters spend so little time on each
slide is that they have too many slides to present is a limited amount of time.
But, as with all things, there are natural limits to the desired PowerPoint
experience. Just as you might love a two-hour action adventure film but not
like a six-hour one, so too a PowerPoint presentation of perhaps 20 slides (for
about an hour) is probably pressing the limits of endurance of a PowerPoint
audience. This means, of course, that a deck (as some people call it) of 60
slides is ridiculous. (I've seen a 62-slide presentation with more than 100
words per slide. What exactly was the presenter thinking?) Now, if you allow
breaks for meals and vacations between every few slides, and if your
presentation is stretched out over a long period, you might have a lot of
slides. But is that really going to maintain interest and freshness and
effectiveness? Just because you know how to copy and paste doesn't mean you
should make War and Peace into a PowerPoint presentation.
Slides that are all words.
Presentations that are all words are the most snoozy and
boring possible. People love visuals--whether for the purposes of evidence,
example, illustration, or just decoration. You can make an otherwise
hard-to-endure presentation into something quite passable by adding some
pictures--or diagrams or other visuals. Pictures aid memory, add interest, and
keep the audience looking at the slide. If all you have are words, why project
them? Why aren't you using a sheet of paper instead?
Bullet points that leave out the articles.
When you leave out the articles--the a, an, and the--the
result is a kind of non-English that sounds wooden and almost hostile. People
(native English speakers, at least) don't really talk without articles, so when
we see this language in bullet points, it comes across as klunky. Compare the
difference, noting the natural feel of the second example:
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Gimmicky transitions (wipes) and effects.
Here is a case where you shouldn't do something just because
you can. PowerPoint has all kinds of possible transitions between slides and
all kinds of possible effects within each slide. But in a professional business
setting, a bunch of pinwheels can appear almost childish. So test your effects
before you include them. I don't normally use any transitions between slides,
preferring instead to use the default "appear." I do use various
entrance effects to display bullet points individually (see below). If you like
transitions between slides, for professional presentations, stick to one style
or two related styles (such as slide in from left and slide in from right). If
some elements of your presentation call attention to themselves as elements,
your audience will be distracted from the content. An analogy is women's make
up. If you can see the make up, it's too much. Instead of saying, "My,
that woman is pretty," an observer says, "My, that woman is wearing a
lot of make up." Similarly, if you have a bunch of gimmicky, garish
effects that call attention to themselves, your audience, instead of saying,
"My, what an effective presentation," will say, "My, what a
bunch of gimmick effects."
Corny sound effects.
Showing a switch rotate and supplying a click at the right
time is a great use of sound effects. But setting off buzzers, bells, whistles,
crashing sounds, and the like just for random effect will certainly reduce your
street cred among the members of your audience.
Tips for Better Presentations
Use color.
It sometimes amazes me how many PowerPoint presentations are
still basically black and white. Color doesn't cost anything to put in a
presentation. Find a colorful template, add color photos, change font colors,
do something to appeal to the color sense.
Use contrast.
Breaking News. This Just In. Text on a PowerPoint slide is
intended to be read. So don't put dark gray text on a black background or light
yellow text on a white background. Be sure that your text and background have
substantial contrast with each other. White letters on dark blue, black letters
on white, something easy to read.
Display bullet points individually.
Someone famous (Samuel Johnson? Aristotle?) said that in
writing (and here I paraphrase because I'm too lazy to hunt for hours for the
exact quotation), "Something should be revealed and something should be
concealed." For any writing students out there, that means that in those
short essays for your high school or college classes, don't list in the
introduction every point you plan to develop. Okay, I'll get focused now. It's
really best not to flash on your audience's eyeballs all the bullet points on a
slide all at once. Use one of the many entrance effects to make them appear one
at a time when you are ready to discuss them. This technique helps maintain
your audience's focus and interest.
Add graphics. (Choose wisely; usually no more than ONE
perslide)
Graphics add visual appeal. And pictures are processed by
the brain more quickly and easily than text. A diagram can make a process or
idea clear almost immediately where words alone would simply not work.
Metaphors (such as a picture of a puzzle when you're discussing problem
solving) help cement concepts in memory. Graphics can help explain and
illustrate--and hold interest.
Animated gifs work very well. One very good source is Animation Factory at
www.animationfactory.com.
Good photographs can
bring power and clarity to the ideas in your presentation. A great source of
free stock photography is Stock.xchng at www.sxc.hu. And if you have a few
dollars, an inexpensive stock photography site is iStockphoto at
www.istockphoto.com.
[Information below is for your use in future
presentations. No sound or video files
are permitted for the assigned speeches.]
Audio--Music and Sound Effects
The default for PowerPoint 2003 is to link all audio files
larger than 100KB, though you can go to Tools, Options, General and raise this
minimum. Even so, in my experience, midi files are linked rather than embedded
regardless of the file size or the setting on the General tab. This means that
when you copy a PowerPoint presentation from one place to another (folder to
desktop, network drive to flash drive), you must copy the audio files also or
you won't have any sound other than those small .wma files that are embedded.
When you add a music (or video) file, PowerPoint adds the
path as a link. So, if you are working in D:/MyPowerpoints/Sample.ppt and your
audio file is in F:/Vacation/Sounds/birdcall.wma
Video
PowerPoint is happiest with avi and wmv video files. Because
avi files tend to be huge, wmv is the best choice. It runs nicely inside a
slide. Remember, though, that the video file is linked to the slide rather than
embedded in the PowerPoint itself, so that if you copy the presentation, you
must copy the wmv file(s) also, and keep presentation and video files in the
same folder.
A note on video in PowerPoint over WebEx.
To show a PowerPoint with embedded video over a WebEx presentation, you must convert the PowerPoint presentation into a Universal Communications File (.ucf extension) using a PowerPoint plug-in available from WebEx. You also must allow time for the video to load (once you get to that slide) at all the connected sites.