5 Rules to Make Your PowerPointPresentation Great

Grab your audience’s attention and keep them engaged with well-planned, dynamic rapid e-Learning courses and presentations in Snap! by Lectora. Having created over a quarter of a million presentations, Nancy Duarte is quite the expert and offers her 5 Rules for Creating Great Presentationscontaining excellent ways to make your PowerPoint presentations great. These 5 rules, along with some snazzy Snap! by Lectora tips, provide the perfect platform for creating engaging presentations and rapid e-Learning courses and training.

RULE #1. Treat Your Audience as King

Parallel your goals and objectives with the audience’s needs. Blend the information that you want them to know with the information they want to know to attract more interest. Guide your audience with the proper organization of information to create a logical flow. You can also use “branching” to create different experiences for your learner that can provide better understanding and retention.

• TIP: Snap! by Lectora enables you to tailor your presentations to your audience by creating non-linear courses with branching. Easily create non-linear courses and select paths for your learners to navigate based on your choices. For example, depending on your audience’s skill level, performance on a quiz or any other criteria you designate, your learner will continue on the path that you choose in your Snap! by Lectora presentation.
• TIP: Check out Customize Presentations with Branching Options in Snap! by Lectora 1.1 for a quick branching explanation and tutorial.

RULE #2. Spread Ideas and Move PeopleDon’t simply present your ideas; Make them interactive and provocative. Mere words on slides do not have nearly the same impact as engaging audiences with stimulating images, powerful Flash content and “thought-provoking” video. Snap! by Lectora makes it a cinch to add interactivity to your presentations and courses:

• TIP: One click in the Snap! by Lectora ribbon instantly adds Flash content to excite and engage your learners
• TIP: Another button adds a YouTube video directly in your presentation that your audience can watch without leaving your course

RULE #3. Help Them See What You’re SayingAs Duarte points out, half of the learners in our audience are visual thinkers and the other half are verbal thinkers. Content should equally cater to both with streamlined designs and graphics as well as efforts to engage both types of learners. While Flash content is a sure bet to stimulate our visual learners, adding audio components not only captures our verbal thinkers, but creates an all-around dynamic experience for any style of learning. Here are some tips for the audio learners:

• TIP: Easily import or record your own audio in Snap! by Lectora to play during your presentation and synch it up with your slides
• TIP: Better yet, quickly record a video narration in Snap! by Lectora to add a personal touch and enable your audience to both hear and see you as they navigate through your presentation or course

RULE #4. Practice Design, Not DecorationNinety percent of the creative process should be destructive, where the designer creates a slide and slowly peels away what is not necessary, according to Duarte. Keep this simplicity in mind when conveying your points and ideas. Arranging your information is key – stay away from the dreaded bullets and employ creative ways to display your points.

• TIP: See Give the Bullets in Your PowerPoint Presentations the Boot for some inspiration and alternatives to boring lists and bullets.

RULE #5. Cultivate Healthy Relationships with Your Slides – and Your Audience Including massive amounts of text on your slides to cram in all of your information is not productive for learning and can quickly bore and prevent learners from fully diving in and retaining your valuable information.

• TIP: Use the “Add Attachment” button in Snap! by Lectora to easily add additional information to your presentations to provide your audience and learners with all of the resources they need – without scaring them off. The attachment remains on a side panel of the presentation and out of the way until your learners choose to view it.
• TIP: Create a quick quiz or survey in Snap! by Lectora to both understand and assess your audience.

Captivating audiences with presentations is not hard – it just takes a little thinking outside of the box and a boost from tools like Snap! by Lectora. This e-Learning software for PowerPoint presentations quickly, easily and affordably transforms your mundane presentations into marvelous, engaging and interactive creations.