Content and Design Tips for PowerPoint

Including a PowerPoint in your presentation allows your audience to connect visually with the content you share. Common mistakes while creating a PowerPoint presentation leads to disorganized or illegible information. Effective PowerPoints use the following principles:

Content

• Organize the information with titles, bullet points, or other lists. Follow the same rules for writing an outline for a paper.

• Bullet points should include keywords instead of paragraphs of text. Slides are meant to be supplementary to the presentation, not the centerpiece.
• To keep things concise, use the 7x7 rule: no more than 7 lines of text and 7 words per line.
• PowerPoints are a visual aid, so include graphs, charts, and images to show the audience. 
• Don’t add too much information to one slide. Create another slide if you need to talk about more of the same topic. 

Design

• Use a legible font. Fonts that are used in academic papers like Arial, Helvetica, and Times New Roman are a safe bet. 

• Use one of the design layout templates provided by PowerPoint or Google Slides. Only spend time on a custom design if it's required or you have time. 
• Avoid using an image for the entire background of a slide. This can make text hard to read because of the low contrast of colors. When inserting a picture into a slide, put it alongside the text or create a standalone slide for it.
• Do not use more than two or three pictures per slide unless they are the focus.
• Try not to use too many animations for text or slides. Animations can add visual interest, but only dissolving (or fading) would actually be recommended due to accessibility considerations.