In most cases (especially in work settings), no one who asks you a question would like a story in response, they just want an answer or a solution to a problem. It falls on you to make that solution interesting, short, and clear.
When it comes to presentations, you have the opportunity to showcase not just how creative you can be, but also how valuable you are as a resource that can offer quick and reliable messages that address a certain issue or topic. Remember: a presentation full of long bullet points and condensed text is so 2000s.
So what’s the purpose of a presentation in 2024? It’s not to walk an audience through a full process on how a certain conclusion is made (that’s what reports are for), a presentation should focus solely on the conclusion alone, not the journey.
Keep it short
Some people swear by the 10-20-30 rule when it comes to presentations, which states that a presentation should contain at most 10 slides, last at most 20 minutes, and contain no font smaller than 30 points.
Some of my favorite slides only contain a single word, and I frame my talking points for that slide around that. One word is more than capable of being the jump-off point you need to talk about a single idea (no slide should ever contain more than one idea anyway).
So how do you trim the fat?
Now back to the real world, sometimes you need to display more text. One approach would be to supplement your text with graphs, diagrams, or other visuals. When this is not possible, do your best to add one or two lines of text (and they don’t necessarily need to be complete sentences). Remember, presentations are about how you show and tell, not about the slides.
Keep it simple
The goal of a presentation is to shed some light on a certain issue or share a message, it isn’t to recite an essay. I always operate under the assumption that the audience wants to be anywhere but the meeting room, anyone would rather be anywhere other than listening to a presenter talk about work for any extended length of time. Which is why keeping the message clear, simple, and concise is key here, it also makes it memorable.
One single idea per slide is king here, making sure to limit the number of different ideas as much as possible in a presentation. If you feel the urge to diverge or tell a side-story that has no bearing on the goal of the presentation, it should be a different meeting. If a long description or a lot of background information is crucial to your message, leave them out of the presentation and add an appendix or a report and send it in advance so that the audience can read them at their own time.
Keep it sexy
These days attention spans are TikTok short, and people are simply busier and don’t have the time (or will) to read a long descriptive paragraph on a screen, but one thing guaranteed to capture an audience: visuals. Especially effective when not expected, visuals are an extremely potent way to capture an audience. It doesn’t (read: shouldn’t) need be an over-the-top exhibit of graphics and images (remember to keep it simple), but keeping a presentation attractive and eye grabbing can be as simple as using a thought-provoking color, a relevant diagram, or a small symbolic image or icon. As with all skills that matter, keeping presentations appealing is a muscle that needs exercise, with the general consensus among the majority of design experts being less is more. So if you’re ever in doubt on whether or not adding a certain element would improve the design or not, it’s generally a wiser decision to not.
Making an attractive presentation can be intimidating. If you need some personalized advice tailor-made to your specific situation, or if you need help building an entire presentation, feel free to reach out to me directly here.