‘Death by Powerpoint.’ You all know the phrase. You probably also know the feeling. I know I do. I’ve spent so much time at events. There are many different Powerpoint mistakes you can make, some of them deadlier than others. Here’s my list of the ones to avoid.
1. Too many slides
As a general rule, people overestimate how much information the audience can cope with, and underestimate the time it takes to present the information. You end up with 1000 slides and 10 minutes to deliver them. OK, I may be exaggerating slightly, but you get the point.
What happens? The presenter gets through the first 10 jam-packed slides and the clock flashes. They come to a rapid stop, sometimes before reaching their main point. The audience takes away nothing.
2. Not rehearsing
Is failure to rehearse a Powerpoint mistake or a presentation mistake? I’m not sure, but (unless you’re a natural presenter who knows your stuff backwards) it has a huge effect on how well you present. Practising in advance helps you know your material and builds your confidence. It also makes it less likely you’ll end up with way too many slides!
Tips:
- Practise in front of a mirror.
- Practise without a script (or with just key points rather than a full script).
3. Putting all your content on the slides
This is one of the most painful Powerpoint mistakes, and it’s sadly all too common.
If everything you’re going to say is on the screen, no one needs to look at you or listen to you. They can just read the screen. You’d be better off with just a headshot of you, or a single image representing your main point.
4. Using too many words on slides
The best presentations I’ve seen are mostly images. Some have a very small number of words, usually ones full of impact and emotion.
That’s what gets a reaction from the audience. That’s what gets remembered.
As Maya Angelou famously said, ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’
Tips:
- Use the speaker notes section of Powerpoint for the detail of what you’ll say. And talk to the AV provider to make sure the speaker notes will be visible for you where you’re presenting. That way you have all the notes you need, but you don’t share them with your audience.
- Limit yourself to 6 bullet points per slide.
- If you have a table of information, the maximum size is 3 columns by 2 rows, or 2 rows by 3 columns.
5. Overcomplicated graphs and diagrams
In some situations, you can’t get away with bullet points or a concise 3×2 table. Finance industry events are one example. Sometimes, you simply need the numbers.
But even when you need the numbers, a massive table is a bad idea.
Instead, use a graph or chart. When you create that chart, make sure the point you’re trying to get across is immediately obvious. If you have to explain, you’ll lose the audience.
You may want to show all the data, then focus in one specific area, or several different areas one after the other. It’s tempting to use a laser pointer and direct people to the relevant area. That’s another bad idea. People end up squinting at a small part of the slide trying to read it, instead of listening to you and focusing on your point.
Tip:
- Use Powerpoint’s emphasis animations to direct attention to the points you’re covering one after the other. The ‘Grow/Shrink’ option is a great way to keep audience focus where you want it. Animations can be a little precious, so make sure you test in advance. It’s worth testing on the hardware being used for the presentation to make sure Powerpoint does what you want it to do.
6. Including multiple key points on one slide
You want to make several points. Each one is important. If you just list them all on one slide, it’s like a shopping list. You lose impact.
You also lose your audience. They can read ahead and see what you’re going to be talking about.
Tip:
- Give each point its own slide, possibly with a funny image or something to help drive the message home.
7. Giving an unstructured presentation
For a 5 minute presentation, the structure and flow may not be that important, but if you’re going to be talking for 45 minutes, it helps to give you audience an outline.
Agenda slides and section dividers slides can be really effective. They don’t only give the audience an overview, they help you to organise your ideas as well.
It’s also worth remembering that the serial position effect applies to your Powerpoint presentation as well as to lists. It means people are more likely to remember what comes at the start and at the finish. Many presenters invest time in a great opening, but then tail off at the end of their presentation.
If your presentation finishes strongly, it will feel stronger all round.
A slide with key lessons or takeaways is a great option. If you combine this with an agenda, you fulfil the ancient advice about public speaking: ‘Tell them what you’re going to say; tell them; then tell them what you just said’.
Other options include the traditional ‘Any questions?’ slide; an inspirational quote, or a slide with your contact details, maybe even including a QR code.
Tips:
- If you’re going to play a video as part of your presentation, consider having it in the middle rather than at the start or the end. It changes the pace and makes the entire presentation feel more lively.
- If you have a final slide with your contact details or a QR code, make sure you have it on display long enough for people to grab the information
8. Using Powerpoint transition effects poorly
Some presenters fall into the trap of using transitions to make their presentation more ‘interesting’. The problem is, it doesn’t work like that. You don’t want your audience to admire special effects, you want them to understand and remember your key points.
Transitions can distract attention from your message. They’re available, but that’s not a good reason to use them.
9. Technical Powerpoint mistakes
Up till now, I’ve focused on content and presentation rather than the technicalities of Powerpoint itself.
There are, however, some more technical mistakes which I see again and again. You may have the most fascinating content, organised into a great structure, on well-laid out slides. These technical issues can still trip you up. Here they are:
Getting the slide aspect ratio wrong
This one, for some reason, applies especially to doctors.
That standard slide ratio, since at least the turn of the century, is 16:9. Occasionally there are special widescreen ratios, but 16:9 is the default. Yet at medical conferences we regularly get slides with a 4:3 ratio.
Why does it matter? The 4:3 ratio means you lose a third of the space on the screen. You’re missing out on the opportunity to present clearly, at maximum size.
Embedding videos incorrectly
There are two things to be aware of here.
First, don’t embed a YouTube video with an external link. This makes you dependent on the internet connection. You don’t want to be stuck on stage waiting ten seconds for the video to load. You certainly don’t want to be stuck on stage waiting for twenty seconds and it still doesn’t load!
So download your video in advance and use a local copy.
Secondly, make sure you set the video to play the correct way. In Powerpoint, you have three options:
- The default is ‘in sequence’. This means one click will bring up your slide, including the first frame of the video, and the next click will play it.
- There’s also an ‘automatic’ option. This means the video starts playing as soon as the slide comes up.
- The third option is ‘on click’. Never use this. This option means you need to use a cursor and click on the video itself to make it play. If you’re up on stage with a clicker, you can’t do this. You’ve given up control and the only person who can fix it is your AV technician using the trackpad. There’s no upside, but there is risk of delay and confusion – especially if the AV technician hasn’t had a chance to check your presentation in advance.
Not considering image size
The average phone these days takes a high-quality, high-resolution photo – but your presentation display has a maximum of around 2000 pixels wide and 1000 pixels high. If you ask Powerpoint to show a larger image, it uses processing power to shrink that down at the time of display.
That’s probably OK if you have one image, but what happens with a montage? Or if you’re using shared computers? The whole process slows down and you end up waiting for images to load. Even worse, you think they haven’t loaded, so you click again – and then you end up ahead of where you meant to be.
How do you avoid this? Compress your images in advance. Select any image and use the ‘Compress Pictures’ option on the Picture Format menu. You also have the option to delete any cropped portions of the picture, which saves data and makes loading faster.
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So those are the main Powerpoint mistakes I see in the conferences and events where I provide AV services.
As the AV specialist, I can assist with the technical ones – but I can’t restructure your presentation or reorganise your content. All I can do is share my experience from hundreds of events and encourage you to invest time in your slides and in rehearsing.
One final thing to say about Powerpoint:
AV technicians hate the ‘fade to black’ transition!
You might think it looks stylish and smart.
We think something’s gone wrong with the AV and your presentation has stopped projecting. Even if we know you’ve got the transition in there, there’s that split second of instinctive reaction.
Don’t do it. Please. Pretty please!
