Best practices for presentation design
Preparation
- Rehearse your presentation. review your script and notes.
- Test the technology, equipment, or software to be used during your presentation before the big day!
- Determine your audience's level of experience and expectations.
Delivery
- Get your audience involved and connected with what you are saying.
- Use visuals to emphasize or highlight certain points, but never make your visuals overtake your presentation or distract your audience.
- Distribute handouts at the beginning of the presentation to provide your audience with information that would be hard to decipher from a slideshow.
- In case of technical difficulties or other problems, state your appreciation for the audience's patience and cooperation.
- Use the notes section in PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Presentation to keep track of what you want to say during your presentation while keeping your slides clean, concise, and to the point!
Design
- Use light text on a dark background, or vice versa.
- Highlight only the most important information on your slides. No more than 6 words a line or 6 lines a slide.
Content
- Credit all copyrighted material that you use in your presentation, including still images, video, and music.
