Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies migrated their work modality to remote and the best way to work together was through meetings and presentations were the protagonists to align communication. But a story poorly told or with little aesthetics can make us lose our audience and our ideas are not received as we wish.
I've selected 10 common mistakes that can ruin PowerPoint presentations, five of them from a storyboard standpoint and the other five from a design standpoint.
1. Start without prior analysis, without a clear structure and without objectives
We usually have many ideas, but a limited time. For example, even if the topic is the same, the structure of our presentation will have to change if it is for beginner users in three hours virtually, than if it is for senior executives during half an hour in person.
Therefore, before entering PowerPoint, first carry out a preliminary analysis: What is it about? For what purpose? What do I need? What means do I have? Who are my recipients? I have? What platforms can I use? Then, it executes a functional analysis that encompasses the collection of information and the development of said presentation. Defining topics such as: description of the slides and their limitations, sections of the presentation and the additional documentation that you will deliver.
2. Do not show the path of our presentation
You are not even halfway through your presentation and someone from the audience constantly asks you about topics that correspond to a couple of slides later. The user may feel lost as we progress through the presentation and focus more on knowing where they are than on the content.
Start by making a summary of the topics you will and will not address will help provide context. In addition, you can also support an index slider.
3. Present orphaned slides, which look like they came from another presentation
You are part of the audience of a presentation and suddenly a slide appears that is not related to the previous slide or the next one and you keep thinking how to link it and lose attention in the presenter. To avoid this, it is important that no slide is orphaned, all must have a link between them.
4. Many presenters telling the same stories
You and your team just finished a presentation with great content coupled with amazing design and you're handing out 5 slides each. It's time to present and you realize that you repeat ideas among you and that when you pass each other there is not much coherence in the cuts you selected. Let's avoid this by planning the tasks of each person in the group and previously practicing the sequence of the story they will tell.
5. They ask you a question about a previous topic and it takes you 2 minutes to find the slide in question
You are passionate about the topic you are going to present, you master it and you could talk about it for hours. Suddenly, they make you a query about an item that you already touched, you want to show the slide where you mentioned it but it takes you 2 minutes to find it. Use the three-click technique, which means that any part of the presentation can be accessed from any slide in less than three clicks, you can use flowcharts or interactivity maps.
6. Use lots of colors and fonts
At most you should use 6 colors that work well together. Many times it is difficult to find the combination, but you can rely on websites like colourlovers.
At most you should use 5 fonts combining their colors and sizes, avoiding distorting them so that they can be read clearly. Also, if it's an unusual font, it's possible that if you play your presentation on another computer it's not installed and it will look different.
Look at this example that seeks to exaggerate the combinations and turns out to be a distractor from the content:
7. Place as many objects and texts as you can on a slide
Two basic concepts in the composition of a presentation are:
- balance: although there is no perfect composition, since it depends on many other factors. All weights must be offset to achieve balance.
- weight: size and position of the element with respect to its environment.
Consider that the small elements denote weakness or delicacy with respect to the strong ones, with which we can vary to achieve the desired composition. Also, placing an element to the right and below will denote security, while placing it above and to the left will denote lightness.
Look at this example that seeks to exaggerate a bad composition:
8. Convey a sense of tension through asymmetrical slides
The balance within a presentation can occur in the following ways:
- symmetric: if we divide the image into two equal parts, the elements in each of them do not stand out with respect to the contents of the other.
- asymmetric: if we divide the image into two equal parts, the elements that appear in each of them are not the same
Symmetrical balance elicits a sense of organization, while asymmetrical balance elicits a sense of tension or nervousness.
You can activate in the View menu the options: ruler, gridlines and guides to help you make your presentation symmetrical. To align elements you can go to the Format menu and you will find a variety of options to align them.
Look at this example that seeks to differentiate the types of balances, helped by PowerPoint gridlines and guides:
9. Use the worst quality of images
We needed an image to reinforce our powerful message, but it was stretched so far that it is no longer distinguishable and the white background was not removed.
The most recommended format is vectors because they can be scaled without affecting its resolution. Among the bitmap images, the most recommended is png, since maintaining transparency does not have the effect of images that are not well cared for as in gif format. Most image websites and Google have filters so you can select images based on their format, you don't have to be a designer to master it. And of course, remember to respect copyright in your images.
Look at this example where the png format is not used and the logo loses its quality when it gets bigger and the contrast with the blue background is not very aesthetic.
10. Copying and pasting from other presentations without making changes…zero creativity!
You have many ideas and you are close to "selling" them to a potential client. You open PowerPoint and see a blank slide. There is little time left for your presentation, so you take a presentation from a couple of years ago, copy and paste it.
We know that our times are tight and content is the most important thing, but challenge yourself to exploit your creativity, we all have the ability to find different original alternatives.
I got to know a lot of PowerPoint tricks in the advanced course that you teach structuralia and the OAS, where I got information that I adapted for this post. Do you dare to tell in the comments other ways to destroy a presentation?.
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