Summarizing information in presentation design
Presentation design that is poor. We’ve all had to endure them. We’ve all probably given either one or two.
You understand the type: presentations that are twice as lengthy as they need to be, with slides jam-packed with text and no graphics.
How can you avoid making these common presentation blunders while creating your next presentation for your team, class, or clients?
- Choose one main point to focus your presentation design on. But unlike white paper, essay or report, you won’t be able to cover a lot of ground in a single presentation.
Instead, decide on a single primary point that you want to convey to your audience. Then, based on that central theme, construct your presentation.You may guarantee that everything you include in your presentation supports the presentation’s purpose by defining that essential message. An excellent presentation informs you precisely what you’ll learn (the key message), then dives straight into the details (the supporting information). Build your presentation design around a single core point to ensure that it is clear, succinct, effective, and simple to follow.
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Make a solid presentation outline to help you stay on track.
Consider your outline to be a road map for your speech. Making a good presentation outline right early can help you ensure that you cover all of the important elements.Consider the following example of a presentation outline:
- greetings and introductions
- The value proposition and the vision
- Financial gain
- Flow of funds
- Your financial commitment
- Thank you for your time and consideration, as well as your questions
All of these are topics that we know we’ll need to discuss throughout the presentation design.
When it comes to designing the actual presentation design, having a presentation outline makes it much easier to communicate openly. You may even make a separate slide with your presentation plan so that your audience can understand what to anticipate.
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Remove any material that contradicts the main theme.
Then, using that essential message, figure out what doesn’t pertain in the presentation.Attempt to remove everything that isn’t directly related to the issue at hand, as well as anything that is even somewhat redundant. Remove any material that isn’t absolutely necessary for comprehending the main point.
You may change dull, text-heavy presentation designs by removing these additional elements. Here’s a simple guide to assist you eliminate any unnecessary information:
Eliminate:
- Descriptions in great detail
- Information about the background
- Trivia
- Statements that are redundant
- Common knowledge explanations
Keep:
- Facts and numbers that persuade
- Examples to give you an idea
- Quotes that have an impact
This step may seem self-evident, but it’s possible to get swept up with unnecessary information when presenting on a topic you’re enthusiastic about. Clarity is crucial, especially if you’re giving a virtual presentation rather than a live one.
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Use text to emphasise rather than reiterate what you’re saying; your audience should be able to deduce the meaning of your slides in less than 6 seconds.
- Because your viewers will read the content you put on each slide, you must restrict the amount of content on each slide to a bare minimum. The content of your presentation should reinforce what you’re saying while being unobtrusive. Don’t ever write out what you’re about to say out loud word for word. Avoid the temptation to jam text into your presentations if you rely on text to recall particular topics. Instead, make use of a tool to emphasize key areas. Text must only be utilised to emphasise what you’re expressing on the actual slides. By removing adjectives and articles (such as “the” and “a”) from large paragraphs, you may turn them into concise bulleted lists or assertions. Make a point of highlighting quotes and key numbers on each presentation.
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Make each slide of your presentation design have one significant takeaway.
When excessive information is given on a particular slide, the audience becomes frustrated.
Spread out your material to highlight one main takeaway each slide to avoid overwhelming your viewers with too much information.
You may direct your audience’s focus to the issue at hand by restricting each slide to a single clear sentence. Pick out the most important message of whatever you’re discussing and explain it within a few words. This helps to keep the visuals at the forefront of the slide. By using content in this manner, to simply mention a single fact each slide, is a quite certain method to make your presentation stand out.
Alternatively, select a key fact that you really want to stay in your viewers’ heads and make it the slide’s visual focal point. This may result in a slide deck with a large number of slides. But that is perfectly OK!
Several experts are under pressure from their bosses to prepare presentations with a certain amount of slides (generally as few as 10-15 slides for a presentation of 30-minutes)
Get in touch with the experts at EZ if you need more information and expert intel on presentations and presentation design at any time of the day!
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You may have as many slides as you like provided each one conveys a single point. This is particularly essential if you’re doing a presentation on your company or a product. You really need to captivate, not bore, your audience.
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Use graphics to draw attention to the most important point of each presentation.
Visuals that highlight the key message on each presentation are just as essential as having one significant takeaway each slide. Visuals that are one-of-a-kind will assist your messaging stick in people’s minds. By organising and integration of information into visual a framework such as timelines, you may add visualisations. Alternatively, basic concepts might be represented with icons. The use of the same hue for each symbol helps to generate a professional appearance.
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Using scaffolding slides for orienting and engaging your audience.
Audiences might easily become disoriented during extended presentations, especially if there are a lot of slides. When audiences get disoriented, they lose interest.
You may use something I call scaffolding slides to assist refocus your audience every now and again. Scaffolding slides occur at the beginning and conclusion of key portions of a presentation.The agenda slide is the most important scaffolding slide, and it should come directly post the introduction or header slide. It summarises the presentation’s main points.
You should repeat the agenda at the start of each segment, but emphasise the applicable section title. This helps keep listeners anchored and interested by giving them the impression that you’re progressing through the presentation.
You may also accomplish a similar impact by marking your parts and displaying that number on each slide. Alternatively, add a progress bar to the bottom of each slide to show how far you’ve progressed in your presentation. Just ensure it doesn’t detract from the slides’ core material.
