THE FOUR MOST IMPORTANT POWERPOINT RULES FOR SUCCESSFUL PRESENTATIONS

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES HELP PEOPLE LEARN Learning is improved when narration occurs simultaneously with relevant images... BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES HELP PEOPLE LEARN Click

THE FOUR MOST

THE FOUR MOST

AN ATTRACTIVE

JUST A BYPRODUCT

OF AN EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION

RELAX

AN ATTRACTIVE

JUST A BYPRODUCT

OF AN EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION

RELAX

and 4 things really matter for making an effective presentation

WORD HEAVY SLIDES can be difficult to

listen and read at the same time for a very short

period

If they end up having to choose between listening to you talk or reading your slides, you become

IS YOUR PRESENTATION WORKING WITH YOU

IMAGES ARE NICE TO LOOK AT,

ENGAGING, ENRICHING , AND

IMAGES ARE NICE TO LOOK AT,

ENGAGING, ENRICHING , AND

People can look at images and listen to you speak at the same time , no problem

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN

Learning is improved when narration occurs

simultaneously with relevant images

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN

Click these sites for

amazing images

you can use legally with Attribution

COMPFIGHT FREEIMAGES MORGUEFILE PHOTFUNIA MULTICOLR

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN COMPFIGHT FREEIMAGES MORGUEFILE PHOTFUNIA MULTICOLR

Compfight searches Flickr

better than Flickr searches

itself, for millions of

images

TIP: Make sure you choose the

‘Creative Commons’ option after

your first search, & ignore the

sponsored links above the dotted

line

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN COMPFIGHT FREEIMAGES MORGUEFILE PHOTFUNIA MULTICOLR

Freeimages is great for stock photography – there are

loads of great images for enhancing slides

TIP: Sign up for the free account to get full-sized versions of the images you find

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN COMPFIGHT FREEIMAGES MORGUEFILE PHOTFUNIA MULTICOLR

Morguefile also has stock photography – there are fewer images but they’re free for commercial use

TIP: There are images where no attribution is required – these are useful for situations where there’s

no room to credit the author, e.g

posters, business cards, and tweets

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN COMPFIGHT FREEIMAGES MORGUEFILE PHOTFUNIA MULTICOLR

Photofunia allows you to put your own images INTO

existing pictures

TIP: To create your own text to add

to a billboard or painting in Photofunia, create a textbox in PowerPoint, write your text, right- click and Save As Picture You’ll then have an image of your text to upload into Photofunia

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY , IMAGES

HELP PEOPLE LEARN COMPFIGHT FREEIMAGES MORGUEFILE PHOTFUNIA MULTICOLR

The Multicolr Search Engine

is just about the most fun you can have finding

images: it searches by colours not keywords

TIP: Create an image-only presentation that stays completely on brand by picking your organisation’s corparate colours in Multicolr…

MAKE THE MOST

OF YOUR IMAGES

AND WRITE ON THEM IN A

OF 24…

AND WRITE ON THEM IN A

( THIS IS 24 If you need it smaller than this, you’re using too much text)

OF 24…

RULE 2

MAKE

PER SLIDE

THIS GOES BACK TO THE

Focus on one thing at a time Allow your

them onto the next theme

DRAW ATTENTION TO

IMPORTANT MESSAGES

OF COURSE, FEEL

ONE POINT PER

SLIDE RULE WITH

GOOD REASON

BUT OTHERWISE GIVE EACH POINT IN YOUR PRESENTATION

ROOM TO BREATHE

RULE 3

NO

BULLET

POINTS

BULLET POINTS CAUSE ALL SORTS OF PROBLEMS

than one point on each slide

images

DEATH BY POWERPOINT

malaise

BULLET POINTS ALSO ENCOURAGE YOU TO READ THE SLIDE ALOUD

BULLET POINTS ALSO ENCOURAGE

YOU TO READ THE SLIDE ALOUD

And if you’re saying the exact same thing that’s written on the slide, why do you even need to be there ?

Learning is reduced when information presented is redundant – such as

reading text verbatim from slides

RULE 4

SIMPLE

KEEPING IT SIMPLE DOESN’T MEAN

DUMBING DOWN

Learning is improved when multimedia is

free from extraneous information

SO, WHAT COUNTS AS

EXTRANEOUS?

SO, WHAT COUNTS AS

EXTRANEOUS?

Animations?

Yup If they’re there to make a

specific point, by all means use

them – but if they’re there for the

sake of it, they spoon-feed the

audience so much it lulls their

brains into a non-receptive state

(akin to watching TV rather than a

presentation)

SO, WHAT COUNTS AS

EXTRANEOUS?

Transitions?

Yes If all your slides transition from one to the next with the same effect

or animation (with an upward

sweep, or by revolving, etc) then it

makes them all feel the same

There’s no WEIGHTING of the

information you’re presenting So

transitions don’t help you tell your

story – if anything they do the

opposite Animations = extraneous

SO, WHAT COUNTS AS

EXTRANEOUS?

Templates?

Absolutely, PPT Templates are

extraneous too Having your

organisational logo on every slide is the very definition of extraneous –

have it at the beginning and the

end, but not on each one of the 50

slides in between Templates get in the way of learning They’re nothing

to do with the story

And besides…

TO TELL YOUR STORY, YOU NEED A HIERACHY

OF INFORMATION WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE

- YOU, OR POWERPOINT?

TO TELL YOUR STORY, YOU NEED A HIERACHY

OF INFORMATION WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE

- YOU, OR POWERPOINT?

(Aim for consistency, not duplication)

* Actually there’s one final rule –

always credit your image sources!

Projector: CC-BY RVWITHTITO

Bullet CC-BY-SA Eschipul

At the start I said that a good looking presentation is just a by-product of an effective one This is based on the four multimedia learning principles dotted throughout the slides, to back up the rules

At the start I said that a good looking presentation is just a by-product of an effective one This is based on the four multimedia learning principles dotted throughout the slides, to back up the rules

Learning is improved when narration occurs

simultaneously with relevant images

parts of the presentation with cues highlighting key material

Learning is improved when multimedia is

free from extraneous information

Learning is reduced when information presented is

At the start I said that a good looking presentation is just a by-product of an effective one This is based on the four multimedia learning principles dotted throughout the slides, to back up the rules

Learning is improved when narration occurs

simultaneously with relevant images

parts of the presentation with cues highlighting key material

Learning is improved when multimedia is

free from extraneous information

Learning is reduced when information presented is

These are all adapted from research into

what works and what doesn’t, undertaken

by Dr Richard Mayer at the University

of California – you can read more of his

work by clicking the arrow

At the start I said that a good looking presentation is just a by-product of an effective one This is based on the four multimedia learning principles dotted throughout the slides, to back up the rules

There are plenty of other rules about making

presentations (like only

using 3 fonts, for example, which I’ve completely

ignored for this one) – but none of them are as

important as these four, because they relate to

substance (from which

style should be a natural by-product)

It’s not a RULE as such, but using non-standard fonts in a presentation also makes a huge difference to how engaging it looks

ANTONIO Aller Pacifico FENGARDO NEUE AlfaSlab One

The fonts used in these slides are listed above – they’re all available for free via www.fontsquirrel.com

Go to ned-potter.com for more

information on presentation skills

Go to ned-potter.com for more

information on presentation skills

I’m on Twitter @ned_potter

Go to ned-potter.com for more

information on presentation skills

I’m on Twitter @ned_potter

Thanks for watching!

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