If you watched the video I put together, you’ll know I’m a little inherently cynical when it comes to PowerPoint presentations. Too often, I find myself subjected to a “I used PowerPoint because I had to” presentation - regurgitated themes, bullet-point summaries and outlines, and forcing too much information onto each slide. Sound familiar?
I recognize, however, there are times when PowerPoint presentations are useful, and there is such a thing as a “good” PowerPoint. I’m in the process of putting together a list of guidelines and suggestions for creating successful PowerPoint presentations for our faculty, which may find their way here as well. As a teaser, here’s 4 tips and examples on how to make your slides visually appealing without too much effort.
1. Mix it up with contrast.
Visual elements in PowerPoint presentations are useful, primarily by giving visual learners an anchor for your ideas. Sometimes, however, visual elements drag audience members’ focus away from ideas you intended to emphasize. Using short phrases and simple high-contrast layouts can help emphasize your idea without disrupting your audience’s focus. For example, the first slide here uses a short phrase for punch, but lacks visual impact. By using a simple high-contrast layout, you can keep the short phrase and short attention lapse as viewers look at the slide, while adding visual impact.
2. Combine your image and text elements.
Used effectively, white space can be a powerful design element. The first slide below demonstrates a common misuse of white space frequently appearing in PowerPoint slides - placing a photo on a slide leaving large amounts of background border, then placing a text element outside the image. The second slide, without skewing the photograph much, combines the photograph and text elements to present a more pleasing, less jarring slide. The more “pleasing” your slide, the less inclined viewers are to focus on the slide instead of your content.
3. Use a visually appealing layout.
Take a page from web site layout design. Studies like this one reveal a trend - people tend to read web site content in a F-shaped pattern. According to the study, accompanied by a heatmap illustration I modified:
In our new eyetracking study, we recorded how 232 users looked at thousands of Web pages. We found that users’ main reading behavior was fairly consistent across many different sites and tasks. This dominant reading pattern looks somewhat like an F and has the following three components:
- Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar.
- Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar.
- Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement… This last element forms the F’s stem.
F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
Although this study dealt specifically with how viewers read web pages, at least these two broader principles apply to almost any text-based digital medium:
a. Viewers don’t tend to read your page or slide in entirety.
Make your text elements as concise as possible for maximum punch and impact.
b. Viewers tend to scan digital text in a particular pattern.
By placing your text elements somewhere on the F-shaped path, readers may subconsciously find your slides to be more readable, and thus be less inclined to split their focus between reading your slides and listening to your lecture.
As an example, the first slide below uses short points, but follows a common PowerPoint readability mistake: placing an image on the left and text elements on the right. The second slide allows readers to scan text left-to-right uninterrupted by other elements, and places the text elements on the top-bar and bottom-bar primary paths of the F-shape scan pattern.
4. Make creative use of your backgrounds.
Backgrounds and image elements should enhance a slide. Often, however, presenters select generic themes with generic backgrounds and insert clipart or images that, while perhaps related to the slide content, don’t complement the slide content. As an example, the slides below use a photograph of a classroom to promote professional development and customized seminars related to classroom instruction. The first slide follows a common layout placing the photograph on top of bullet-point text elements, creating a generic, non-memorable slide. By moving one of the bullet points to appear as written on the white board in the photograph, the second slide combines the text and photo elements in a creative way, presenting a unique, more memorable slide.
Have any tips for creating memorable, visually appealing slides? Share them in the comments below.
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