How to Prepare Slides for a Successful Online Event
By means of a quick Google search, you can find many good resources with tips on preparing and delivering great PowerPoint presentations. A good example is this site, where Garr Reynolds discusses slide tips and presentation basics. Delivering presentations through online media is an easy and effective way to get your message out to a broad audience. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when preparing for your next web conference or webcast event.
Know Your Medium
Presenting a PowerPoint presentation through a web event is quite different from hooking your laptop up to a large presentation screen directly. In general, your uploaded slides are reduced in size to fit within the application window, and are often converted to static image files, like JPEG. This will result in:
1) Smaller slides, which may be difficult to read if not prepared with care; and
2) The elimination of customized builds or animations embedded in the slides
You can take following steps to maximize the legibility of your presentation and communicate more effectively:
-
Be sure your presentation has a 4:3 aspect ratio (the default is 10" x7.5")
-
Use larger type than you normally would
-
Use simpler design elements and solid color blocks than you normally would
-
Break out animations into separate slides (animations must be expressed as individual slides in a sequence)
-
View your slides in PowerPoint at 40-60%. This will simulate your viewers' experience.
Things to Avoid
As a general rule of thumb, it is best to avoid the following when preparing slides for an online event:
-
Small type (17 point font and smaller is too small)
-
Embellished type (shadows, bevels or special effects)
-
Textured or gradient backgrounds
-
Sounds, music or voice narration
-
Animations & slide transitions
-
Embedded Excel files, audio, video or flash
For truly successful online presentations, keep your slides simple, consistent and clean, use stardard fonts (Sans-Serif fonts recommended), and select colors that are bold and that reflect your corporate identity. And remember that with any presentation, your slides should embellish your speech. By limiting the amount of information on each slide, the audience will be able to focus more on what you're saying than trying to read what's on that slide. Happy presenting!
Irene Psimenatos is the Web Collaboration Product Manager at ACT Conferencing (irene.psimenatos@canada.acttel.com)
Technorati Profile