You’re on the road presenting a neurosurgical lecture, or it’s your turn to present at grand rounds. You’ve worked hard on the content of your talk, but a third of the way through your PowerPoint presentation you sense the audience beginning to drift.
Unfortunately, even a great talk can be undermined by flat design. While PowerPoint is today’s power tool for presentations, its structured layouts, especially in text-heavy presentations, can have a soporific effect.
Try these PowerPoint tips to break from the standard design of the application’s templates and keep your audience engaged:
Title Slide:
Your guests have just entered the conference room and your title slide is up on the screen. The standard yellow or white letters on a blue background signal that the talk may be “more of the same.” Instead, enhance the title slide by giving your guests a preview of what is come. Copy a few of the images from the body of your talk and insert them into the title slide, shrinking them to thumbnails and placing them around the title information. For an extra punch change the background to a solid color that enhances the images. Another option is to place a single image on half of the slide, and place the title text on the other half. Insert a blank slide as a starting point and move and the reshape the text boxes in the PowerPoint title slide. For more drama, use a single image as the background of the slide and work the title text into less active areas of the image.
Text:
PowerPoint’s templates often employ Times as the default font, but in digital presentations its serifs can appear a bit shaggy. Try Arial or another sans serif font for cleaner projection. This is easily accomplished by changing the font in the Master (View menu > Master > Slide Master). The change will apply to all of your slides (but not to any new text boxes you have created). PowerPoint provides plenty of text layouts (with or without an image) that allow variety yet maintain visual order in the presentation. However, if you are making an important point, start with a blank slide, change its background color and include text for that point only. An important quote can be handled in the same manner. This is where the Times font may play a role, especially for a historical quote; the difference in type style helps the quote stand out.
Images:
When an image is the most important element of the slide, don’t be restricted by the template’s layout options. Insert a blank slide, enlarge the image and add a text box as needed. The text box can be placed underneath or to either side of the image, or it can even flow over a less important portion of the image. Changing the background to a color that enhances the image also helps the image stand out-for example, black for radiographic images, or various shades of gray for historical images. Again, as in most good design, you want to avoid using an excessive number of colors. Overlapping two or several images can provide a sense of depth or time. Placing a shadow or line around the image has the same effect as a frame on a picture, but remember that the image, not the frame, is the important element. If in need of an image, the user can access one of the image search engines such as Google: Images https://images.google.com and quickly find multiple images that usually can be included in one’s presentation as long as credit is given.
Transitions:
Forty slide transitions are available in PowerPoint. In considering slide transitions one should strive to be creative without being irritating. A presentation in which each slide has a different transition is more than distracting. On the other hand, introducing a different transition can declare a new section of the talk or add impact to selected slides. For instance, in a presentation that is moving from the Diagnosis section to the Treatment section, a different transition signifies the new portion of the talk and can help re-engage those who may be drifting; this same transition can be used to introduce each new section in the balance of the presentation. (A pause and a change in the tone of your delivery completes the transition). If you are introducing a new technique or concept, the “split verticle out” or “box out”slide transitions add impact. In general, most of slide transitions in your talk will be the same; however, when changing to a new section, or for impact, try a different transition.