HOW TO AVOID A POOR PRESENTATION

HOW TO AVOID A POOR PRESENTATION

1) Check your equipment:

You are all set to start your presentation, that audience is waiting and – you aren’t ready. You didn’t bother to check how much battery power is left, or how to connect the projector, or whether you the right cables were available.

What to do:

Check all the equipment before it’s time for your presentation.  Know how to turn on the projector and focus screen projections.  Make sure you can turn on the equipment yourself.

2) Know your stuff:

If all you know about your topic is what is written on the slides, you will be in trouble if your slides don’t work.  You haven’t prepared for questions and so you panic when someone asks you a question.

What to do:
Know your material so well, that you could easily do the presentation without any equipment. Use key words and phrases and include only essential information to keep the audience focused and interested. Be prepared for questions and know the answers.

3) Avoid information overload:

You might know a LOT about your topic, but your audience can still feel confused.

What to do:
Use the K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple Silly) when designing a presentation. Stick to three, or at the most, four points about your topic and then elaborate with details. Organize your thoughts, and stay focused on what is relevant.

4) Your presentation is not a textbook:

Your audience is there to hear you speak, not listen to you read off your powerpoint. The audience also is not interested in looking at slides filled with text.

What to do:
Simplify the content, keeping the most important information near the top of the slide for easy reading. Focus on one topic area and use no more than four bullets per slide. Speak to the audience

5) Diagrams:

Lots of photos and graphs won’t hide the fact that you have litle information to share with the audience.

What to do:
Use photos, charts and diagrams only to support key points or provide break to the material.

6) I Can’t See!:

Small fonts can’t be read easily from the back of the room.  You’ll lose audience interest if they can’t see what you have on your slide.

What to do:

Stick to easy to read fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman. Avoid script type fonts which are hard to read on screen. Use no more than two different fonts — one for headings another for content and no less than a 16 pt font so that people at the back of the room can read them easily.

7) Design:

You need your design to support your content.  Don’t include designs and photos just because they look great.

What to do:

Choose a design template that is appropriate for your content. A simple, organized layout is best and easy for your audience to read.

8) Boring — HOW Much More?:

Your image search had great results and you put them all in your slideshow.  A few good slides is better than 100 irrelevant ones.

What to do:

Keep the number of slides to a minimum. 10 to 12 is plenty.  Be kind. Think how much you enjoy everyone else’s pictures!

9) Animation Overload!

You found all the really cool animations and sounds and used them in your presentation because they sound so cool.  Except now the audience doesn’t know where to look, and have totally lost the original message of your presentation.

What to do:

Animations and sounds, used well, can help keep your audience interested, but don’t distract the audience with too many.  Remember, “less is more” and stop.

10) Save all the colors for your wardrobe

You love unusual color combinations together. Your PowerPoint presentation is not the place to use them.

What to do:

Use good contrast with the background to make your text easy to read.

• Dark text on a light background is best, but avoid white backgrounds — tone it down by using beige or another light color that will be easy on the eyes. Dark backgrounds are very effective, but be sure to make text a light color for easy reading.
• Patterned or textured backgrounds make text hard to read.
• Keep the color scheme consistent.