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Bringing the Power of Design to Your PowerPoint Presentation

2020.12.14

Is PowerPoint just a ‘user-friendly’ software for presenting information?  Actually, it’s much more: it’s a design tool. At a basic level, the PowerPoint software menu offers choices for putting together slides that are organized into a slideshow presentation. But understanding PowerPoint as a design tool gives you practice combining speaking, writing, images, color, and spatial organization. Designing is learning how each of these different forms of meaning come together to communicate. Perhaps the most important idea of designing is collaboration (co = ‘together’ and labor = ‘work’). Design is powerful when each part contributes to the overall meaning.  

 

So what are the essential parts of a PowerPoint presentation? What does each part contribute?

 

Message

There is no PowerPoint presentation without a message. A powerful presentation starts with an engaging topic and ideas that you want to convey. Designing a PowerPoint presentation starts with asking the question: “What’s my presentation about?” and “What’s my message, and what’s special about it?” The next step in designing the message is to gather information, develop new ideas and questions, and begin to organize that information and ideas. Some of the messages will be in spoken words, some in written words and some in images, and other visual meanings. 

 

Presenter 

The presenter, of course, is the central component of the presentation. There is no message without a messenger. The presenter has more work to do than just ‘talk’ to the audience: interacting is the key to real communication. Designing for the audience will include the choice of words, intonation, eye contact, and gestures, all working together. The presenter also coordinates the slides on the screen and has the power to control the focus and pace of the presentation.


Screen 

The PowerPoint screen works to display writing, images, charts, video clips, and other forms of information on the screen. This makes it very different from other kinds of face-to-face communication. Usually, the most important part of the message is what the presenter is saying. But at times the most important part of the message could be what the audience is seeing on screen and, at that time, the speaker has a supportive role. Throughout the presentation, the screen and the presenter work collaboratively.

 

The Audience

Designing a PowerPoint presentation means creating it for a real audience. Making a PowerPoint presentation just for yourself wouldn’t make sense, would it? It is the audience that makes designing purposeful. The audience shaped the message of the presentation. When designing your PowerPoint presentation, ask yourself these questions: “How much does this particular audience know?” “What information do I need to include and what information should I leave out?” “How can I show the audience that my message is worth their time and attention?”  And most importantly, “What design elements can I use to clearly convey my message to this audience?”

 

Photo Credit: Austin Distel @unsplash.com


Blog Quiz

 

Q1. In paragraph 1, what does the word ‘collaboration’ mean?

a. To collect information. 

b. To design a presentation. 

c. To work together.  


Q2. Which of the following is NOT essential in a presentation? 

a. Eye contact

b. Intonation 

c. A sense of humor 

 

Q3. According to the blog, why is consideration of the audience important? 

a. It will help you decide what to wear.

b. It will help you design an engaging presentation.

c. You will know when to stop talking.  

 

 

 

 

Scroll down ↓ for the answers to the quiz.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quiz Answers

Q1. c

Q2. c 

Q3. b

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