7. Use the blind-deaf rule: When preparing your slides, imagine that in your audience there is going to be one blind person and one deaf person. The blind person can hear your talk, but not see your slides. The deaf person can see the slides, but not hear your talk. Both of those people should be able to get all of the information in your presentation. That means that everything in your slides should be talked about, and everything you talk about should be understood just by looking at the slides. So don’t have things in there just to have them if you are not going to talk about them.
8. Avoid complicated animations: While animations can be useful in some situations, they can make your presentation more complicated too. Also, if programmed wrong, they can mess up your presentation and make you nervous. If they’re not necessary, avoid them.
9. Use animations to focuse your audience’s attention: Didn’t I just tell you to not use animations? Well, yes and no. One good use for animations is to gradually reveal parts of your slide so that people can focus only on the parts you are actually talking about. Especially in slides that need to have a lot of information, showing only part of it is a good way to not lose your audience. Then when you are done with the first part, you can show the rest of the slide and explain it too.
10. Have a conclusion slide: Your presentation may include a lot of information and ideas. That can make your audience lose focus of what the main topic was. Kind of not seeing the forest for the trees. For this reason, it is great to have a conclusion slide in which you can repeat your take-home message. It will also be a nice closure for your presentation.
11. Try explaining your story with the slides: Once your slides are done, try to explain your story out loud following the order of the slides. Is something out of place? Does something not fit the way you’re trying to explain it? Then go back to your slides and make the necessary changes.
12. Do not read from your presentation: We’ve all seen this. A person who spends their whole presentation reading the text in their slides. Not only is this boring, as we could all read them instead, it also shows poor presentation skills. As we said, your slides should only include some bullet points with the main ideas, and your presentation should connect those ideas. So don’t read, explain. Your audience will be much more engaged and you will look a lot better.
13. Don’t try to memorize your presentation: A mistake most inexperienced people make when trying to prepare for an oral presentation is to write down what they would like to say and then try to memorize it word per word. That is dangerous, because if you forget a specific word you wanted to say, you may lose your thread and get into presenter’s block. To avoid that, don’t try to memorize your presentation. Just go over your slides and try to explain your content in your own words, the same way you would explain it to a friend. When you do this several times, you will realize you naturally find new and better ways to explain things, which feel more natural and stick in your brain. That’s because you’re understanding instead of memorizing.
14. Practice your presentation: As with everything, practice makes perfect! Practice your presentation by going over it several times. You’ll perfect the way you explain things and make it feel more natural to yourself and your audience.
15. Get feedback: Practicing your presentation in front of others is a great way to get some nerves off, as well as receive useful feedback. Your friends can tell you if one of your slides is confusing, an idea is not clear enough or you’re talking to quickly. Integrate that feedback into your presentation and make it the best it can be!
16. Breathe: Now your presentation is ready, you are ready. You only need to breathe and calm down. You will do great! And even your mistakes will be a learning opportunity to do even better next time. Now go kill it!
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