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Tips for PowerPoint Presentations

By William Hyman

Have you ever sat through a PowerPoint presentation that dragged and was hard to follow? Don’t let your presentation be that way. Grab your audience’s attention and hold it by following some basic “rules” for designing PowerPoint slides. Your goal is to create slides that inform the audience, without eye strain and unnecessary distractions.

  1. Use an adequate font size and readable style. Clean classic fonts aren’t boring when part of a well prepared talk, and it is your subject matter that is supposed to be interesting, not the font. Remember that how it looks on your monitor is not how it will look projected on a screen. Yes, it will be bigger on the screen, but also much further away for most viewers.
  2. Limit the amount of text or other material on each slide. Slides are not the place for paragraphs of text (which will also usually violate #1 above). In most cases, a few bullet points should be used, with the spoken word filling in the ideas. Every idea or point does not need words on a slide.
  3. Detailed tables of information are usually a bad idea, and will also often violate # 1 above. If you must show a detailed table, have a good reason, and also show an abstract or blow up of the important points.
  4. Choose colors and backgrounds carefully, remembering that the point of the slide is to transmit information rather than cause pain. Make sure there is adequate contrast. With due respect for art, slides for a technical audience should not be an art project, but rather a means to convey information.
  5. Minimize the use of slide transition and text appearance tricks. Just because a spinning cube transition is available doesn’t mean you should use it. Similarly, letters trickling down from the top is available, but is usually awful—and slow—to sit through. Always ask yourself: Does this improve the communication of my message, or distract from it?
  6. Have the appropriate number of slides for the allotted time. Addressing slides takes time, and you don’t want to have to skip over material at the end, or consume part of the next speaker’s slot.
  7. Use clip art and other non-essential graphics judiciously, again remembering that the proper objective is to deliver your message in a clear, understandable and professional manner.

These slide design tips go well with a few delivery tips.

  1. Plan your presentation before you start making slides. Remembering outlining? It is still a good tool.
  2. Be prepared, and practiced, to speak in the allotted time. It is your job to fit the material to the time available, including speaker changes and Q&A.
  3. The most engaging presentations are those that appear conversational. In our profession reading prepared text should be avoided, as should just reading the slides to the audience.
  4. Do not find yourself having to apologize for a slide (“I know you can’t read this, but...”), or for the available time (“I don’t have time to explain the next three slides...”). It is your task to design both the slides and the presentation such that apologies are not necessary.
  5. Get critical friends and colleagues to listen to you in advance.

If you are not a speaker this time, take the opportunity to analyze both the content of talks you see, and how they are delivered, with attention to which slides worked for you and which did not. This can be a good learning tool for when it is your turn.

William Hyman, ScD, is professor emeritus of biomedical engineering at Texas A&M University. He now lives in New York where he is adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at The Cooper Union.