FOR MY FASHION AND
TEXTILE STUDENTS
7 Tips for Designing and Delivering
PowerPoint Presentations
PowerPoint presentations are a great way to support a speech,
visualize complicated concepts or focus an audience’s attention.
However, a bad presentation can achieve the opposite. Poorly
designed slides with too much text or distracting graphics can lead the
audience away from your message. Consider these tips to avoid
common mistakes:
[Link] a simple design template.
Use the slide master feature or a provided template to create
consistency in your design. The method of content presentation (list,
image, text) depends on the content, but consistency with other
elements such as font, colors, background, throughout the
presentation is essential. Establish consistent contrasting colors
(dark/light) for text and background.
2. Use appropriate font and size.
Choose your font and size carefully. Use sans serif fonts (such as
Arial Rounded MT Bold) and 32 point font size for text. Anything
smaller is difficult to read. Avoid all caps. Use color to highlight. Limit
punctuation. Follow the 6×6 rule: No more than 6 lines of text per slide
and no more than 6 words in each line of text.
3. Use good quality images.
Images should reinforce and complement your message. They should
be impactful, not space-fillers. Empty space on the slide will actually
enhance readability. Don’t clutter the slide with images unless they
add value. Also, test your images to make sure they retain quality
when projected on a larger screen. Clip art generally lacks emphasis.
If you are willing to purchase quality images to enhance your
presentation, try [Link].
4. Avoid too many special effects.
These features seem impressive at first, but they tend to distract from
your message and get old quickly. Transitions, text fly-ins, animations
and sounds may reduce the professionalism you desire to portray.
Special effect are similar to graphics, they should impact the
presentation not detract from the presentation.
5. Limit the number of slides.
Limit the number of slides according to the time you have available for
the presentation. Flipping to the next slide constantly and rushing
through the presentation not only distracts the audience, but typically
does not get your message across. A good rule of thumb is one slide
per minute.
[Link] to navigate your presentation in a non-linear fashion.
PowerPoint allows the presenter to move forward and backwards
without paging through interim slides. Practice moving forward and
backward within your presentation. Your audience may want to see a
previous slide or you may want to skip ahead to something of
immediate relevance. Know these shortcuts:
N, ENTER, PAGE DOWN, RIGHT ARROW, DOWN ARROW, or Advanc
the SPACEBAR (or click the mouse)
P, PAGE UP, LEFT ARROW, UP ARROW, or BACKSPACE Return
<number>+ENTER Go to sl
B or PERIOD Display
a black
W or COMMA Display
a white
S or PLUS SIGN Stop or
ESC, CTRL+BREAK, or HYPHEN End a s
7. Do not read from your slides or speak to them.
Don’t face the screen and read your slides. The bulleted information
on your slides should be supplementary to what you are saying. Use
the slides to trigger your comments or to pace yourself, but do not
read them. The audience can read. Remember that your slides are
only there to support, not to replace your talk! You’ll want to tell a
story, describe your data or explain circumstances, and only provide
keywords through your slides. If you read your slides, the audience
will get bored, stop listening and not get your message.