Presentation expert Dave Paradi of PowerPointLifeguard.com says that organizations can save millions of dollars a year if they stop wasting time and money with annoying presentations.
(PRWEB) October 14, 2005 -- Microsoft estimates that over 30 million PowerPoint presentations are done each day and a recent survey suggests that many of these presentations annoy instead of inform. When a presentation does not clearly communicate, the cost of people’s wasted time and the rework that results adds up to tens of millions of dollars annually. “The sad part is that most of this wasted money can be recovered by organizations if they would invest in some basic education for their staff” says Dave Paradi, the author of the survey.
The online survey of 688 presentation audience members found the top annoying aspects of PowerPoint presentations were:
1. The speaker reading the slides to the audience
2. Text so small the audience couldn't read it
3. Slides that were hard to see because of color choice
4. Full sentences used for text instead of bullet points
Dave Paradi, the self-proclaimed PowerPoint Lifeguard, repeated his survey of 2003 and was disappointed to see not much had changed: “The top four responses were the same as two years ago, suggesting presenters are not getting much better at clearly communicating ideas during presentations.”
Respondents also added written comments that highlighted other areas of concern, such as presenters who did not know how to use the equipment very well, inconsistent design and overuse of “entertaining” features of the software.
Paradi suggests presenters focus on three things that will help them communicate more clearly when using PowerPoint:
1. Prepare a simple slide design with contrasting colors and clear fonts.
2. Simplify the content of their slides.
3. Prepare themselves for the presentation.
Paradi concludes that “If you keep the audience as the central focus of your presentation, with a goal to clearly communicate with them, you can greatly improve your PowerPoint presentations.”
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