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Tips for Designing Narrated PowerPoints

Marquis (2011) offers some useful guidelines: Creating an Engaging Presentation for the Online Classroom Aaron Weyenberg of TEDBlog (2014) offers some key tips, including:

1. The presentation needs to stand on its own, and strong visuals should support the words.

2. The slides should have a consistent look and feel. 3. Use transitions to support movement from topic to topic. 4. Avoid slides with a lot of text. 5. Use photos that are simple, yet strong, to illustrate the concept. 6. Go easy on the special effects.

Guy Kawasaki's 10-20-30 rule suggests: "A PowerPoint presentation should have 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and contain no font smaller than 30 points." Yet, many hit presentations don't even come close to making that rule. So forget the hard and fast rules. It's about your presence, your topic and your audience.

Garr Reynolds (2014) further suggests:

1. Keep it simple (live or online) a. Use a horizontal or "landscape" orientation b. Slides should support the message, not be the message or star of the show – you are! c. Don’t let slides get unnecessarily complicated, busy, or full d. Nothing in your slide should be superfluous, ever e. Your slides should have plenty of "white space" or "negative space."

2. Limit bullet points and text a. Do not overuse bullets and text and crowd the screen b. Keep text brief

3. Use transitions and animations judiciously a. Some animation is a good thing, but stick to the most subtle and professional b. For transitions between slides, use no more than two or three different types of

transition effects and do not place transition effects between all slides 4. Use high-quality graphics 5. Use clear, crisp images 6. Be cautious of copyright issues 7. Never stretch low-resolution images 8. Avoid cartoonish clip art - use professional images 9. Select a visual theme

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10. If using PowerPoint design templates, keep to business or professional colors and themes

11. Use appropriate charts:

Pie charts are used to show percentages. Best to use no more than 4-6 slices. Use color or pull out the slice to contrast the most important slices.

Vertical bar charts are used to show changes in quantity over time. Limiting the number of bars to 4-8 is best.

Horizontal bar charts can be used to compare quantities such as the sale of cogs, chains, and sprockets in each of a company’s four regions.

Line charts are used to display a trend. For example, the trend in this chart is an overall increase in sales from January to July.

12. Use color well

Sales

1st Qtr

2nd Qtr

3rd Qtr

4th Qtr

$0.0 $1.0 $2.0 $3.0 $4.0 $5.0 $6.0

1st Quarter

2nd Quarter

3rd Quarter

4th Quarter

Sales in Millions

0 5 10

Region 1

Region 2

Region 3

Region 4 Cogs

Chains

Sprockets

$0 $0 $0 $1 $1

Ja nu

ar y

Fe br

ua ry

M ar

ch

A pr

il

Ju ne Ju ly

M ill

io ns

Overall Sales

Overall Sales

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a. Colors can be divided into two general categories: cool (such as blue and green) and warm (such as orange and red)

b. Cool colors are often used in business presentations c. You can change the color scheme in a PowerPoint design template

13. Choose fonts well a. Use the same font set throughout your slide presentation b. Use no more than two complementary fonts (e.g., Arial and Arial Bold) c. Use sans-serif fonts (Arial, Calibri, Verdana)

d. Choose a size appropriate for the readers 14. Use audio and video appropriately

a. Use video clips to show concrete examples b. Avoid unusual sound effects c. Speak clearly in recordings

15. Use the Slide Sorter feature in PowerPoint to review the visual flow of your presentation

Microsoft PowerPoint. Used with permission from Microsoft.

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m62.net (2011) offers the following tips for recording:

1. Use a quality headset with a microphone – this keeps the microphone in a consistent position relative to your mouth and also minimizes echo and background noise to keep your voice levels steady.

2. Unplug your laptop charger before recording to avoid background humming sound while the microphone is on.

3. Perform several test runs to check sound quality 4. Prepare a script, but try not to sound like you’re reading from it as you record.

Strive to sound natural and be engaging. 5. Practice your timings and animation clicks before you start recording to avoid

uncomfortable pauses.

References Kawasaki, G. (2005). The 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint. Retrieved from http://guykawasaki.com/the_102030_rule/ m62.net (September 20, 2011). Narrated presentations: Best practices. Article62 e-zine. Retrieved from http://www.m62.net/presentation-skills/e-presentation-skills/narrated- presentations-best-practices/ Marquis J. (2011, September 22). Creating an engaging presentation for the online classroom. Retrieved from http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2011/09/creating-an- engaging-presentation-for-the-online-classroom/ Reynolds, G. (2014). Top ten slide tips. Retrieved from http://www.garrreynolds.com/preso-tips/design/ Weyenberg, A. (2015). 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea, from TED’s in-house expert. TEDBlog. Retrieved from http://blog.ted.com/10-tips-for-better- slide-decks/