Ten Common PowerPoint Mistakes

If you’ve worked long enough in a corporate setting, you will likely hear the phrase “death by PowerPoint.” Even if you haven’t worked in a corporate setting, you have likely been tortured by at least one PowerPoint presentation. Many of our children were tortured by PowerPoint during the COVID shutdown. I am becoming increasingly less tolerant of bad PowerPoint.?

Before I proceed, a quick caveat: I do not hate PowerPoint for what it is, I hate PowerPoint for what everyone thinks it is. I hate bad PowerPoint design. There is great value in effective use of PowerPoint; regrettably, I’ve rarely seen it used effectively, and, when it was used effectively, it was too effective. Furthermore, when I say “PowerPoint”, I am referring to all slide-based presentation software. Sorry, Microsoft, but that’s what you get for being the big dog. I still love you, even if people abuse your software.

Mistake #1: PowerPoint is Too Easy

PowerPoint (and tools like it) are very easy to use. Too easy. The barrier-to-entry is low, allowing people who have no experience in effective design to throw together a presentation. As such, it has been overused. Most white collar workers have designed at least one PowerPoint presentation, yet most have never had any training in effective presentation design. Because it is easy, it is often the go-to.

Mistake #2: PowerPoint is Just a Pretty Face

Too often we measure quality by superficial standards. Because our presentation looks pretty, we are left with a false sense of quality. Yet, in order to create an effective presentation, one must understand their audience and what it takes to engage the audience. If the goal is to actually convey information, then the designer might need some experience with instructional design.?

Effective presentations should focus first on quality content. What we normally get, however, is pretty text on pretty templates, and the impression that this is somehow enough.

Mistake #3: We Have Lowered Our Standards

As time goes by, we have been beat into submission by horrible presentations. Many of us don’t know how bad they really are. It was bad enough when we had to suffer through presentations projected on a screen in a conference room, now we have to look at them on our computer screens while a remote presenter talks through them. Is this the legacy we’ll leave for our children? Think of the children!

Mistake #4: Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

If a picture says a thousand words, then you might want to give thought to the thousand words it says. So many designers use attention-grabbing pictures that have no relevance to the content. While this might grab attention, it is also filing the audience’s mind with those thousand words, which have nothing to do with what you are trying to say.

Imagine that you are talking to employees about the upcoming recession and you are about to propose mitigations for potential risks. You think it would be funny to use a “Hang in there!” meme of a kitten hanging from a tree branch while a firefighter climbs a ladder. Perhaps flashing this slide quickly will grab attention and wake up a few people who were dozing off. More likely though, it will break their chain of thought. Worse, if that slide remains on the screen while you talk, your audience will be thinking about the kitten. Instead of listening to your proposed austerity measures, they will be considering that poor kitten and the heroism of the firefighter. This situation is even worse if you are presenting remotely and your audience cannot see your face in the camera. Sure, they might hear your words, but they will likely not be listening.

Graphics should be carefully selected such that they support what you are trying to say. Perhaps a picture of the product you are selling. Perhaps a diagram of a complex process that you are explaining. If you slide has complex graphics, you might want to consider subtle use of “animations” to help the audience to focus on one area at a time as a you talk through it.

Mistake #5: People Don’t Know the Difference Between Word and PowerPoint

There is nothing worse than when one uses PowerPoint when they should have used Microsoft Word. I truly am baffled when presenters have hundreds of pages of text materials that they stuff into slides. Why? Why not just leave it as a text document and share it with your audience as a self-paced reading exercise??

A while back I sat through a remote class on computer networking. The teacher had 400 slides, which represented the roughly 400 pages of a networking textbook. These slides each averaged 12 lines of text, something that is called “wall of words.” He then proceeded to talk through every single slide (more on that in a second). I learned very little, and I would have benefited far more from just reading the textbook.

If you are trying to fit more than a few sentences on a slide, you are likely choosing the wrong medium for conveying information.

Mistake #6: Not Saying What the Audience Sees

What was worse than the wall of words in the aforementioned networking class was that the teacher, with his camera off, was not actually saying the words that were on the slide; instead, he was talking about the concept using different words. This led to disparity between what I saw and what I heard. It was impossible for me to read the slide while listening to him at the same time, and vice versa. The only good choice I had was to close my eyes and focus on listening to him. In reality, I simply checked out.

I recently took an asynchronous class on programming. The pre-recorded micro lectures used PowerPoint (or some similar presentation program), and there wasn’t a single slide where the words on the screen matched what the professor (who was not visible) was saying. I’m not suggested a transcript, but when the slides contain long phrases or full sentences, the presenter needs to be very careful. Typos and grammar areas aside, there were issues with topic sequencing as well. My only option as a learner was to pause the video with each new slide, read the slide test, and then resume the video and close my eyes while listening to the professor. However, because most of the the text was not written coherently enough to stand alone, they made very little sense without the context of what the professor was saying. As such, I found the videos to be highly ineffective.

Micro video lessons can be powerful when well-designed, but rarely are they well-designed. Traditional chalkboard lectures are far more effective because students can see the full context of the professor as the concepts are written out and explained on the board.?

If you are going to use text, use it sparingly, perhaps for words that are important to remember. Ideally you would use subtle “animations” to only introduce one new concept at a time.

Mistake #7: Making the Audience Choose Where to Focus Attention

Do you want your audience to focus on you or the slide? If it is a graphic of a complex process, you likely want their focus on the slide. Ensure that the slide is well designed with subtle animation and that you are carefully walking your audience through the slide. If you display a graphic, but then start talking about random stuff, you are taking focus away. On the other hand, if you want to say something very clever, and you need your audience to listen carefully, do not distract them with an interesting slide. For example, if you want to talk about “Leadership” for 5 minutes, simply the word “Leadership” and nothing else on your slide should suffice. You could even just use a blank slide.?

This point is even more important with remote presentations. Any presenter who actually cares about quality should turn on their camera (and ideally have a well-lit face with few distractions in the background) and ensure the audience can see them when it is important for the audience to pay attention to the speaker, not the slide.?

Mistake #8: Ignoring Accessibility

This is a huge topic in itself, but you need to consider the basic goals of any presentation: audience engagement and impact. You cannot have either if you are not considering how accessible the presentation is to the audience. Does you audience have the knowledge they need to understand your presentation? Have you chosen colors and fonts that to mitigate color blindness, dyslexia, and other learning disabilities? Are you putting too many distractions in your slides?

Audience members with auditory disabilities might need captions and could benefit from reading your lips while you speak (i.e., turn on your camera). Please give consideration to this possibility while you are choreographing the presentation and deciding where you want the audience to focus its attention.

It’s important to know that while the topic of accessibility is often focused on those with disabilities, it’s almost always true that by designing for accessibility you are improving the experience and consequent impact for everyone.

Perhaps when considering your audience and potential accessibility issues, you might want to first ask yourself, “Is a slide presentation appropriate for what I’m trying to accomplish?”

Mistake #9: Effectively Achieving the Wrong Goal

A well-designed presentation can be highly effective, but sometimes it is effective for the wrong outcome. You might think the goal is to razzle-dazzle, but what if what you are trying to achieve is thwarted by razzle-dazzle?

I’ve been using PowerPoint since 1990, and I consider myself a power user. In recent years, however, I have started to realize that my effective use of PowerPoint sometimes leads to high impact where I don’t want it.

I feel that I could sell anything using PowerPoint? If you know what you are doing, you can create a mesmerizing presentation that will convince your audience to follow you off a cliff. However, what if the goal of the presentation isn’t to sell something, but instead to encourage open discussion? If you aren’t careful, your presentation can razzle-dazzle so much that you put the audience into a state of hypnosis, keeping them from thinking for themselves.

I remember one key presentation that I put together regarding a major process change that I was trying to sell to stakeholders. At the end I received a round of applause, along with some overly kind words like, “Jake should get paid to be a professional presenter!” The flattery was nice, but what I realized in the days that followed is that I did not give the audience time to fully think through what I was presenting. I did not give time for questions to percolate. I received unanimous support at the end of the presentation, but within a week, support started to crumble. Sure, in my presentation I anticipated and addressed “all” of their questions and concerns, but I had not given them time to digest. For an audience of 50 stakeholders, it was simply impossible to effectively influence all of them for the long term in just 30 minutes. I thought my goal was to “sell” the process; my real goal was to secure buy-in for the process, two very different things.

In order to be more effective, I could have generated a white paper, shared it with the stakeholders, and then gathered with them to discuss concerns. Instead, my approach was that of selling a timeshare.?

Mistake #10: Animating Too Much or Not Enough

Animation doesn’t mean what many think it does in the context of PowerPoint. Animation in this context simply refers to when and how slides and items appear. Does everything appear at once? One item at a time?

Obnoxious animations, especially at the element level, can waste time, appear amateur, and annoy the audience. These animations are often applied far too often for the wrong reasons. Animations can be a lot of fun for the designer, but they aren’t nearly as much fun for the audience. Worse, animations can become a distraction. Animation should never be a distraction; it should have subtle purpose.

Just a frequently, designers fail to use any “animation”. Subtle animations, like a quick fade-in (or simply an incremental appearance), are incredibly powerful at helping the audience to focus their eyes on what the presenter wants them to focus on. For example, a bulleted list can benefit from appearing one item at a time while the presenter discusses each bullet. This can lead to more effective interaction and engagement with the audience, an important concept in user interface design.?

You want just enough animation to focus attention and engage, but not too much to annoy and distract.

Choose Wisely

Before double-clicking on that PowerPoint icon, consider what your real goal is, then choose the best way to achieve it. More frequently than not, PowerPoint is not the answer. When PowerPoint is the answer, design every slide for impact by always keeping your audience in mind.