PowerPoint Presentations
Tips for Designing Presentations
Every presentation should have a title slide. Make sure the title relates to the presentation content. Maintain a consistent color scheme throughout the presentation. Keep the background simple, making sure the text can be seen clearly. Remember the 6x6 rule: When creating a PowerPoint slide, you should display a maximum of six words across per bullet point and a maximum of six bullet points down. This encourages and helps you to display the main point and then talk about the point, instead of reading the slide. This also helps the audience to focus on your message and what you are saying rather than the slides on the screen. How many slides should you create? As a general rule, each slide should take 3-5 minutes to deliver. Avoid small text. Text on slides should be no smaller than 24 points. For bulleted text, avoid using a single bullet or more than 5 bullets per slide. Don’t use more than 2 levels of bullets. Use consistent wording in bulleted text. Start each bullet line with the same part of speech. Keep charts simple. The most effective charts are pie charts with three or four slices and column charts with three or four columns. Provide some form of handout so your audience can keep track of the presentation. Your final slide should provide a recommendation or summary.