Top Tips - Avoiding Common Presentation Pitfalls
People often ask us, what are the most common pitfalls awaiting enthusiastic presenters that use PowerPoint? What traps might they fall into that could be easily avoided with just a little insight and a bit of forward planning? Here’s our list (in no particular order) of common pitfalls to avoid if you want to build and deliver great PowerPoint presentations:
1
Too much information on slides – slides jam packed with information are tough to read and distracting for your audience – as a guide, aim for 3 bullet points per slide and a maximum of 6 words per bullet
2
Too many slides – it’s really tough to do a large volume of slides justice whilst keeping your audience awake – try to use your slides as your back up support not your presentation driver. Remember – less is more
3
Talking to the projector screen and not the audience – it’s really easy to use the screen as a safety net and to focus on the content of your PowerPoint slides rather than your audience –overcome this by using the speaker note function as your guide so that you have no reason to look at the projected slides themselves
4
Too much animation – animation often has it’s place in great PowerPoint presentations, but as a rule should be kept to a minimum. If you must include it, keep it all the same e.g. all points arrive on the screen in the same style and make sure it’s subtle!
5
Not enough visual interest – PowerPoint is a great programme for displaying images, diagrams, tables and charts but most people still forget to include them. If you want to keep your audience engaged in your presentation, learn how to add the visuals and try to include at least 1 visual page for every bulleted page you have
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