Powerpoint Tips

For assignment #2, we had to look at a powerpoint presentation and make some changes to it to try and improve it. The five major changes that I made to the powerpoint presentation were:

1) The original presentation did not have the same colored background on all the slides. I changed to a new theme that was the same through out the whole presentation. I feel that this is important in enabling the viewer or the audience that there is a sense of continuity and that the presentation is all linked together.

2) I placed the title "Crowsnest Pass Wildfire" on all of the slides. This helps the audience to anticipate what the material will be covering on the slides. 

3) There were different sizes of fonts on the three slides in the original presentation. It is important that all of the slides in a presentation have the same font, and the same size of font whenever possible. It could be distracting for the audience to see discrepancies in a presentation. Also, it is important to use a font size that can be easily read by the audience; usually the bigger the better.

4) One important aspect of powerpoint presentations is to not use too many words. Simplicity has been found to provide a better experience for the audience. The use of too many words can be distracting and detract from the presentation. In my powerpoint, I cut out lots of the excess words that didn't add anything to the presentation, and I also reworded some things to make the points on the slides simpler.

5) Pictures are important in helping to set the tone or mood for that which will be presented. In the original presentation there were no pictures used to help the audience to connect with the presentation. "A picture says a thousand words", this saying works perfectly for powerpoint presentations where the presenter is trying to convey a message with a very few number of words. Pictures that are relevant to the topic are an effective tool, while at the same time, pictures that don't pertain can take away from the presentation.

Hopefully, I will remember these important facts when I have the opportunity to create presentations in the future.