HOW TO DO A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION (WHAT TO AVOID IN 2020 / 2021)

Now you choose PowerPoint for your next presentation. The question is: How are you going to convince the audience before to get what you want?

PowerPoint produces more than 30 million presentations each day, and 500 million are users worldwide yet there is a big problem in there, over $250 million is wasted everyday due to poor presentations. When you create a PowerPoint presentation it should have a clean scheme and have an enhanced structure that tames who is reading it, that is a good presentation.

What does this article is going to solve?

Many writers and bloggers on the internet are writing about creating a PowerPoint presentation but still they don’t make a precise meaning of what king of PowerPoint presentation.

They always say it like it’s a tutorial of a beginner but this still doesn’t cut the rope of the problem

Who can’t do a PowerPoint presentation? Absolutely no one! But how many can do a good one (presentation)?

This is an era where everyone knows basic, but again is an era where few are masters. This is mainly because people have few information, there is a missing piece of Jigsaw and this can result in misinformation due to the way people kept understanding the term “a good PowerPoint presentation”.

To make the article easy to understand, let’s divide it into two pivot parts:

• Procedural creation of a PowerPoint presentation
• Structural creation of a PowerPoint presentation

Procedural creation of a PowerPoint presentation

This is where includes the normal way of starting a presentation from scratch, this part is very important, you will know why you should understand it in deep.

“Procedural” = Step-by-step

This is a road to start a good presentation not a through to a good one. Before you start thinking about how good a presentation should before prepare the pitch, that’s what this part is about.

Starting Up with PowerPoint

What is PowerPoint?

In full, Microsoft PowerPoint is a product of Microsoft Office it is a part of a large package of Microsoft Office with other siblings Applications. It is used as a presentation tool, whether for corporate, business and academic, its origin is a long story.

Many businesses in the world use this tool, no doubt that this is an awesome gizmo for smart people because it can be a way of convincing the CEO or manager to think about a promotion, business partner to add a value to projects and investor to add shares.

Let’s jump into how you get inside PowerPoint.

1. Go to start, into search and type PowerPoint. If it’s in taskbar go with second point
2. Click on PowerPoint icon, PowerPoint will start.
3. After PowerPoint opens choose a template or blank template (Better, we go with blank).
4. Time to get into action

Structural creation of a PowerPoint presentation

This is a crucial player in PowerPoint presentation. It is better to know that presentation shouldn’t be the purpose of simply adding words into slides and then it’s over.

“Presentation is an art and show”

When you are doing a presentation remember that the purpose is to impress, not only showing also it’s critical to do that.

Here are things that will make a good presentation:

Layout

PowerPoint has a collection of layouts that come with it, it’s up to you to choose the one that meets the nature of a presentation or the content to present. This is what I mean; if you are preparing to compare two certain devices, you can’t present that presentation as if you are listing pros and cons of a software.

Layouts in PowerPoint

•  Title slide: This is a layout that comes first if you create a new presentation. Imagine a bottle of water without cap, this can’t deny you to drink water but it can deny you to take it away. PowerPoint chose to make this a default layout because they know how valuable it is to have a title on your page. Title slide is composed of two things which are “Main title and subtitle”. It is a good habit to start a presentation with title because it gives a taste of the content inside that slide.

• Tile and content: Like any script, it is necessary to introduce the content. This layout has a title section together with content in the same slide.

• Section header: This layout is crucial if there is a demonstration that is divided into parts, you can group those parts together and indicate it by using section header so that it will be easy for everyone to notice that. This layout (section header) is different from section.

• Two content: When you want to display two contents on a single slide this layout is one. It has a title box and two boxes of content let’s say you want to talk about advantages of being a blogger for example. You summarize them in a single slide rather than take more than one slide.

• Comparison: When you are doing a comparison make sure you use this layout, even if you don’t know how to structure that in PowerPoint it will guide you. Just give it a try!

• Title only: To indicate portion of a presentation either a chapter, part and so and so on you represent with title between the end of first part and the start of next part.

• Blank: The layout helps you to start everything from scratch and build your own layout structure.

• Content with caption: Here you have content and an additional explanation aside, this explains well the content. This layout is like a summary with annexed additional information.

• Picture with caption: Like content with caption, this for a picture where you have a supporting text for your picture. This supports in giving as little as possible explanations because caption plays a part.

Indicators of a good presentation

Title slide

Believe it or not, people can or cannot get attracted by a presentation when they only look at the first slide. Here includes the way you prepared your first slide (Cover slide), this slide must be appealing to the audience.

When the audience likes your first slide, be happy because that’s a sign of attention.

Colors and length

Don’t pretend like you will use any color and it ends up being impressive. Try some bombshell colors that will attract the audience.

A hint; if you have a brand that people knows about try to use them, that might also drag some attention.

Within a presentation Slide Lizard has shown that the average time a person can hold an attention within a presentation is 10 minutes. Above that time, you are starting to waste your time, so make your presentation as short as possible.

Typography

The type of typography you choose to use in your presentation might lead to a good or bad judgement from the audience (According to type of audience). Good judgement will make audience become interested in your topic while bad judgment will turn the other way around.

For example, when I’m preparing a presentation, I use W-W-W (3W) approach which is:

• Who (am I presenting for)?
• What (am I presenting about)?
• Why (am I going to do this presentation)?

This will help to plan how a presentation will be. A presentation made for students is far different from a presentation made for investors, keep that in mind!

Avoid this in your presentation!

If you were doing this, avoid them in the first hand starting from now:

Long presentation

Did you know that a long PowerPoint presentation is a sign of poor presentation? Attention is gradual the longer it takes the more interest goes down.

I can repeat this a thousand times, long presentations are boring so if you want attention try to make your presentation as brief as possible. Otherwise, you will start to see some cracking heads and dreaming.

Studies show that a good PowerPoint presentation should be 10 slides in 10/20/30 rule. PowerPoint is brief not a handout. But again, you can do a number of slides you want as long as they can be covered in a time frame you have.

Wordy Slides

Flooding a PowerPoint presentation with words can cost you so much. The problem is that a slide with too many words look messy and take longer to read them.

Studies also show that an average of 40 words, this is between 2-3 sentences. Why would you jam a slide with 200 – 300 words?

What slide is for is to highlight the key points from the subject outline, the rest is on your part to explain. Avoid too much words in small space.

Small typography

200 people in the room, the last person is in 50 meters from the presenter and the font is 22 points. What do you think? You are talking to two lines before you.

The idea on this is that, you have to choose that is readable, I am still referring to 10/20/30 rule which suggests that a font of presentation must be at least 30 points then that’s right. You have the whole audience to keep it interested so make it receive the same from the slide.

Don’t forget to speak loudly therefore everyone hears you!

Karaoke slide every time

Avoid these uncertainties, be sure to practice your presentation whenever it’s possible. Build the automatism of presenting a PowerPoint position.

Similar Posts you can read:

1. Parallax effect in Microsoft PowerPoint (2020 presentation trick)
2. Microsoft Word is the best tool for awesome blog post writing.
3. Use of Headings and styles in Microsoft Word

Last and conclusion

Creating a good PowerPoint presentation is not opening PowerPoint and start writing. You must keep in mind that to create a PowerPoint presentation you have to consider 3W (Who, What and Why) which can help you to build a foundation for your presentation structure and a true purpose to that presentation.

Furthermore, there are things you have to avoid which are; lengthy slide, wordy slide and a difficult to read font.

If you follow this you are going to impress everyone and no losers of interest while presenting. Enjoy your level-up!

 

Do you use 10/20/30 rule in your PowerPoint presentation? Does it work? Don’t hesitate to drop your idea in comment section.

Thanks for being with us, till now!