When structured properly, a slide deck can significantly enhance your presentation, enabling you to make what you are saying more impactful, more understandable, and more memorable. This guidebook is a compilation of proven presentation design tips, techniques, and best practices that can help you create winning slide sets.
Structuring Your Slides for Maximum Visual Impact
The way you display information on your slides can make or break your presentation design. It’s a delicate balance – if your slides are dull and boring, you may lose your audience along the way. On the other hand, if they’re too busy – crammed with images or too much text – attendees may be too distracted to absorb what you’re saying. The key to success lies somewhere in between.
Developing a Strong Opening
You have just a small window of opportunity to grab the attention of your audience. So, those first few moments are crucial to laying the foundation for a successful session, setting the tone for how they perceive your content, and more importantly, how they perceive you.
Topics covered in this section of the presentation design guidebook include:
- Being Creative
- Getting to the Point
- Kicking It Up a Notch
- Picking a Style – And Sticking to It
Using Color to Evoke Emotion
Colors can a very powerful tool in your presentation design, instantly catching the eye of those you are presenting to. Color can enhance learning and retention, promotes interaction and participation, and influence moods. But, if you overuse colors, or use them incorrectly, they may serve to distract more than enhance.
Effective Use of Animation in Presentation Design
The ability to animate text and images is a standard feature in many of today’s presentation maker tools – one that most speakers love to use. When used properly, animation can add significant visual appeal to your slides. But, if you overdo it, the results can be disastrous.
Best practices covered in this chapter are:
- Keeping it Simple
- Avoiding “Animation for the Sake of Animation”
- Using Automatic Slide Transitions Wisely
- Brief is Better
The Best Ways to Incorporate Multimedia
Video, audio and other multimedia elements are a great way to improve the design of your presentation, giving it the kind of visual punch that takes it to a whole new level. However, when used inappropriately, multimedia can have the opposite effect, serving as more of a distraction than an enhancement.
Great presentation design approaches covered in this section include:
- Making Sure It’s Relevant
- Keeping It Professional
- Variety is Key
- Thinking Beyond “Live” Presentations
Creating Charts and Diagrams
Charts and diagrams continue to play a prominent role in the design of informative presentations. But, there is a right way – and a wrong way – to structure and use them. Proper chart and diagram construction is critical to conveying your concepts in the most understandable way possible.
Handling Numbers and Other Complex Concepts
There will be times when your presentation design must incorporate content that is complex in nature. If these thoughts and ideas are not presented properly, however, they may be lost on your audience members, creating confusion and bewilderment, and minimizing learning and retention.
Closing with a Bang
The “close” may be the most critical portion of your entire presentation. Handle your presentation skills just right, and you’ll leave a lasting impression on your audience. But botch it, and your entire presentation will fall flat.
This chapter will teach you how to:
- Keep It Brief
- Tell a Story
- Remember the Call to Action
- Stay on Schedule
- Lead Up to the Ending Gradually
How Mind Mapping Can Improve Your Presentation
At the heart of each mind map is a central theme, with supporting topics and sub- topics logically surrounding it. When designing and building your presentation, a mind map can often help you build slides that are more thorough, complete, and compelling.
Mind Map tips found in this section include:
- Improving Brainstorming
- Better Organizing Content
- Beating “Writer’s Block”
- Avoiding Gaps
- Keeping the Objective in Mind
The Right Way to Use Handouts
Handouts are a great way to enhance your presentation, serving as a valuable reference tool for your audience members. Yet, most speakers simply print out and distribute copies of their slide set, rendering their handouts somewhat useless.
Helpful hints for using handouts found in this chapter of the guidebook are:
- Content is Key
- Focusing on Readability
- Leaving Room for Notes
- Double-Checking Your Work
- When to Distribute
Were You Successful?
You may think you created the perfect slide deck. Your presentation design delivered colors that were bold and attention grabbing. You strategically placed visuals throughout the presentation. Your fonts were attractive and easy to read. You even found some witty video and audio clips to use. But what impact did you have?
This section provides guidance on:
- Tracking Views and/or Downloads
- Counting the “Drop Offs”
- Monitoring the Call to Action
- Measuring the Business Impact
Few presenters have a solid background in presentation design principles, and even fewer have access to professional graphic design resources to help. Therefore, they are often left to fend for themselves when it comes to creating their slide decks.
With the proven tips and techniques outlined in this guidebook, any speaker – no matter how seasoned – can build a winning slide deck that packs maximum punch!