Now that computers are standard in business and are used for presentations, in schools and other settings as well. However, there are certain things that should be thoguht of and certain things that should be avoided during a presentation because they look bad and cause people to be uninterested in what you are presenting. These apply to both Microsoft Office’s Powerpoint as well as iWork’s Keynote software, and any other presentation software, it is just theories for computer slide shows.
- Don’t Over Use Transitions/Effect
Although there are plenty of slide transitions and special effects that you could put into your slideshow, they should be used sparingly because they look extremely unprofessional and get annoying after a while. Only use them when you need to emphasize a point and make sure you do not use an effect each slide or item.
- Limit your Words
When you use a slideshow, it is meant to accompany your presentation and not to have every word you plan to say. Just write key points or words on the slide and say everything else.
- Make sure you have a Good Color Scheme
When giving a presentation, you need to make sure that you the background colors of the slide and the font text don’t clash with each other and that the words are easily read. Also, make sure you keep your colr theme consistent.
- Never use Pictures as backgrounds
Pictures are great and should be used in any good presentation, but never have words over pictures because it is near impossible to read and looks horrible. Backgrounds are best left to either a solid color or a slight gradient, as long as it works with the text color.
- Don’t open your presentation From Your Email
Never, ever open your presentation file from an email, that makes you appear to be unprepared and wastes time that should be spent giving your presentation. Use a thumb drive so you can just insert the drive into the USB port and open it up.
- Make Sure Elements don’t overlap
Unless you are going for a collage appearance, the elements in you slide show should never overlap and instead or the presentation will look sloppy and will distract the viewers from the point of the presentation.
- Never use a Plain White Background
Good Powerpoint presentations should have some kind of a background color but, never make it plain white because it will cause the viewers to loose interest in the topic.
- Never end on content
When you are about to end make sure you don’t go from your final content side to the black end of show screen. You should either have a summary slide to wrap up your presentation or you could simpily have a slide that says “The End” so it doesn’t just cut out to black.
