How To Prevent Death By Powerpoint

The Powerpoint is one the most commonly used applications in schools and offices. In schools, students and teachers alike uses this powerful and user-friendly program for lectures, reports, seminars and other academic-related classroom activities. In offices, employees, managers and employers use this visual aid tool for their reports and other work-related activities. But despite the popularity of the application, there came a number of criticisms about the program.  One of these criticisms is “Death by PowerPoint.”

You may have heard of the phrase, “Death by PowerPoint,” but in actuality, no person died from watching or listening to a presentation. This term refers to the poor use of the program, which results in ineffective or total failure of conveying the desired information or message across a group of audience. The audience may exhibit total boredom or fatigue when listening and watching Powerpoint presentations. If one looks at the audience listening and watching a presentation, they seem like dead people. It is better not to discuss all aspects why this powerful tool could cause “death,” but it would be useful to tackle some pointers or tips that would fight “Death by PowerPoint.”

First, when creating slides, the user should avoid placing all the content of a report into the slide. This mistake causes information overload. The user should remember that the presentation is just there to guide the audience to report. As a guide, it should only contain the important points that should be written as brief as possible. This way, the user could avoid information overload.

Second, when creating slides, the user should make sure that the presentation is readable by the audience. He should take into consideration the size of the monitor on which the presentation will be shown. The user should use font size and type that would be very visible to the audience, even from afar. Using bold fonts would be advisable.

Third, the user should avoid using different templates, backgrounds and transitions in a presentation. The user should also avoid using too much graphics. They would divert the attention of the audience away from the report.

Fourth, the reporter should have full knowledge of the content of the report. The presentation aids the reporter, not the other way around. If the reporter fails to master the content of the report, he seems to be just basing his report on what is show on the presentation slides.

Related Post: Advantages For Educators In Using Powerpoint Presentations