When I first started using PowerPoint, it was full of ClipArt stick figures and tons of text. Slowly, the art of presentation evolved (thankfully!), and ClipArt was no longer an acceptable way to add images to your slides. But, the evolution didn’t necessarily refine our presentation skills that much. The horrendous ClipArt images were only to be replaced by ‘slideuments’ and chart junk. Now, our slides were full of bar graphs and pie charts that didn’t explain anything and a text overload that bored the pants off of the audience. For this semster’s assignment, I turned to Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen, to help with my information design skills. His book is available on Amazon and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to work on their slide making skills. As a teaser, I am sharing a few of his tips here, some that I found particularly valuable.

Don’t be afraid to use Multimedia

I have seen multimedia being used effectively by many great presenters. Using video clips or even music can impact how the audience reacts to your presentation and how they retain it. A purely narrative style combined with a text heavy presentation can lose the audience’s interest quickly.

Simplify your visuals

If your visuals can’t be understood in 3 seconds, then redesign them to communicate your idea better. Some images or graphics looks great, but if they are too complicated, then it’s time to ditch them for a simpler design.

Less is More

This is something we have heard a lot in any talk/ article about effective presentation but it is an advbice worth repeating. Reduce the text on your slides. The slides should complement the narrator, not make you redundant. Another aspect of less is more is limiting the ideas to just one main idea per slide. It effectively takes the same amount of time to communicate 3 ideas on 3 slides that it takes to go through 3 ideas on one slide. But it will help your audience process each idea better when they are presented separately.

Back off on the Animation

Animation seems to be the shiny new toy everyone is playing with, but be careful not to overdo it. Animation on every slide can distract the audience from your narration.

Buy the book at : http://www.amazon.com/Presentation-Zen-Design-Principles-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00GXADSUU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1407770573&sr=8-2&keywords=presentation+zen