If you feel like designing your slide deck for a presentation is tough, you aren’t alone. Check out these statistics about presentation design skills from a recent Decktopus survey:
31% said it takes too much time to design a presentation
31% feel like they are bad at presentation design
10% said there is a high learning curve when it comes to presentation design
We can understand all of those feelings. Today we are weighing the time it takes to create a presentation with the choices you have for learning the design skill set. No matter where you fall in the statistics above, at the end of this blog you’ll have a better idea for how to tackle presentation design.
The Time It Takes
Dr. Carmen Simon has done his best to track how long it takes people to create presentations. One of his common estimates is that for a “20-slide, one-hour presentation, you would forecast 80 hours” to work on the presentation. But there really is no way to establish a solid estimate on how long it will take you to create a professional looking slide deck. The variable factors (number of slides, type of content, user experience, etc.) are too great. For example, creating a slide deck with static content (no moving features) will take much less time than it would to create a slide deck with animation, customized graphics, and video.
Plus, of the almost 1/3 of participants who responded that it takes “too much time to design a presentation,” there’s no indication of how they define “too much time.” All we can say with confidence is that it does take time to make presentations, and the time it takes is related to how strong your design skill set is.
The Design Skill Set
A big portion of a presentation is the content and delivery. Most of us get plenty of practice throughout our lives researching, writing, and even delivering content. For the most part, we are comfortable with words because they are language we know and use most frequently. But presentation design is a whole other language. It’s preattentive attributes, color theory, font choice, and more. Those are things most of us haven’t been educated in, so the design skill set feels more like a foreign language to most of us. So it’s no wonder that about a third of the participants feel like they are bad a presentation design, and 1 in 10 feel like it’s a steep learning curve.
So here are 3 ways to combat a lack of presentation design skills. As you decide which option is best for you, keep in mind how often you are designing presentations, as well as what is riding on them.
Option 1: Practice on Your Own
The way we learn any language is to listen to it and to speak it. The more you can immerse yourself in the language, the faster you learn it. The same goes for the design skill set. Start by reading design blogs (check out our beginner’s guide), watching design videos, and looking through professional templates. We recommend Canva’s design school or Adobe’s Creative Cloud tutorials.
Option 2: Take an Online Class
Another way to learn to speak the language is to take a class. Most free videos will teach you a skill or give you basics, but you can pay a small amount for an online course that offers more detailed and comprehensive learning. We suggest checking out the courses at Creativelive.com like this one on Graphic Design Fundamentals. Or check out the many PowerPoint classes available at Udemy like the ones shown below.
Option 3: Collaborate with Experts
You do have another choice. Maybe you don’t have the time to learn a new language, or you simply don’t want to. If that’s the case, you can hire a presentation design agency. It’s the equivalent of hiring a translator. We know the language. We’ll create an expertly crafted presentation slide deck, and you won’t have to lift a finger. So you can forget about feeling bad about your design skills or conquering that steep learning curve. You’ve got other things to worry about. If you’re considering this option, here are 5 things to look for in a presentation design agency.
If you are frustrated by the time it takes to make a presentation or by what feels like a lack of knowledge in presentation design, we’re here to help. You can choose to educate yourself, pay someone to educate you, or hand the project over to experts and get back to your other responsibilities and passions.
If you’re ready to hand the project over, we’ve got you.
