Do you find it hard to stay awake during a Powerpoint presentation ? Blame it on the person who has put together those Powerpoint slides.
A esearchers has proved that if the presenter is speaking the same words that are written in the slides, that puts too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented.
This may be a worrying alarm for managers, sales people and educators who rely heavily on Powerpoint Presentations - the audience may be absorbing very little information. PowerPoint is proved useless if you just mimic what's on the screen.
The human brain processes and retains more information if it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but not both at the same time.
Microsoft has also suggested users not to "parrot Powerpoint" - you've got to make eye contact with your audience, those people didn't come to see the back of your head.
Presentation guru Garr Reynolds says that the best slides may have no text at all - the slides are meant to support the narration of the speaker, not make the speaker superfluous.
Reader Comments
Another point from my own experience to make it more effective
1) Ask people few queries in 2 or 3 slides - I take that data as the survey data, also I try to remember few names from the people that I can address and take example with names. As Mr Rajesh said or As Kavita said.
2) Putting numbers to the slides and keeping slides as less as possible. People are ready to tolerate a 3 hr based 15 slide than a 2 hr based 50 slides. Number game really works.
3) Also recapitulating after every 20 mins or 30 mins (if you are to present a long PPT). I always prefer a PPT for 15 mins and Q&A for another 45 mins, may be a 1:3 ratio.
AjiNIMC
Written on 8/4/07 7:10 AM
My previous boss had a sort of 10-20-30 rule of powerpoint presentation. No more than 10 slides, no more than 20 minutes of blah blah and if you use any text on slide then font shouldn't be less than size 30.
It was difficult to digest in the beginning but it turned out very good at the end.
Written on 9/4/07 11:21 PM