2. Things to consider
When creating a PowerPoint presentation there are several different things that you need
to take into consideration.
One of these is your audience. This can be from the background of your audience, to the
age or grade of them, or even the ethnicity and religious background that they have.
Another thing that you must consider is the equipment that you are going to be using to
display, create, and transport your presentation. Taking this into consideration can help
to ensure that you use the proper tools at your disposal and don’t try to do anything too
ambitious.
Another very important thing to consider is the cost. How much it will cost to create your
presentation in both time and money.
The final thing to consider when creating a presentation is your personal skill level. If you
are someone who is very well versed in PowerPoint or if you are a rookie.
3. Organization
It is crucial to organize your presentation in a logical order depending on
what you’re presenting.
Making an outline of your presentation can be a very helpful tool to
ensure that your presentation is presented in an organized manor.
Be sure to refine each section of the presentation to a consistent pattern to
ensure a consistent flow throughout the presentation that won’t distract
the audience.
4. Organization: Story Board
Part of creating an organized presentation is creating a storyboard to assist
in the layout and design of it.
A storyboard allows you to lay out all your thoughts and ideas for the
presentation and change and rearrange things without having to make
massive changes to it. Spending a large portion of time on this part of the
presentation can make a big difference in the overall quality of it.
5. Design
Every pixel in your presentation speaks 1000 words. It is very important to
have a clean and concise design that doesn’t distract the audience or pull
attention away from the information that is being displayed.
The design of the presentation can affect the way that the audience
perceives the information and it is important to have a clean and
uncluttered design and to ensure that the information isn’t cluttered on a
page.
Information should be ordered by importance, from top to bottom, left to
right. This makes sure that the audience reads the most important
information first.
6. Design: Principles
One of the most important design principles is to be consistent in your presentation, and
one of the major things to be consistent with is the alignment. Using multiple alignments
in your presentation can be distracting and causes the audience to have to constantly
adjust to the new alignment.
This is important for the horizontal and vertical alignment. Having things be too far
above or below the other information in the presentation is distracting and you will lose
the audience’s attention.
Another important design principle is the proximity of information in your presentation.
Things that are too close is cluttered and confusing, and things that are too far away is
weak and also confusing. A good proximity can tie everything together and provide a
consistent feel.
Correct use of white space in a slide is also important so the audience doesn’t feel
crowded by the massive amounts of information in one slide.
7. Design: Principles
Contrast is a tool used in a good presentation to provide emphasis for
something important or to create a focal point. It can guide the eyes of the
audience when used correction
Contrast can be created through the use of colors, shapes, proximity, size,
location or any combination of those.
8. Rules of Thumb
It is often a good idea to keep the information on slides straight forward and if
necessary to remove extra material.
Serif fonts should be used for printed works and sans-serif fonts should be
used for computer monitors and projections or presentations.
At most use 2 or 3 fonts in any presentation and let the size and style of the
text add contrast instead.
Avoid the use of all caps and all bold because it can make the text more
difficult to read and will distract the audience.
Use a good contrast in the colors of the background or text to help create
contrast and allow for the information to pop off the screen and be easier to
read. Also limiting the amount of colors in a presentation to 3 at most is best
to allow for cohesion in the presentation.
9. Rules of Thumb
Having too many objects on a page at a time can be confusing and clutter
the page making it very distracting. Balancing the use of objects to help
add to a page can make a presentation stronger and make the
presentation more visually appealing.
10. Form and Content
The balance between form and content is very important when creating a
good presentation.
Form should enable the content and not take away from it or distract the
audience. It can assist in engaging the audience and a good balance of
form and content can focus the content.
