Effective PowerPoint presentations mean YOU are the star of the show, not your slides. Here are some tips from IWCC’s Effective Presentation Skills workshop.

PowerPoint slides are intended to enhance your message – not be the message! Visuals have been a powerful means of communication for thousands of years – from simple drawings on cave walls to today’s elaborate PowerPoint presentations. We know that audiences understand and remember 40% more when a presenter uses clear, well-designed visuals at the right time.

Let’s say that one more time…clear, well-designed visuals at the right time. As a presenter, that leaves you with two decisions to make:

1. How do you design visuals to enhance your message?
2. When do you use visuals to engage and help understanding?

Let’s look at #1.

In IWCC’s Effective Presentation Skills workshops, we address the most common mistakes presenters make in designing their slides. Here’s how to fix three of them.

The Mistake…ALL CAPS

Good presenters use Upper and Lower case letters. People can read lower case text 14%-19% faster than all-capital text because the Upper and Lower case letters give each word a unique shape. When you use ALL CAPS, every word has the same shape – they are all rectangles of various lengths. Therefore your eye has to work harder to recognize and understand the word. Here’s a test…On your way home tonight, look at highway and street signs. You will notice that the easier ones to read are in Upper and Lower case letters.

The Mistake…Font Abuse

To prepare effective PowerPoint presentations, use no more than two fonts on your slides. And, keep those fonts consistent throughout your presentation!  Imagine reading your newspaper and the same article uses four different fonts. Now that’s font abuse! Don’t let font abuse distract your audience from your message.

The Mistake…Font Size

When it comes to fonts, size matters! For the text, use a minimum font size of 28 – higher if the room is large. Make headings (or headlines) 4-6 points larger than the text on your slides. Because larger fonts take up more space, you only have room for the key words - and that’s a good thing!

For even more insight into slide design, check out IWCC’s webinar Creating your Own PowerPoint: Tips for designing slides that engage your audience.