A “How to” Guide for a Better Presentation

12 Easy Steps to Follow

Presentation

Guidelines

By: Mr. Pace

Step 1-Know Your Audience

• Define your Audience

• Develop the Directions

Know your audience and think about what interests they have in the topic you’re

presenting

Step 2- ”Content is King”

• Worry about your design last

• Make sure your message has CLARITYCLARITY

Step 3- Get a Color Wheel

• Understanding what colors look good together• Primary Colors

– Red, YellowYellow, and Blue

• Secondary Colors– Green, Orange, and Purple

• Aggressive / Warm Colors– Red, Orange, and YellowYellow

• Receding / Cool Colors– Blue, Green, and Purple

Step 4- Use Your Color Wheel

• Remind yourself of good color management

• Notice what colors compliment each other

• Know what colors detract from each other

Step 5- “Keep it simple stupid” - KISS

• Keep your slide display easy to read and understand

• Don’t crowd the screen with clip-art

• Keep the transitions and animations simple and discreet

Step 6- Fonts are like Donuts

• Never eat/use more than three• Keep fonts consistent• Same font for all titles• Second font for your text• Never use non-standard fonts

Step 7- Consistency• Don’t use animation or sound effects just

because you can

• Practice good ‘effect management’

• When in doubt don’t do it

Step 8- Think before using the header / footer

Things which can be added:– Date– Number of slides– A blank box for your name, department, or the

title of your favorite Elvis Presley song– Think about the information and the audience

viewing it

Step 9- Stop. Look. Dial-up.

• The more complex the background and clip-art,

the bigger the PowerPoint file

• Keep the backgrounds solid colors or simple

template images, therefore the PowerPoint files will stay lean in size

Step 10- Murphy’s Law

• Always use your own gear– light ware, laptop, projector

• Always have a backup– Have a technology and a non-technology oriented

backup– Burn a CD– Have a copy of a zip disk

• Always take it to a similar presentation venue

Step 11- Combating Murphy’s Law

• First, do a dry run

• Second, provide a downloadable version of your presentation

• Finally, provide a low-band width version of your presentation

• And Again-

Step 12- RepeatOnce you have run through each of these steps, don’t just follow the steps for one presentation or an occasional speech, make it a part of the preparation process…

ConclusionDeveloping PowerPoint presentations goes

back to the Golden Rule:Do unto others as you would have them do unto youDo unto others as you would have them do unto you

Develop Presentations that you would find inviting and easy to understand

Adopted from Matthew A. Christian