How to Prepare an effective PowerPoint Presentation

25th July 2007 – Today’s lecture was actually a continuation from the previous lesson.

“Who is this pretty Chinese girl?” (a Chinese girl stepped into MK2)

We are introduced to this new face, Ms Ng as our facilitator. “Ooppss…. Not merely a young girl or lady….but a young facilitator too” She looks stern yet sweet and pretty.
Prof Raja Maznah informed us that Ms Ng will be giving a lecture on how to prepare a good PowerPoint slideshow presentation. Last week (18th July), all the groups came up with fantastic slide shows despite of the time constraint. However, the comments received explain that there is room for improvement. Hence, it is indeed a golden opportunity for all of us to learn how to develop effective PowerPoint slides, for future use.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Ms. Ng for highlighting an important matter which has been lingering in my mind for the past years whenever there was a PowerPoint presentation taking place. Let me ask you people this question, ‘What do you feel if a speaker faces his back and reads out every single word from the slides instead of interacting with the audience?’ I assume most of you will be annoyed and some might even switch off. I certainly agree with Ms. Ng on this matter. Why one have to read it to me? I can read it by myself. It is as if the speaker doubts one’s reading skill. Often, people dress up when they are to be the presenter in order to be the centre of attraction during the presentation. If one is going to read chunk by chunk from the slides, he or she is no longer the focus since he or she will not be facing the audience and not interacting with them.

Let us move on to the main agenda of the day:

Ms. Ng gave us valuable tips on how to prepare an effective PowerPoint slideshow. There are a number of tips which can be applied to prepare a good PowerPoint slideshow namely; visual, colour scheme, no cluttering, objective, audience and the list goes on. I would like to use only one word, ‘SIMPLICITY’ to summarize all the tips. This is because; based on my perspective, the various tips mention above is meant to simplify the slides instead of making it congested with unnecessary input.

Ms Ng also showed us some samples of effective PowerPoint slideshows. Among all the samples, I preferred the one prepared by this person named Dick (I can hear his voice in my mind when I type this). I will further explain on the tips learnt under the heading ‘What I have learnt today?’

What I have learnt today?

Basically the lecturer today has triggered me to find out more on what Garr Reynolds has to say about ‘EFFECTIVE POWERPOINT SLIDESHOWS’. Below is an summary of information I have obtained through my online reading.

Let me further unravel on what exactly I have learnt from the tips given by Ms. Ng:

The most significant thing that I have learnt today would be SIMPLICITY is the BEST POLICY. In simple terms, it means to simplify everything rather than complicating it. It is better to only include limited points and words on a slide. If the slide show is full of words, audience might end up reading the slides on their own rather than listening to the speaker.

Besides that, an effective slide show should have limited slide transition and animation. Preferably, one to two type of slide transition throughout the slide show. A variety of slide transition might disturb audiences’ focus. Selection of graphics and visuals also determines the effectiveness of a slide show presentation. The pictures should be relevant to the topic and not simply add on visuals to fill up the empty spaces on the slide. According to Garr Reynolds, “The less clutter you have on your slide, the more powerful your visual message will become”. (quoted from http://www.garreynolds.com/)

Another important aspect is appropriate font and choice of colour used for background and the text. We must always make sure the colour of the slide’s background is of contrast with the text.

Next, I have come to the realization that we must always keep audience in our mind when preparing a PowerPoint slide show. We must know who the audiences are, their interest, prior knowledge, background, needs and so on. For instance, if the audience are children, we must not bombard them with too many detail at a time since they have short-attention span. It would be better to use one word per slide.

Last but not least, I learned that we must quote the reference if we use texts or pictures which is not ours. As a whole, the key element identified is SIMPLICITY.

HOWEVER...

source : http://iplot.typepad.com/iplot/images/simplicity_complexity.jpg

WHY? Keep on scrolling and you will know.

What have I questioned today?

SIMPLICITY…… Well, I do understand that simplicity is the best way to convey messages without jeopardizing it. My first thought was we have less work to do when it comes to preparing slide shows. But my second thought made me to ponder whether SIMPLICITY is really TROUBLE-FREE. In order to create a simple slide show, one might have to put in the maximum effort and do a lot of brain-squeezing. This is because, we must identify the relevant points and the most appropriate visuals to support the topic. It makes our life more complicated.

SIMPLICITY vs. COMPLEXITY

The session today really helped me a lot. Before ending the lesson, we were asked to improve on our slides prepared last week. Actually, my group's slides was fine because ours did follow the tips learnt earlier. There was one limitation in our previous slideshow which was the colour of the pictures. Having exposed to the tips, we modify the pictures to be in gray-scale so that it will be the secondary focus and the text will be the primary focus. The end.

p/s : I have displayed my group's modified slides in the previous post. Sorry, it is only in the slide sorter form. I do not know how to insert it in a slideshow view.