Can you do it

PowerPoint Tips

SUNY DELHI

Cayla Heffern

PowerPoint Tips

PowerPoints are about visuals. People are willing to pay as much as 400% more when a presentation is designed in an interesting way (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). When those visuals are paired with oral messages, it improves listener’s memory, speed comprehension and add interest, and add to speaker credibility (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). Creating a PowerPoint that is eye-catching and appeals to the audience, there will be better feedback and participation. There are many tips and tools to use in PowerPoint to design a mesmerizing presentation.

Pictures

Visual aids can improve what the audience remembers (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). When a presentation is complete, most listeners will remember only about 10 to 25% of the presentation (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). There are two principles in Richard Mayer’s book, Multimedia Learning, that help increase the percentage of what listeners will remember of a presentation (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). The multimedia principle states that people learn significantly better when pictures are added to text and the contiguity principle states that people learn better when the pictures are placed next to the words they illustrate (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018).

When adding pictures to text, use high-quality graphics including photographs (Reynolds, 2016). Never stretch a small, low-resolution photo to fit the layout. That will degrade the resolution, making listeners uninterested in paying attention to that particular slide (Reynolds, 2016). In addition, be particular in what photos are placed with text in slides. Clipart has become an add-on that is expected from PowerPoint presentations. It shows a lack of creativity and laziness (Sommerville, 2017). Use photos that will connect the audience to the information. For example, using images that have people in them so the audience can relate more (Reynolds, 2016). Lastly, stay away from presenting the image as the primary source of information. Treat is as a background (Reynolds, 2016). Listeners could get distracted by photo details. “Push” the image to the back or remove the background of the picture by selected the picture that is wanted to revise and choose Format > Remove Background (Reynolds, 2016) (Microsoft).

Text

Limit the amount of text on each slide. Cramming every piece of information on a slide results in the audience losing focus and confused on what is being talked about (Dartmouth Library). Avoid having paragraphs, quotations and complete sentences (Sommerville, 2017). The slides are the illustrations for the presentation, not the presentation itself (Wax). As the presenter, putting as little words on the slides allows the audience to pay attention to their words. Heavy text slides can be considered sleep inducing (Reynolds, 2016). Get the audience to focus on the information that has to be said rather than what has to be read.

There was a survey of 453 people who view one to two PowerPoint presentations each day. One of the major annoyances that they expressed was text being too small; 47.7% to be exact (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). Having text that is too small obstructs the audience’s understandings to the topic (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). It is okay to have text that may seem “too big.” The best slides may have no text at all (Reynolds, 2016), meaning there will be one or two words in a big size with a picture attached. A trick is only include the slide with a percentage and picture. Audience will be wondering what the percentage stands for and want to listen to what the presenter has to say (Reynolds, 2016).

Conclusion

Visual are beneficial to PowerPoint presentations. People are willing to pay as much as 400% more attention when there are visuals (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). Although PowerPoints can be quick to produce, easy to update and effective to inject visual interest there can be some downfalls (Sommerville, 2017). Avoid those downfalls by using the tips and tricks for pictures and text. Having the correct use of pictures and amount of text in the slides can improve listener memory, speed comprehension and add interest, and add to speaker credibility (Hamilton & Kroll, 2018). Overall there a lot of ways to make a PowerPoint interesting to the audience. Using the multimedia principle and contiguity principle can help. These solutions will help the presenter and make the presentation more intriguing to all involved.

References:

Hamilton, C., & Kroll, T. L. (2018). Communicating for results: a guide for business and the

professions. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

PowerPoint: Guides, Tips and Help. (n.d.). Retrieved February 20, 2018, from