Tacpoint of Ref. — Part 1: Effective PowerPoint Presentations
Originally Published: 04/22/2020
In light of recent events, it is evident that working remotely has become the new norm and we are truly living in a new world, a world that now requires even more effort on our part to ensure we retain the attention of our audience.
So picture this. You have everything you need to deliver your work presentation. You did the research. You planned ahead but what is the best way to reach your audience? Maybe you have even taken the liberty of breaking down all your content into a PowerPoint presentation, and yet it’s still lacking that extra something to truly engage your audience.
Well, fear not, as we have a few tricks and tips on how to build a presentation that will both delight and surprise your audience.
What’s your story?
The true power that goes into a presentation is knowing your premise and knowing your intent.
Regardless of where you are in the process, it’s a good idea to spend some time writing a solid premise. The idea is that you wouldn’t build a house without laying out a strong foundation first. In other words, before laying out anything in your PPT, it is a good idea to organize your thoughts and think of it more as a story rather than a “presentation”. If your PPT was a book it should be a page turner and should lead the viewer through a journey. Like any good book, you should plan for a strong beginning, an engaging middle, and a satisfying conclusion.
Be Wise and Organize
Once you have organized all of your content and thoughts on paper first, it will be easier to identify any holes that may need to be filled. Or perhaps you will notice too much focus in one area and not enough in another. In the long run, this will also help to make for more seamless transitions as you guide the viewer through all of your content.
Be Sure to Check All Your Boxes
Create a check list of all of the content you wish to cover in your presentation and other possible considerations.
We’ve developed a checklist for you to get things moving in the right direction. This might help you determine whether or not you have all of the basics covered.
Time to Get on Board
Another thing to try is to develop a comprehensive Storyboard or Flat-Plan to layout your presentation as a story, including highlighting as many visual components as possible, such as images, icons, and video players. This helps to provide a clear overview of the whole presentation, and enables you to comb through the relationship between the editorial, visual, and divisions within each page, too.
Additionally, consider illustrating the transitions within your presentation. Maybe you’d like something simple as “Fade”, or it’s something more prominent like “Uncover” when you need to put more emphasis on particular slides.
Both storyboards and flat-plans work. With clear pictures of your presentation, it will save you much more time when you build the actual slides.
To get your presentation off the ground quickly, we have created a Storyboard Toolkit with a simple typography system, visual components including placeholder images, icons, cards, and charts. You can simply copy and paste these elements from the kit to map out your story.
Alternatively, you might prefer to layout the story with thumbnails using this Storyboard Template.
Next Steps
Although there are many ways to start your powerpoint presentation and from here you can choose to take it in a verity of directions, these are just a few helpful tips to get your PPT on the right track.
We can’t wait to share more tricks and tips when we take a deeper dive into the world of PowerPoint, including using vector graphics, animation, transitions, and much more.
But for now, happy storyboarding and much success!
Originally published at http://www.tacpoint.com.
