Every couple of years, presentation expert David Paradi gathers information about how people are using PowerPoint. One of the things we love is that he gains insight from the audience’s perspective. He specifically asks them to identify the problems they see.
Today we’ll look at his most recent survey results to see what it is that annoys people about PowerPoint presentations. Although Paradi specifically asks about Microsoft PowerPoint, it’s safe to assume that these same things hold true if you are using Google Slides, Canva, Prezi, or any other slide program. So keep reading to find out what annoys audience members most. And don’t worry. If you happen to do any of these things, we’ll share some tips to break those bad habits.
The Survey
So in the most recent survey, Paradi asked over 200 participants to rate the things that bothered them most about PowerPoint presentations. You can find the full results of Paradi’s survey here. He offers a list of 12 things to choose from and then shares the top 3 most annoying things. Here’s what respondents said annoyed them most: speakers reading their slides, slides that include full sentences of text, and text that is too small to read. Apparently, these are persistent problems because Paradi said, “This top three has not changed in many years.” So let’s break them down one by one and offer some solutions.
Problem #1: “Speakers reading their slides”
The first (and most annoying) problem deals with how the speaker is using PowerPoint. If a speaker is reading from the slides, one of two things is probably going on. Let’s look at both of them. The first issue could be that the speaker hasn’t prepared well enough and is using the slide deck as speaker’s notes. Instead of relying on memory or notecards, the speaker is forced to turn and use the slides like a teleprompter. This causes the speaker to lose both eye contact and credibility with the audience.
The second issue could be that the slides are not designed well. A PowerPoint slide presentation is designed to back up what you are saying with images and graphics that increase the audience’s understanding. It’s not meant to be another vehicle for text. So if there is a lot of text to be read, the slides aren’t really functioning like they should. In some cases, you may need to have a longer quote on a slide, which is fine. If the context allows, I usually ask an audience member to read the quote out loud to encourage participation and to give them a break from my voice.
Solution #1: Prepare well enough that you don’t need to look at your slides much and limit the amount of text you put on your slides.
Problem #2: “Slides that include full sentences of text”
Again, too much text is the issue here. A slide should never function like a document, so there’s really no need for full sentences. This is a problem presentation coach and author Jerry Weissman calls Presentation-as-Document-Syndrome. We shouldn’t create slide decks as if they are handouts or Word documents.
Solution #2: Edit down your sentences to strong, descriptive phrases.
Problem #3: “Text that is too small to read”
Are you sensing a pattern yet? The top three problems can pretty much be boiled down to text troubles. But here’s the good news: because these problems are linked, the solutions are too. If the text is too small, it’s probably because there’s too much of it on the slide, and we’ve covered that already. So, if you edit out the amount of text on the slide, you’ll have room to make it bigger.
Different experts say different things about the sizes of font to use. Some of it will depend on the size of the room you are presenting in and how far your audience is sitting from the screen. Jerry Weissman says we should aim to use nothing below 24-point, and Guy Kawasaki says 30-point font size might be a better guideline. As long as you are in that range, the limited text you do use should be visible to everyone.
Solution #3: Keep text size 24 or larger.
It’s nice to know what bothers audience members about PowerPoint presentations. That way we can avoid at least these top three problems: speakers reading their slides, slides that include full sentences of text, and text that is too small to read. If you think about it, these really are quite simple fixes. Ones that we can easily commit to solve as presenters. So, here’s hoping Paradi’s next survey gives us some new stuff to tackle.
As a presentation design and training agency, Ethos3 is committed to helping with all of your presentation needs. Get in touch with us now.
