1. Structure your presentation

Structuring the content of your presentation will not only help your audience retain more of the information you are sharing, but also it will reduce your instinct to duplicate your verbal presentation in your PowerPoint slides. And when you have a presentation structure, you can focus less on your slides and more on delivering your message or story as you present.

The following are seven common presentation structures you can follow as you design your presentation:

• Basic Situation – Complication – Resolution: This is the go-to story structure that can help you create a narrative about anything from a product demo to an academic lecture.
• What? So What? Now What? In this structure, you’ll present your topic, explain why people should care and conclude with a call to action.
• Problem – Solution – Benefits: A classic persuasive framework that can work for almost any presentation.
• Opportunity – Benefits – Numbers: This framework can reduce the complexity of a business-oriented message, particularly to an executive audience.
• Chronological Order: This type of presentation is well-suited for interesting historical accounts or walking people through a process.
• Comparison – Contrast: Use this to present an argument that shows the advantages of a particular position.
• Cause – Effect: This framework can help you tell a story that highlights the underlying logic behind an idea or theory.

2. Use content that enhances your lecture or training

As you prepare your slides, you’ll want to avoid some of the common mistakes that can cause your audience to zone out mid-presentation. Lecturers and trainers alike often prepare too many slides, packed with too much information, which makes it difficult for audiences to absorb the material. Instead, minimise the text in your slides and let your audience focus on listening to you.

The following are best practices for preparing PowerPoint content that will enhance your lectures or trainings:

• Eliminate redundant information: The details you add to your slides should support your talking points, not duplicate them.
• Avoid word overload: People will naturally read words on the screen – even big blocks of text and bulleted lists – which means they won’t be paying full attention to you. Showing fewer words per slide will help your audience focus on your delivery.
• Skip the jargon and buzzwords: You may understand those technical or academic terms, but you’ll lose anyone who isn’t familiar with them. Besides, being able to explain complex information using common words is a hallmark of understanding.
• Focus: One slide, one point. Break out bullet points into their own slides.

3. Think visually when designing PowerPoint slides

People learn better when they receive information in both words and pictures. The good news is you don’t have to be a designer to create visually engaging PowerPoint slides. From images to fonts and colours, there are fairly simple guidelines you can follow that will help you create PowerPoint presentations that are designed for impact.

• Choose images that support your message. Instead of endless lists of bullets, opt for imagery that grabs people’s attention and forces them to listen to what you have to say next.
• Go for powerful images that grab attention. Look for images that will elicit an emotional response and enhance how people will remember your content. Real images that dramatise your speaking points are best – occasionally stock photography can work, but be selective. Never choose a picture that isn’t related to your talking point.
• Video is also powerful. PowerPoint now makes it easy to embed a video in your slides. Just as with images, you want to use relevant video as a resource to support specific points within your presentation.
• Limit colours and think contrast. Choose three to five colours and keep it simple. Make sure your font colours are easy to read on top of the background, and also consider playing with colour within your slide text to make important words stand out. This colour scheme generator can be helpful for finding colours for your presentation if you don’t know where to start.
• Use a Sans Serif font. Choose an easy-to-read san serif font, and skip serif fonts that may make characters blend together. It’s a good idea to select a font that can be found on most computers — that will help mitigate the possibility that your presentation will be reformatted on computers that don’t have a specific font installed. Arial, Calibri, and Tahoma are usually safe options.
• Aim for simple data visualisation. Complex graphs and charts can be hard to interpret, so look for simple icons and stats that support a specific idea within your presentation.
• Limit distracting animations or transitions. Good animation should do only just enough to draw attention to a specific point. But exercise judgement and when in doubt, do without — good animation becomes bad animation simply by trying to do too much. As the presenter, you’d prefer to explain your points yourself instead of relying on complex animations to do it for you.