PPT Design: Learning more about PowerPoint
This portion focuses on PPT Design: learning more about PowerPoint, especially on how to create exceptional-looking Power Point presentations out of it.
Introduction
Public speaking is an important aspect in all organizations and it can influence the outcome of your project, business or the idea you want presented out. For presentations, Microsoft PowerPoint was historically the top favorite among individuals from all professional backgrounds. Thus, using PowerPoint and having a wide range of options for changing the template and the number of individual variations, it is possible to create outstanding and passionate slides. In this blog post, I shall give you a step by step guide on how to design an impressive power point presentation.
1. Know Your Audience
It is essential that before you start designing your presentation, that you spend a few moments considering your audience. Who are they? What do they need to know? Identifying your audience will assist you in designing your presentation and make you informed of what your audience wants to hear. Is your target audience or the readers of your content advanced in that particular field or do they have a rudimentary knowledge of that subject? This is especially important in the case of dealing with either an intellectual or a low-educated audience.
2. Keep it Simple
The most typical mistake made when developing PowerPoint presentation is that of complication. Despite the availability of text, images and animations on the available templates it is wiser not to use them to to the full potential on every runnable slide as they becomes confusing. Number one rule for presentation design is, to make the information as clear and simple as possible to grasp. Less is more: don’t use too much colors, don’t use fancy fonts and don’t overload your slides with texts.
3. Choose the Right Template
Since there are many developed templates of PowerPoint, choosing the appropriate one is a daunting task. It is advisable to choose a template after determining goals, field of activity, and the target audience of your presentation. Are you converting figures in balancing sheet to a group of accountants, or selling an idea to a group of marketing experts? There is a difference between using presentation design for various industries and presenting it to various audiences; so ensure that you select the correct template.
4. Make Use of Visuals
It is the saying that goes by the proverb that ‘the picture is equal to a thousand words’ especially in relation to presentation design. Pictures, drawings, and plots in form of images, charts or graphs are good methods of passing information to your audience. When applying the use of pictures or graphics in your power point presentation, ensure you use good quality pictures and those which are related to your presentation. There should not be much information on your slides, this is because if there is too much information, it becomes hard for the audience to decipher what is important.
5. As for animations and transitions – do not overdo them when designing.
Although, the animations and the transitions can lend a little more glamour to the presentation, overdoing this, could make the presentation look juvenile. When using animations and transitions in front line communications make sure that use of animations and transitions is limited and deliberate. Select fairylike animations that add value to the message rather than the flashy feature and use transition to move from one slide to the next instead of drawing attention to change of slides.
6. Keep It Consistent
Often, when speaking in front of the audience, you want your presentation to be harmonious; having a consistent design ensures that your audience can follow along easily while engaged by the aesthetics of your presentation. Format your text, colors, and organization in a uniform manner for all of the slides you will be using, and do not introduce many new templates or themes within the same presentation.
7. Tell a Story
One important aspect of presenting is to be able to take the audience on a journey through the material being presented so that a coherent story can be told. Do not use your slides to relay the story or try and put all the information you have on the side. All the slides you put down should be logical and should be leading your audience to that specific conclusion you want him/her to arrive at.
8. Practice and Refine
Last but not least, after you have completed the creation of the presentation you should rehearse in order to do it as fluently as possible. Consult other people, individuals you trust and do not be close –minded about what you can change or innovate. You also need to remember that a presentation is more like a work in progress that can always use enhancement and upgrading.
Conclusion
In sum, much like cooking or gardening, PowerPoint design is an art that requires some time and effort to cultivate. By knowing your audience, going for the basic design, selecting an appropriate layout, integrating graphic elements, effectively using animations and transitions, sustaining coherence, narrating, and finally revising your presentation, you can easily make a powerful and compelling presentation that will educated your audience. Happy presenting!
