PowerPoint Do’s & Don’ts
“DO” keep your PowerPoint presentations short, because:
As a passive delivery mechanism, PowerPoint is a training tool 
that entrances viewers, just as television and
movies do. TV has been proven
to slow down human brain waves
and thus our abilities to process,
think and learn. Long, and/or uninterrupted PowerPoint presentations will not only slow
down your trainees responsive-
ness, they might even put them
to sleep!
“DON’T” use PowerPoint for groups of less than 25 people, because:
- It’s impersonal
- It’s not tactile
- It overpowers the room, the trainees and the trainer
“DO” create PowerPoint slides that have more “white space” than content, because
- Having less than 9 words on each slide will keep the trainee’s attention on what you are saying vs. on what they are reading
- Written and visual cues are powerful mnemonics devices
- A picture truly can be worth 1,000 words
“DON’T” use PowerPoint if you want your trainees to really focus on the learning, because:
- You will end up supporting the PowerPoint when the PowerPoint should be supporting the training
- It’s easy to get tangled up stepping around the PowerPoint projector while juggling your notes, remote conttrol and pointer.
- If you get in between the projector and the screen, the people being trained will get irritated. You’ll see the same sort of response that you’d get it you blocke a 6 year old’s view of their favorite TV show.
“DO” ensure that Your PowerPoint presentations are well designed, because:
- If your trainees can’t read the slides, due to small or complex fonts, animation that’s too fast or poor contrast choices, such as yellow type on a green background, the value of the presentation gets lost.
- Overusing animation, clip art or word art distracts trainees from the message you are trying to convey
- Constantly changing or poorly themed backgrounds diminish the value of your training.
“DON’T” use PowerPoint in interactive training situations, because:
- Overhead slides and flip charts do a better job of maintaining a trainee’s attention. You can cover a portion of an overhead slide, or flip or fold a flip chart page to direct your trainees attention to a key piece of material.
- Using Powerpoint in this way is challenging. It requires a trainer to create many extra slides and know their layout well enough to be able to navigate flawlessly to whichever slide contains the few words that their trainees need to see in any given moment. Is it worth the time it takes to do this? And even if it takes the time, will this approach meet your training objectives? We discuss this topic in greater depth in other articles.
And now that we’ve shared some of our
“dos” and “don’ts” that relate to PowerPoint
presentations, please add to this list by
sharing your thoughts. We welcome your
comments!
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[...] learn the best and worst applications of Flipcharts, Whiteboards and Overhead or PowerPoint Slides. PowerPoint Do’s & Don’ts covers the best and wost uses of that popular training tool. Go on to Map, Flow, Chart or [...]