Better Presentations - Stop Making Ugly And Ineffective PowerPoint Slides

I was recently putting together a tutorial on "how to create a company funding presentation" when I decided to do a Google search on '.ppt'. I wanted to see if I could find some examples of ineffective presentations that I could correct with better graphics and messaging but I was unprepared for just how many bad presentations were out there. Many of the presentations were so bad that I couldn't even figure out what they were trying to say.

It is time for this to stop. Anyone can create a good PowerPoint presentation; it just takes a little work and basic understanding of visual impact. Here are the basics:

Know your target audience -- You must know who you are presenting to in order to be effective. Write down who they are, their goals are, and any emotions they may have related to those goals and to your presentation. Use this to check every slide to make sure that it speaks to your audience.

Know you objective-- What do you want out of the presentation? Exactly what do you want your audience to do when you are done with that last slide? Write it down and then do a sanity check when you are done creating your presentation to make sure you accomplish your goal.

Understand the format -- Are you giving a 10 minute pitch or a four hour seminar? If it is a 10 minute pitch, you are going to need slides with very few words. Of course if it is a four hour seminar, slides with fewer words are also more kind to your audience.

Use basic graphics design techniques -- The following are some simple things you can do to make your slides more readable and effective:

1. Colors -- Pick a color scheme and stick with it. Pick some colors from your logo or website that will work well for all your graphics and stick with those colors. Avoid the use of too much bright red as it can be very jarring to the eye.

2. Fonts -- Use san-serif fonts (the fonts without the little lines on the top and bottom) because they are easy to read for small quantities of text. Use one simple font throughout the presentation. Use different font sizes and weights for emphasis only. If you change a font size, make sure it is substantially different from the other fonts on the page. Using some fonts in 20pt and others in 22pt just looks muddled.

3. Alignment -- Align charts, graphs, and words with other text and elements on the page. Your slides will look neater and immediately become more legible.

4. Focus -- Pick a single focal point for each slide. Make sure your audience knows what you want to emphasize just by looking at the slide. Make that part of your slide is in a contrasting color or larger font.

4. Point -- Each slide has a point, why not put that point in the title? Your audience will know immediately what you are trying to convey with that slide.

6. Clean-up -- Get rid of anything in the slide that doesn't belong. Get rid of all extra words -- never use full sentences in a PowerPoint presentation. Get rid of any graphics that are not core to the point of the slide. Don't be afraid of white space. A slide with a lot of white space is often a welcome break in a presentation.

Those are the basics! You are well on your way to making a more effective presentations.