Power Point Presentation - How to Make More Effective? Define Your Way of Success to Win the Evaluators!!

Abstract
MS PowerPoint is a program that is included in the Microsoft Office suite. It is used to make presentations for personal and professional purposes.

PowerPoint presentations work like slide shows. To convey a message or a story, you break it down into slides. Think of each slide as a blank canvas for the pictures and words that help you tell your subject.

Be sure to walk through the steps for creating a basic presentation, like:
  • Pick a theme.
  • Pick a layout for your slides.
  • Add text.
  • Add a picture.
  • Add transitions between slides.
  • Present your slide show.
  • Share your presentation online.
  • Print your slides.
Now adopt simple PowerPoint design that will help you create a good presentation with the following things in mind 
Increase contrast. 
Use coloring wisely. 
Select relevant, 
adequate visuals.
Use mock-ups instead of screenshots and diagrams. 
Present data visually as much as possible.
Simplify your tables as much as possible.

Keywords
PowerPoint Design, Screenshots, Diagrams, Relevant, Adequate, Contrast, Color, Font, Data, 

Learning Outcomes 
After undergoing this article you will be able to understand the following:
1. Know Your Subject 
2. Write It Out Precisely 
3. Highlight What’s Most Important as Index
4. Know Your Audience
5. Rehearse! (Yes, Already)
6. Rewrite After You Rehearse
7. Share With a Friend for genuine feedback 
8. Keep Your Slides Simple but informative 
9. Limit Words on Your Slides
10. Use High-Quality Photos and Graphics
11. Use Accurate and Relevant Charts and Graphs
12. Top Strategies for making Effective PowerPoint presentation 
13. Conclusions
14. FAQs 

Introduction 
PowerPoint (PPT) is a powerful, easy-to-use presentation graphics software program that allows you to create professional-looking electronic slide shows. 

Given below are a few important things that one must know about the development and introduction of Microsoft PowerPoint:

  • The program was created in a software company named Forethought, Inc. by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin. 
  • It was released on April 20, 1987, and after 3 months of its creation, it was acquired by Microsoft.
  • The first version of this program, when introduced by Microsoft was MS PowerPoint 2.0 (1990).
  • It is a presentation-based program that uses graphics, videos, etc. to make a presentation more interactive and interesting.
  • The file extension of a saved Powerpoint presentation is “.ppt”.
  • A PowerPoint presentation comprising slides and other features is also known as PPT.

1. What Makes a PowerPoint Presentation Effective?

Knowing how to use PowerPoint and work within it quickly is helpful. But more important is making a good presentation that hits all your presentation goals. A great PowerPoint presentation is:

  • Prepared to Win. Research, plan and prepare your presentation professionally. It helps you deliver an effective message to your target audience.
  • Designed Correctly. Your visual points should stand out without overwhelming your audience. A good PowerPoint presentation visual shouldn't complicate your message.
  • Practiced to Perfection. Rehearse your timing and delivery so that your points land as practiced with a live audience.
  • Delivered with Poise. Present with a relaxed inner-calm and confident outward projection. Give your audience warmth, excitement, and energy.
  • Free from Mistakes. Avoid typos, cheesy clip art, and miscues like reading directly from your slides.

2. Simple rules for better PowerPoint presentations

Have you ever given a PowerPoint presentation and noticed that something about it just seemed a little … off? If you’re unfamiliar with basic PowerPoint design principles, it can be difficult to create a slide show that presents your information in the best light.

Poorly designed presentations can leave an audience feeling confused, bored, and even irritated. Review these tips to make your next presentation more engaging.

3. Don't read your presentation straight from the slides

If your audience can both read and hear, it’s a waste of time for you to simply read your slides aloud. Your audience will zone out and stop listening to what you’re saying, which means they won’t hear any extra information you include.

Instead of typing out your entire presentation, include only main ideas, keywords, and talking points in your slide show text. Engage your audience by sharing the details out loud.

3. Follow the 5/5/5 rule

To keep your audience from feeling overwhelmed, you should keep the text on each slide short and to the point. Some experts suggest using the 5/5/5 rule: no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row.

4. Don't forget your audience

Who will be watching your presentation? The same goofy effects and funny clip art that would entertain a classroom full of middle-school students might make you look unprofessional in front of business colleagues and clients.

Humor can lighten up a presentation, but if you use it inappropriately your audience might think you don’t know what you’re doing. Know your audience, and tailor your presentation to their tastes and expectations.

5. Choose readable colors and fonts

Your text should be easy to read and pleasant to look at. Large, simple fonts and theme colors are always your best bet. The best fonts and colors can vary depending on your presentation setting. Presenting in a large room? Make your text larger than usual so people in the back can read it. Presenting with the lights on? Dark text on a light background is your best bet for visibility.

6. Don't overload your presentation with animations

As anyone who’s sat through a presentation while every letter of every paragraph zoomed across the screen can tell you, being inundated with complicated animations and exciting slide transitions can become irritating.

Before including effects like this in your presentation, ask yourself: Would this moment in the presentation be equally strong without an added effect? Does it unnecessarily delay information? If the answer to either question is yes—or even maybe—leave out the effect.

7. Use animations sparingly to enhance your presentation

Don’t take the last tip to mean you should avoid animations and other effects entirely. When used sparingly, subtle effects and animations can add to your presentation. For example, having bullet points appear as you address them rather than before can help keep your audience’s attention.

Keep these tips in mind the next time you create a presentation—your audience will thank you. For more detailed information on creating a PowerPoint presentation, visit our Office tutorials.

8. Three tips for beautiful PowerPoint presentations

In an earlier lesson, we gave you some tips for improving PowerPoint presentations. These simple rules covered the basics of making your PowerPoint slides readable and interesting. If you know how to do this, your presentations are probably already pretty strong.

That said, for a presentation to really stand out it also has to look great. Don't worry, you don't have to be a graphic designer to create something that looks sharp. These simple tips will make a big difference in any presentation—and all three are pretty easy to follow.

9. Highlight large images

Many PowerPoint slides include placeholders for inserting images. Most of these placeholders are pretty small in comparison to the entire slide. While using these placeholders lets you place text alongside your pictures, it can also detract from the power of your images and make all of your slides look the same.

If your presentation includes important images, try making them cover the entire slide. While you won't be able to include much text on these slides, displaying the right image can be an effective tool to reinforce an important point in your presentation.

One word of warning: This only works if your images are large enough. In order for the image to display at full quality, it has to have the same resolution—or number of pixels—as your display. Otherwise, the image may look stretched or blurry.

10. Use interesting fonts

You might already be familiar with PowerPoint's theme fonts. Each PowerPoint theme includes a pair of fonts—one for headings and titles, and another for bullet points and paragraph text. Including more than one font is key to making your slides look well-designed. However, many of the default font pairs are a little bland. Why not use some different fonts?

Websites like DaFont and Font Squirrel have thousands of beautiful fonts you can download for free, and the Internet is filled with resources to help you learn how to choose which fonts to use. You can even find plenty of suggestions for font pairings that work well (Google font pairings for more ideas). Once you've found some fonts you like, you can even customize PowerPoint theme fonts to include your favorites.

11. Create your own color scheme

PowerPoint themes also include premade sets of colors. Like the fonts pairings, many of these color sets are a little bland. Why not use some colors you really like? Colour Lovers is a great resource for modern color palettes that looks great.

You can also copy the colors in an ad or illustration that you like. Don't use more than four or five main colors, or your presentation will look busy and disorganized. Just like with theme fonts, you can also create custom theme colors. Here are some color combinations we've used for presentations at our office:

The best PowerPoint presentations shouldn’t be remembered. Instead, they should fall into the background to support you and the message you’re trying to get across. 

Unlike good PowerPoint presentations, bad PowerPoint presentation are a distraction. You may remember them, but not in a good way.

You've seen them before. They might have millions of lines of text. Or a disjointed flow to the slides. Even worse, some slides feature ugly photos and poor design that detracts from the message you’re trying to get across. That can even hurt your credibility as a professional or speaker.

12. Top Strategies for effective power point presentation

  • screen.
  • Bright colors make small objects and thin lines stand out. However, some vibrant colors are difficult to read when projected.
  • Use no more than four colors on one chart.
  • Check all colors on a projection screen before the actual presentation. Colors may project differently than what appears on the monitor.

General Presentation

  • Plan carefully.
  • Do your research.
  • Know your audience.
  • Time your presentation.
  • Speak comfortably and clearly.
  • Check the spelling and grammar.
  • Do not read the presentation. Practice the presentation so you can speak from bullet points. The text should be a cue for the presenter rather than a message for the viewer.
  • Give a brief overview at the start. Then present the information. Finally review important points.
  • It is often more effective to have bulleted points appear one at a time so the audience listens to the presenter rather than reading the screen.
  • Use a wireless mouse or pick up the wired mouse so you can move around as you speak.
  • If sound effects are used, wait until the sound has finished to speak.
  • If the content is complex, print the slides so the audience can take notes.
  • Do not turn your back on the audience. Try to position the monitor so you can speak from it.
13. Conclusions 

Dos

Here's a list of guidelines for creating your PowerPoint Presentation:

  • Use one theme for the entire background.
  • Use simple easy to read fonts.
  • Use bullet points.
  • Only include key information on each slide.
  • Be direct and use concise wording.
  • Have minimal text on a slide.
  • Provide definitions when necessary.
  • Use white space to make visual elements stand out more.
  • Use high contrasting text color and background color.

Don’ts

These are things you want to avoid doing when creating your PowerPoint presentation:

  • Using too many graphics on one slide.
  • Adding unimportant information on a slide
  • Writing your script on your slide.
  • Using distracting images or backgrounds.
  • Using hard to read color combinations.
14. FAQs

Question: What all elements can be added to a slide?

Answer: The following elements can be added to a Powerpoint slide:

  1. Clip Art
  2. Graphs
  3. Tables
  4. Photographs
  5. Charts
  6. Media Clips
  7. Videos

All these elements are mainly used to enhance presentation skills and make the slide more interactive.


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