It would be easy (and fun!) to discuss PowerPoint (PPT) culture in general: how it ruins meetings, wastes time, confuses audiences, and is a general haven for bad design and writing. But instead, we will use this opportunity to discuss something useful. We will review design techniques that generally meet with approval and praise. We will also review why these techniques are actually quite bad and what you can do to fix them.
Note: The ideas discussed below may only be relevant if you have the freedom to design your PowerPoint slides. If your company has an official template, then this article may help you to understand why the template looks the way it does, and perhaps what you can do about it.
1. Huge Headers
Create a header across the top of the slide that is roughly 1.5 inches tall (FYI: the slide is 7.5 inches tall). Fill the header with a company brand color, or a shade of blue (everyone defaults to blue). Set the header text to 36 points, which will just barely allow two rows of large text for those very long slide titles.
Why They Like It
Executives tend to review their draft slides on paper or on their computer, but not in a meeting room with the slides projected on the wall. Thus, they worry that no one will be able to read the title unless it is as large as physically possible, forgetting that (1) normal printed text is readable at 12 pt and (2) projected text can be up to 8 inches tall and legible from the far end of the room.
Why They Shouldn’t Like It
Your 1.5 inch header is consuming 20% of your slide real estate, and all it conveys are uninformative terms like “Agenda” and “Background.” This space could be better used to convey the actual slide content.
Suggestions
Review draft slides with executives in the meeting room with a projector so they can see how big their “big” words really are.
2. Large Logos
Insert the company logo in the upper left corner of the slide, and make it as tall as the header area (1.5 inches or so). If the logo is available in full-color, use it. If the logo has a version that also includes the company’s full name, use it!
Why They Like It
Marketing folks believe that repetition is the key to success. The more exposure your company name and logo gets, the better chance you have of being remembered and closing that deal. Including a large company logo (and name) on every slide is a “subtle” form of this repetition.
Why They Shouldn’t Like It
First, to echo Item 1, this is a waste of slide real estate that could be better spent actually explaining your ideas or products. Second, repetition is not a solid strategy. Memorable TV commercials or print advertisements have strong, clear visuals that effectively illustrate the product in some way. And most companies are in the business of selling products, not themselves.
Suggestion
Obtain slides from a rival company (possibly from their Web site or from a presentation at a conference) and show your executives how your competitors use their logos. Ahem, use slides that illustrate improvements, not the status quo.
3. Fancy Footers
Insert a footer across the bottom of the slide that is roughly 0.5 inches tall. Employ gradients (or better yet, Photoshop) to create an artistically dynamic look with swooshes and arcs, or high-tech boxes and lines.
Why They Like It
A pretty footer keeps your slide from looking stale and drab, especially down at the bottom where your boring page numbers and legal disclaimers tend to hang out.
Why They Shouldn’t Like It
Just like the header, this is a waste of space. While you definitely need those disclaimers and numbers and dates, inserting unnecessary graphics in your template will just make your file bigger and subtract from your content area.
Suggestion
Casually mention to your executives that many of your company’s “boilerplate” slides and standard graphics are very large and will overlap or collide with the footer. (This suggestion also works on those big headers.)
4. Washed Out Watermarks
Insert a very large version of your company logo in the center of the slide and fade it to a subtle shade of gray to use as a watermark on all slides.
Why They Like It
Just like that logo in the corner, your marketing team is hoping the power of subliminal suggestion will convince your customers that you’re the only game in town.
Why They Shouldn’t Like It
Just like that fancy footer, this is an unnecessary graphic that will make your PPT file bigger than it needs to be. Also, it is almost guaranteed that the watermark will make some slides hard to read both on screen and on paper as it travels to different screens or printers.
Suggestion
Show the watermarked slides to the executive on different monitors, projectors, and print-outs to demonstrate how the watermark conflicts with the content.
5. Too Much Text
As you create your slides, be sure to write out your bullet points using complete phrases (but not complete sentences!) and use sub-bullets liberally to list examples. Lots of them. Especially if they sound impressive, like names of experts, chemicals, hardware designations, or contract partners.
Why They Like It
Executives demonstrate a general concern that the people at their meetings will not understand the slide content unless it is mostly spelled out for them. This is particularly true of speakers who are not confident leading a meeting, or who have low expectations of their audience.
Why They Shouldn’t Like It
Modern audiences live in a “screen” culture and will instantly start reading ahead of the speaker (because we can read faster than they can talk). Also, weak presenters tend to fall into the habit of simply reading the text on the slide, which is particularly bad when the text is not in complete sentences and the speaker starts rambling to fill in the blanks.
Suggestion
When possible, turn those phrases into clear sentences. If asked why you did that, say that this will make the slide a better “take away” so the audience members can better read the material by themselves after the meeting (because you will probably be printing them out, or emailing them to the group).
6. Annoying Art and Animations
After you have written your slides, go back through and add a piece of clip art or animation to each slide. If possible, make the art relevant to the text (a rocket ship can symbolize zooming sales!), but if not, just insert something generic, such as pictures of “office people” who seem to be “working.”
Why They Like It
Similar to the fancy footer, art and animations turn a boring slide into an exciting piece of presentation “content.” They also give the presenter something to point to and make amusing remarks about.
Why They Shouldn’t Like It
Similar to the fancy footer, art and animation make your PPT file much larger (read: harder to email or print). Also, these dancing distractions do not add content to the presentation, nor are they helpful or explanatory illustrations. And sometimes, they don’t work properly as they travel to different computers.
Suggestion
Find better illustrations! Use actual photographs of your staff or product. Take screenshots of your software. Create charts and graphs to illustrate company growth over time. It will take a little more time and effort, but these “content-heavy” graphics will be used more than once because they are (surprise!) actually useful. And if that isn’t possible, point out to your executive that the file is getting too large to email to the client/partner/director on vacation in France.
The Final Product
By giving executives what they want, we end up with a final product like this:
Look familiar? Now just ask yourself: Does this slide really help the audience to understand the speaker’s point?
Conclusion
Hopefully, this overview of PowerPoint design has given you some insight into why things are done the way they are done, and what you can do to manage presentation design weaknesses and help your company to produce better presentations in the future. Remember, PowerPoint is just a tool. Whether it makes your working life better or worse is simply a matter of how you use it.
PowerPoint links:
- PowerPoint Home Page (Microsoft)
- Learning to Love PowerPoint (Wired)
- PowerPoint is Evil (Wired)
- Death by PowerPoint (a presentation)
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