This document provides tips for designing effective PowerPoint presentations with concise slides. It recommends using engaging visuals, keeping text short and to the point, employing color strategically, and stating main ideas verbally rather than on slides. Bulleted lists should follow the six item rule and keep lines under six words. Media should be embedded purposefully and animated text used sparingly. SmartArt can help visualize relationships between main points if kept relatively simple. The overall goals are to focus on the audience and avoid overcrowding slides with text.

1. This is a presentation
about presentations
Alternately titled: #GettingMetaWithIt
Alternatively, alternatively titled: Slides on Slides on Slides
Alternatively, alternatively, alternatively titled: Michelle, we get it.

2. — Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google
“
PowerPoint doesn’t kill meetings.
People kill meetings. But using
PowerPoint is like having a loaded
AK-47 on the table: you can do
very bad things with it.

3. How to design effective slides
● The first rule of creating a great powerpoint (and great presentation) is make sure
you’re appropriately using your text, font, color and use of space on the page
● You don’t want your slides to be drowning in bulleted lists with information that would be
much better suited spoken aloud than written on a slide
● Having too much information on your slide often causes the number one issue of
PowerPoint presentations, which is speaking to your slides instead of the audience
● Having a slide that is crowded with lists and information is a sure-fire way to lose the
attention of your audience
● Additionally, when creating a powerpoint slide, you want a strategic use of font and color
● Having “fun” text styles, bright text colors, or too many contrasting variables is another
great example of how your PowerPoint design can detract from the main idea of your
presentation
● When creating a PowerPoint presentation, each slide should have the main ideas, an eye-
catching visual, and text and color uses that emphasize your point, not detract from it.

4. What Makes a Good Presentation?
● Engaging visuals
● Short, sweet and to the point
● Comfortable use of color
● Key words on slide, main ideas out loud

5. (This is not the Devil’s work.)

6. Bullet List Best Practices
● Pay attention to the 6 rule
● Bullets help organize your thoughts
● Lines should stay within 6 words
● Slides should stay within 6 lines
● Keep your slides clear and concise
● These list provide key takeaways

7. Use Serif Fonts for Headlines
● Use sans-serif fonts
for the body of text
● Serif fonts for large
bodies of text is
crowded and hard
to read

8. Themes, Layout and Color
● Choose simple, clean theme
● Customization is your friend
● Purposeful use of color
● Let the content speak for itself

9. Embedding Media
● Embed videos directly
● Keep length less than 2 minutes
● Only use animated text if relevant
● Eliminate use of Word Art
● Utilize PowerPoint SmartArt

10. ● Use SmartArt to organize
intricate visuals of your
main points and show
relationships between main
ideas
● Keep levels to 5-6 main
points to keep focus clear
and concise
● Coordinate colors to the
overall color scheme of
your presentation

11. More Resources About Presentations
● 14 PowerPoint Presentation Tips to Make Your PPT
Designs More Effective - Hubspot
● Feng Shui Your Microsoft Word Tables - Cult of
Pedagogy
Additional Tools
● Prezi