PowerPoint is a powerful tool for presentations which every presenter should master. An effective presentation is one where your audience can easily grasp the ideas you are trying to get across.
HR Talk with with Paul Nyausaru
Anything that makes it more difficult for your audience to understand what you are trying to say does not belong in your presentation.
This week, I will focus mainly on tips to make a more effective PowerPoint presentation.
The first tip has to do with the need to organise your ideas. There is need to prepare your presentation just like you would anything else you write.
Plan it first on paper by listing the main ideas, and then fill in the points you want to make under each idea. After that add an introduction, describing what the presentation will be about and add a final summary, listing the key points that were covered.
It is important to pay particular attention to the background of your slides, which can be either a solid colour or a design, so as to offer a good contrast to the text colour you choose. In so doing, your aim will be to make your text easy to read.
If you choose a design template, it is important to make it simple and unobtrusive, and it has to be used on all your slides; don’t keep changing it.
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The text size and type which you choose must be easy to read. Arial or Tahoma have been seen to be the best fonts to use when designing PowerPoint slides.
If your presentation will be made on a big screen, it is important to use text size that makes it easy to read.
So caution should be exercised in making sure you don’t try to fit too much on one slide by decreasing the font size. It is, however, encouraged that you use more slides instead.
If you are making an oral presentation along with the PowerPoint show, the ideas you present on-screen should be in point form. As a professional presenter, you must avoid reading your presentation from the screen.
Your talk should be directed at the audience as you will be using points bulleted on the screen to reinforce what you are saying. Even if your presentation is meant to stand alone, use point form; it will help you present your ideas more succinctly.
PowerPoint presentation is a powerful tool for every professional presenter which you can use to your advantage to reach the minds and hearts of your audience.
There is great need for you as a presenter to have the ability to design your own PowerPoint presentation and have the technical knowhow in terms of operating the PowerPoint projector.
This will ensure that you are empowered with all the necessary details you need when delivering your presentation.
Paul Nyausaru is a training & development practitioner. Views contained in this article are personal. You can contact him on email [email protected] or [email protected]
