Best Practices for designing PowerPoint presentations presented by ...

Best Practices for designing  PowerPoint presentations presented by: Nicole Marcisz Instructional Designer

RHCHP Distance Education 11/2009

Agenda

–Why use PPT at all? Pros/cons –12 ‘good design’ best practices

Death by PowerPoint “Death by PowerPoint” by Don McMillian http://www.donmcmillan.com/

Pros/Cons  Pros • Enhance interest,  clarity and retention • Illustrate concepts • Reinforce content

Cons • Deriving meaning  from bullet points  can be challenging • Dependence on  technology • Students might not  take notes

What is the goal? • To keep your learners awake and attentive • To engage your learners with the content • And we want our learners to retain the  content so they may utilize it later in their  profession.

BEST PRACTICES FOR  GOOD DESIGN

Best Practices 1. Choosing a theme • Keep it simple • Choose something on a white or light  background • Avoid flashy designs or busy colors

Best Practices 2. Fonts • • • •

Limit font variety Make sure it is large enough to read Use sans serif fonts (like this one) DO NOT TYPE IN ALL CAPS.

Best Practices 3. Color • Use sparingly • Make sure your text is legible. • Don’t use color for emphasis (use bold instead).

Best Practices 4. Text/Content • Keep text on one slide to a minimum • Explain visuals/graphics • Use the notes area of a PPT to explain your bullets. • Consider narrating your PPT with Presenter.

Best Practices 5. Images/graphics •

• • • •

Illustrate concepts through visuals such as: – Maps, tables, diagrams, flow charts, or graphs Only use visuals that support your content Use the notes to explain the visuals. Obey copyright laws, site your source. Use quality visuals

Best Practices 6. Length  • Keep it as short as you possibly can • Chunk your content • Think about attention span- Are you still awake? – This leads us to our next best practice good design characteristic….

– What do you think that might be?

Best Practices 7. Interaction • Break up content with questions for live audience or reflection (online students) • Include a quiz question before your next slide. • Include a brief quiz at the end of the presentation

Best Practices 8. Notes • Make your PPT available for printing. • Include notes (generate PDF with notes)

Best Practices 9. Errors • Mistakes happen especially when you are in a hurry…But don’t forget to: • Do a spell check • Check your facts • Have another person/colleague look at it before you go live.

Best Practices 10. Animations/transitions

• Just don’t do it. • It detracts from content • It can get very busy, very quickly

Best Practices 11. Narration • Consider adding narration to your  presentation • Increases interest, retention, and  understanding (if done properly) • Adobe Presenter is an add‐in for PPT

Best Practices and 12. Use of Video  • • • •

I have some resources for embedding video Use sparingly If possible include the link of where the video can be found Keep copyright laws in mind. Site your sources.

Provide transcripts or closed captioning.

Questions/Comments? • For more resources check out my delicious  links. – http://delicious.com/niksmarks/powerpoint – http://delicious.com/niksmarks/presentations

Thanks! Nicole Marcisz [email protected]

Photo by: Nicole Marcisz Antelope Slot Canyon