TJ Walker posted this week an interesting analysis on powerpoint slides. In fact, as a teacher in the University, i hear a lot of presentations from students. Along with this, i also watch seminars and congresses in many different topics. One element that is involved in all presentations, is the powerpoint show. But, in many cases, i am very impressive to watch a horrible show. The speaker has the powerpoint slides as a great guide to deliver the speech but it will come out a BIG guide. Somebody on the blogosphere calls it the “Powerpoint Karaoke“.
DON’T EVER READ EVERY WORD FROM THE SLIDES
The less text you put, the higher attention you will grab from the audience. Images, photos or quotes can drive the audience to the purpose of the speech. Bullet points are important to identify key elements in your speech. But never too much, please (see here a nice video about the topic). The audience likes to see good slides that can complement your message. The videos are interesting to put in a presentation but be aware of the length, quality and purpose of it.
If you don’t follow some basic rules, somebody from the audience will be as victim of the “death by powerpoint” – then you will understand what “killed” them.
Guy Kawasaki presents the 10/20/30 rule on powerpoint. A PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. Follow this idea, it will improve the quality of your delivery.
Lisa also reinforces the bad perception of the audience when they hear the speaker spelling every word of the slide. he stated that a It’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.
Despite the great qualities of powerpoint or other presentation software, don’t overuse in animation or other distractions. This will make your presentation looking bad.
Other links of interest:
International Association for Science and Tecnhology. – nice tips for presentations
Edward Tufte on Wired - Powerpoint is evil!
Garr Reynolds on presentation zen - what is a good powerpoint?
Life Hacker - Take your powerpoint beyond bullet points
John Sweller – Research points the finger at PowerPoint. see abstract for his research
Atkinson’s book - Beyond Bullet Points
See also other presentation softwares (source: wikipedia).
- Adobe Persuasion
- AppleWorks
- Astound by Gold Disk Inc.
- Authorstream
- Beamer (LaTeX)
- Google Docs which now includes presentations
- Harvard Graphics
- HyperCard
- IBM Lotus Freelance Graphics
- Apple Keynote
- KPresenter
- Macromedia Action!
- MagicPoint
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- OpenOffice.org Impress
- PicturesToExe
- Scala Multimedia
- Screencast
- SongPro
- Umibozu (wiki)
- VCN ExecuVision
- Worship presentation program
- Zoho
4 Comments
March 5, 2008 at 9:45 pm
[...] Take your Powerpoint presentation to a next level [...]
March 8, 2008 at 8:15 am
[...] Take your Powerpoint presentation to a next level [...]
June 27, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Caro Xará, (Em Portugal, quem tem o mesmo nome é xará do outro? No Brasil, é…)
A apresentação que você menciona é muito boa e pude perceber pesquisando pela Web e junto a institutos de ensino no Brasil que o uso da ferramenta PowerPoint (e similares) ainda é incipiente.
Tenho desenvolvido trabalhos para o mercado corporativo e de ensino com resultados fantásticos.
Muitos trabalhos realizados não podem ser postados no SlideShare ou no meu blog por confidencialidade.
Se eu puder ser de alguma ajuda, conte comigo.
Abraços brasileiros,
Pedro
September 18, 2008 at 8:49 pm
T J Walker you are so damn right!
Students of Ancorensis take a look on this post!