Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Annoying PowerPoint Survey Results

Dave Paradi’s annual PowerPoint annoyances survey results are in. The results this year are not much different than in past years. Dave’s top-five audience annoyances once again generally fall under the banner of presenters effectively writing white papers on PowerPoint slides. Presenters write out their speech in full sentences on the slides and are left with nothing to do but read those sentences out loud to their audience. Sometimes they cram in data-filled charts, tables, or graphs to support their statements with a mass of evidence.

Creating and delivering presentations in this way makes a tremendous amount of practical sense. It’s quick… You don’t have to waste time thinking about design issues or finding graphics. It complies with corporate guidelines… You just fill in the bullet points on your company’s “Title and Content” slide layout. It doesn’t require much, if any, practice… Your script is right there in front of you to be read. And it works great as a handout, allowing offline audiences to read through the information for themselves later.

If you are going ask your audience to commit their valuable time to listen to you, create a presentation. Not a white paper that happens to be written on sequential slides.

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