What is the Best Format For a Powerpoint Presentation?
Avoid wasting Your audience’s Attention With Your Presentation
The primary question to consider when constructing your PowerPoint slides is whether you intend to inform or entertain your audience. Every objective requires a distinct structure
A slide that has too much text and looks like a detailed report is acceptable when you’re telling the truth. Think of executive summaries in consulting presentations. The objective is to provide the executive with a brief overview of the 67-slide presentation within 60 seconds
How does one use simple jargon, unprocessed graphs (such as tables) to convey information without resorting to descriptive language and detailed charts?
Our recent campaign on LinkedIn is causing a significant increase in sales to San Francisco by 188%, as evidenced by an overview of the product’s performance. ”
I guarantee you’ll lose the attention of the executives since they don’t have time to explore what the data means or what the slides should communicate
On the other hand, if you’re going to engage, it’s NOT okay to have heavy-text slides in bullet points. Simple visuals and high-level content are more suitable. Think of a public speaker
If the presentation contains a lot of text in bullet points (to seem organized), or a full paragraph (to flow gracefully), or processed data with descriptive titles (charts that tell, not discuss), chances are:
Put in simple ways: the mismatch between the presentation format and the purpose causes you to lose the audience’s attention, not necessarily the content of the presentation
When you inform executives or prepare a detailed follow-up after a thoughtful discussion, it’s okay to have a heavy-text slide, however, it’s not okay to write unnecessarily long sentences or scattered messy thoughts or share raw data. Detail, Conciseness, and the organization of content, from abstract general concepts to in-depth details, are at the heart of well-designed presentations intended to inform
On the other hand, when you engage your audience or spark a discussion, leave the general abstract concepts in the slides and reserve all the details for you to speak. Simplicity and overview are at the heart of well-designed presentations intended to engage and Discuss. The less content, the better
If it’s too late and you want to convert your heavy-text presentation to an engaging one, the way to do it is to bring hierarchy to Content. Here’s how to do it:
We used to go from general concepts to detail. Now, we’ll do the opposite. We’ll try not only to summarize content but to find out the “so what. ” The difference between the content summary and the “so what” is the first brings nothing new while the second brings more practical insight
The total sales = $X ⇒ This is a pure form of summary as it sums the amount of sales
The increase in total sales reflects the effectiveness of our recently launched campaign ⇒ This is a pure form of the “so what. ”
The “so what” is pushed one level deeper after the summary of content
The actual example from yesterday is presented here::
A table was Created by the author on the first slide Abdelrahman Elyamany In PowerPoint
Despite the presentation’s purpose, the original slide is too overwhelming for the audience
The total sales are the only ones that can be summed up
The Summary Slide| Developed by the author Abdelrahman Elyamany In PowerPoint
The slide doesn’t seem to draw much attention, but the analysis that follows is a valuable one
If we determine the answer, it’s likely that the sales growth is a result of the significant success of our recent campaign. The next step is to decide::
In case we plan to create a speech to inform, we’ll leave out the full details
When delivering the live presentation to the audience, we’ll leave out the entire sales boost from the slide and communicate it directly to them
The author’s “So What” Slide | Made Abdelrahman Elyamany In PowerPoint
The slide’s “so what” presentation appears uncomplicated and enthralling to the audience
The final presentation is prepared to captivate the audience in this manner. The most significant aspect is that you avoided the usual presentation with a lot of text and frequently included highlighted text through different methods such as italicizing, bolding, underlining, color highlighting, and font color modification
The temptation to abandon the content becomes more pronounced when it’s too late
What if you didn’t try to resist?. It is probable that you will cite the presentation repeatedly, make it difficult to comprehend and require additional work, or attempt to read the content of the speech out loud