If you’re using a slide deck to present to an audience, three components must work in harmony to fuel its success:

• Content: the material you’ve chosen to include in the presentation.
• Delivery: how you present…tone, style, engagement, interaction, vibe.
• Design: the layout – format, text, visuals, graphics – of the presentation slides.

We’ve covered how to up your game on content and delivery elsewhere, so now let’s focus on design.

I’m going to be blunt: 

 It doesn’t matter how interesting your material is or how charismatic you are as a presenter.

Why is that true? Because, while sitting in the audience, a person’s brain is tasked with splitting its attention between what you’re saying and what it’s seeing on the screen. And if their brain has to work too hard to process what’s on the screen, one or all of these things will happen:

• They’ll stop listening to you as they concentrate harder on trying to read the screen.
• They’ll realize (whether consciously or unconsciously) that they can’t listen to you AND read what’s on the screen, so they’ll just give up and let their mind wander elsewhere.
• They’ll get annoyed because of the friction this distraction creates for them.

Surely you’ve felt this happen to you as an audience member before, right?

It’s wild that SO MANY presenters make design choices that are not user-friendly for the audience. Well… it’s probably not that they “made” those design choices. Rather, they likely just didn’t think about it at all. They simply dropped words and visuals on slides to create a presentation, without considering how it will look and feel to an audience that’s trying to follow along – especially those folks sitting way in the back of the room.

So, if you want to make it easy for people to pay attention to your presentation, avoid these five common presentation design mistakes:

1) Font too small, light, or unreadable.

What looks legible on your small computer screen (while you’re sitting right in front of it) isn’t always readable for an audience at a distance, whether that’s at the other end of a boardroom table or the back of a huge event space.

When a font is small, or frilly/fancy, or light in color, or light in width/density, it literally makes it impossible for the audience to decipher.

It’s best to favor big, bold, clear, and simple fonts in a presentation. And if your brand standards don’t align with that…too bad. I’ve seen too many presenters use completely unreadable fonts – like brush script and light colors and thin widths – because it matches their brand and “branding comes first.” Nope nope nope. Not when it comes to presentations it doesn’t. In presentations, USER EXPERIENCE comes first. Trust me, if the audience can’t read what’s on the slides, it doesn’t matter one bit that it’s “good branding.” In fact, that would sabotage good branding because it aligns your branding with a negative touchpoint for them.

A lot of presenters choose a small font because they’re trying to fit more words on each slide, so that they can have fewer slides. The thinking here is that fewer slides = a shorter presentation. That is 100% untrue, which is a perfect segue to review mistake #2.

2) Slides too cluttered with text, visuals, or both.

The length of a presentation isn’t dictated by how many slides you have. It’s based on how much material you have to present. I can make a 10-slide presentation last for an hour, and I can also comfortably fit a 90-slide presentation into an hour. It just depends on how I choose to organize the content on each slide.

When choosing how much text/visuals to put on each slide, the key here is to think, “what’s going to make it easy for the audience to follow along?”

Take this slide, for example, which might end up sitting on the screen for 5 minutes while you explain each bullet:

It’s so dense for the audience to look at, even if you were to animate each bullet and make them appear one at a time as you go through them. And if you try to add space between each bullet just to make the slide easier to read, you end up having to make the font even smaller so it all still fits on one slide. Either way, the net result is a cluttered screen for the audience that’s difficult to read and (let’s be honest) kind of annoying.

Alternatively, you can spend the same 5 minutes covering that same material by separating each bullet point out onto its own slide, like so:

Yes, now you’ve just turned one slide into five slides, but who cares because it doesn’t change the total amount of time you spend on that section.

This option is WAY BETTER for the audience. Not only can they see and read the words easily, but it’s more engaging for them to follow along. There’s more movement on the screen (which subconsciously signals them to pay attention so they don’t miss anything) and the words they’re seeing up there are a clear, direct match for exactly what you’re saying. So you can make the point, expound on it a little bit while holding their attention, then move on to the next slide…make the point…expound… and so on.

And yet again, we have a perfect segue for reviewing mistake #3.

3) Reading slide text word for word and adding nothing beyond that.

This is where “design” and “delivery” intersect. To keep the audience engaged throughout your presentation, it’s important that you frequently expound a bit on each slide’s written content.

Why? Because simply reading slides word for word desensitizes the audience. You’re giving them no reason to listen to YOU if all they need to do is read the slides themselves. And that’s just another way you risk losing their attention.

Rather, what you want is to “train your audience” that sure, you’ll read what they can see on the slides, but sometimes, you ALSO go off script and add more color/explanation to a point. That creates a dynamic where they feel like they must pay attention or they might miss a great nugget of information.

This is also helpful for you as a presenter, because you can use this strategy to provide yourself with cues/hints, while simultaneously ensuring that your slides aren’t cluttered.

In a recent presentation, I needed to tell the story of how Hawke’s Bay, NL’s Torrent River Inn impressed the hell out of me with their guest service. This slide gave me the cues I needed to cover the points I wanted to remember to make, while also giving the audience the gist of the story.

I didn’t need 8 bullets of material to remind myself what to say, and so this was a way to spare the audience from all that clutter.

Which is, again, a fabulous segue to review mistake #4.

4) Including no visuals.

Visuals are like eye candy to the audience. It’s essential that you find a way to add visuals to your presentation. It makes it much easier for the audience to pay attention to text when they get periodic relief from arresting, easy-to-see visuals.

Not every presentation lends itself naturally to visuals, however. So then, you have to find creative ways to add them. And they need to feel organic, not forced.

For example, look at the difference between these two slides introducing a section of content about evergreen trends in a presentation:

The plain one is fine, and certainly legible, so it will do the job. But the one with the photo of the trees as the backdrop is much more vibrant and appealing. It gets the job done while ALSO engaging the audience with a pleasant feeling. It gives them something that grabs their attention.

But you have to be careful here, as adding in “visuals for the sake of visuals” can sometimes have the opposite effect, creating a distraction instead of engaging attention. And that sets us up for reviewing mistake #5.

5) Distracting graphics and visuals.

Often, in a quest to make a presentation more visually appealing, some presenters add lots of graphics and images that have no clear sense of purpose to the content at hand. And guess what? The audience can tell they have no purpose.

If you add random graphics to a slide just to make it less text heavy, there must be a relevant reason for them. Otherwise, people’s brains will get distracted trying to figure out what that thing is and why it’s there.

The same thing goes for images. If an image will help you tell a story, use it. If it won’t, but you try to shoehorn it onto a slide just to balance out some text…then that’s a distraction.

Plus, if you’re adding photos to a text heavy slide to make it more “balanced,” then you’ll probably have to make the font smaller to accommodate it. And this will cascade into mistakes #1 and #2 above.

So, overall, if you want to avoid the five common presentation design mistakes reviewed in this article, just remember: simple, clear, bold, and big. For each slide you create, picture yourself in the back of the room and say… “Would I be able to see/read that?” And if the answer is no, or even just “I’m not sure,” then figure out how to approach the design of that slide’s content a different way.

PS on visuals:

If you’re not using your own photography, then be aware of when licensing will be required to use images. Here’s a guide to that.

Also, some visuals are appealing…some aren’t. You want to use appealing ones (duh) so here are two refreshers you might find useful:

The secret to a great tourism photo.

What makes a dramatic tourism marketing photo?

It doesn’t matter if the presentation you’re giving will span five minutes or a full day. If you don’t factor in these four components – time, goals, focus, and texture – it won’t be effective. Together, they are the secret to delivering successful presentations.

What do I mean by successful presentations? The kind where people are engaged and pay attention. And the kind that make a positive impression on any size audience, so your messages get heard and understood.

These four components are the same for ANY type of presentation – marketing ideas, sales pitches, financial performance results, training workshops, status updates, plan/recommendations, investor pitches, onboarding orientations, and even keynote presentations.

You may be surprised to learn that “exciting content” isn’t one of the components. Your subject matter could be dry and boring, and you can STILL engage people and make an impression.

That’s because the secret to engaging an audience isn’t in the content…it’s in the delivery.

Yes, the content has to be relevant to your audience, even if it’s dry. But the impression you make is shaped by your delivery choices, which, in turn, are shaped by the four components.

TIME

“How much time do I have?” should always be your FIRST question when you’re asked to give a presentation of any kind.

Time parameters dictate the quantity of content you can include. And you’ve got to be militant in understanding just how much time you will actually have or you’ll make unwise choices about what to include.

For example, say a client or your boss gives you 30 minutes to present your ideas. A 30-minute slot on a calendar does not equal a 30-minute presentation. The first five minutes of the meeting might be chit chat, settling in, and waiting for someone’s late arrival. Then you’ll need time for questions and discussion, whether that happens during the presentation or afterward. So let’s say you think there will be a lot to discuss and you want to save half of the meeting slot (in this case, 15 minutes) to allow for that.  That means your actual presentation can only be 10 minutes long.

There is a HUGE difference between choosing content to fill 30 minutes vs. 10 minutes. In this example, if you had 30 minutes, you might choose to include your research journey and supporting data for all your ideas. But with 10? You might just have to deliver the ideas alone, in order to have enough time to do them justice.

Knowing the actual amount of time is also helpful because you’ll be able to see in advance whether the allotted time is enough for what’s needed. Maybe in this example, sharing the research journey is essential to understanding each idea, and therefore 10 minutes simply isn’t enough time communicate all the information necessary. That’s your cue to suggest that an hour be blocked instead of 30 minutes.

In another example, think about a keynote or other type of stage-based presentation to a large audience. For one of my most recent keynote presentations, I was given a 45-minute time slot. But in my analysis of content choices as I was creating the presentation, I came up with this breakdown of timing anchors:

• Five minutes had to be saved for everyone coming in and getting settled, because these sessions at big tourism conferences rarely start on time.
• I was showing five total minutes of video content throughout the presentation.
• I always ask questions and engage in audience banter/interactions during my presentations, even hopping off the stage if appropriate, and walking out onto the floor. So I saved 10 minutes for that.
• 15 minutes would be needed to deliver actual technical content critical to the educational mission of the session. This stuff already existed, it was just up to me to organize and present it.

So in reality, I actually only had 10 minutes to fill with my own original content – examples, ideas, stories, and so on. Knowing that, I was able to choose the right number of stories and examples to make the most of that 10 minutes. Without it, I would certainly have chosen too many and run out of time.

Listen, no one ever gets mad if you finish a presentation early. But it’s super frustrating for the audience when you run out of time. Because you end up either 1) talking too fast to cram it all in; 2) leaving some content unpresented; or 3) forcing them to stay overtime until you finish. All three of those paths leave a negative impression on your audience, resulting in an unsuccessful presentation.

GOALS

This sounds elementary but most people don’t think through this crucial factor. The goals aren’t the same as the content choices, but rather they INFORM the content choices. The goals answer the question: what do you want the end result of this presentation to be?

In the first example above, your goal might be to get approval on the ideas. Or it could simply be to get feedback on them. But you might have other goals as well, such as:

• Making a case for an increased budget or new hire.
• Defending your job.
• Laying the groundwork to ask for a raise or promotion.
• Getting credit for your department’s good work.

In that example, if you’ve only got 10 minutes to fill with content…do you see how your content choices might change depending on which goals you’re trying to achieve? Each one of those goals has a slightly different slant.

Knowing your goals allows you to wisely choose which content to emphasize and what gets the most/least airtime.

Years ago, I was asked by organizers to use my keynote session to infuse joy into a tourism conference that needed a refreshed vibe. That was it…their one goal. They didn’t even assign me a topic.

That one goal led me to choose a topic – The Magic of Surprise in Guest Services – and all the elements needed to achieve that goal. Did this include surprising the audience with beer, snacks, fashion accessories, and an eight-piece jazz band during the presentation? Indeed it did. Watch a snippet here.

If their goal had been “educate the audience on the latest changes in social media marketing,” I would have made COMPLETELY different content choices. A jazz band, while fun, would have been unnecessary and squandered time away from achieving the goal.

FOCUS

Once you know “time” and “goals,” you use them to choose your presentation’s focus. What content needs the most emphasis? And how deeply should you cover each piece of content?

In the first example above, let’s say your two goals are to get feedback on the ideas and showcase your team’s limitless creativity. It might be best to use that 10 minutes to cover as many ideas as possible with just top-level highlights about each one.

But if your goal is to get approval on some or all of the ideas, it might be wiser to choose the top three most viable ideas and cover each one deeply. You can always mention (if appropriate) that there are 10 more ideas in the hopper but “these rose to the top” for whatever reason.

Focus is probably the most critical component in delivering successful presentations. Deciding on your presentation’s focus is all about curating the content. And that means choosing what gets included and, as importantly, what gets omitted.

It can be painful to leave content out of your presentation when you really really really want to include it. But if that piece of content doesn’t align well with your time and goals, no matter how much you love it, it will actually do more harm than good to include it.

A favorite piece of advice I got years ago about the importance of brevity in communication is “overwriting is just a failure to make choices.” This is true also with delivering successful presentations. Choose your focus wisely and your audience will stay engaged.

TEXTURE

Ah, here’s the secret sauce to audience engagement.

It’s a given that with any presentation, there’s the potential to lose the audience’s attention to daydreaming, their mobile device, private troubles, a desire to be elsewhere, and even just a need to go to the bathroom.

Texture – which is what I call doing unexpected things and breaking patterns – is the best way to combat that.

Texture is anything that snaps people out of their thoughts and back into what you’re saying. There’s no formula for infusing texture into a presentation…in fact, the unexpected element of it is what makes it so successful. And it has to be natural to the presenter. For example, *I* may choose to hop off the stage and head out into the audience for interactive banter during a presentation, but that may feel weird for other presenters.

What you choose to use for texture will depend on your own style/comfort level with your presentation, audience size, your relationship with the audience and how well you know each other, subject matter, and amount of time available. Handing out prizes/gifts, stopping to talk to one particular audience member, showing an unexpected picture, singing a song, making everyone get up and switch seats, calling up a volunteer, asking the audience an impromptu question and giving an answer…ANYTHING to break the monotony of you-talking-and-them-listening. THAT is texture.

Here’s me, trying to decide what kind of “texture” to serve the audience.

In a small setting, like the first example above, that might mean bringing cookies from your favorite bakery or snacks/drinks you know the client/boss really likes. Or it could mean bringing in props or accessories that make the presentation interactive and bring the ideas to life.

In a larger setting, you likely can’t see all the audience members. So those folks in the back can easily be scrolling on their phones and answering emails without you knowing. But the minute you call up a volunteer, or hop off the stage, or do a little dance, or show an unexpected photo that gets an audible response from the whole audience? Trust me, those strayers will come right back to you.

I once gave a three-hour long workshop on crisis communications response for the members of a tourism region. The heavy subject, necessarily unpleasant examples, and scary nature of the content – coupled with the fact that the audience was mandated to be there – was a recipe for low attention spans. Some texture I used to combat that:

• After presenting each super-heavy case study – which included examples of natural disasters, violent crime, epidemics, and more – I showed a pleasant “palate cleanser” photo of a cute dog doing something…yawning, leaping, sleeping, etc. And I called it just that: a necessary brain palate cleanser, because it’s important to protect your state of mind when dealing with a tragic crisis. We all took a moment to “awwww” over each dog before we collectively pulled up our bootstraps and dove into the next gut-wrenching case study.
• I created an activity for each table to do together and instead of handing out pencils and paper, I handed out crayons and construction paper for recording their ideas. Just adding these pops of color to the environment gave people a lift, because it was fun and different. I also encouraged folks to doodle, collected one from each table, and awarded prizes to the top three at the end of the presentation.
• Twice I asked for a volunteer to come up and help me do something. In one case, I handed the guy my “clicker” to advance my slides on cue and it created much levity in the room when we had some snags in coordinating the timing.

Did some people’s attention drift at times? Sure, they’re human. But did I get them back with each infusion of texture? You betcha.

Again, texture examples like those in particular may not work for every presenter. But the point is…texture is the key to holding people’s attention. So do SOMETHING.

Overall, using these four components to guide the creation of your presentations will ensure they go smoothly and make the impression you intend. They are, hands down, the secret to delivering successful presentations.

Need some help trimming your words down to save time in your presentation?  Check out these Four Quick Tips to Strengthen Your Writing.