Advanced Presentations – Design, Content and Layout

Understand timing considerations, tailor content to time available and allow appropriate time interval for each slide.




While planning a presentation, it is very important to keep a tab on the time available to present the entire presentation. For example, if the time available is going to be quite a lot, you can have a bigger number of slides and explain each of them in detail easily.

But if the total time available is not too much, then it becomes very important to limit the number of slides to a reasonable number so that each slide can be given a fair amount of time and so that it can be explained properly. Allocating a minimum amount of time to each slide is very important to maintain the flow of the presentation and have the maximum impact on the audience.

Understand that presentation dialogue is supported by graphical objects and text. Understand the importance of limiting the level of detail of graphical objects and text.

One important consideration while planning a presentation is that the level of detail of the text and graphical objects being used in a presentation should be optimum. It is very important to understand that the text and graphical objects are there only to support the presentation dialogue and not the presentation dialogue itself.

So the level of detail of the text as well as the graphical objects should be somewhat limited. We should not have slides which are completely filled with lots of text and should instead have some empty space in the slides as well. This increases the readability of the slides and thus making the presentation better as a whole.

Understand the importance of using a consistent design scheme and adequate colour contrast.

In a presentation, it is a very basic yet a very important consideration that the design scheme and color scheme should be consistent throughout the presentation. This means that the design of the different slides in a presentation has to be consistent. Having two completely different looking slides one after the other in a slide show does not look good nor professional. So such mistakes should be avoided at all costs.

Be aware of accessibility design considerations like: font size, alternative text, colours, limiting animations and transitions.

Another important consideration while planning a presentation is that using fancy fonts and animation and transition effects should be limited to reasonable extents. Sometimes, people find these effects very charming and appealing and thus end up doing these in excess. This not only complicates the whole design of the presentation but also becomes irritating for the audience after a while. So such fancy artwork and animation and fancy effects should definitely be used, as they make the presentation more aesthetically appealing, but should not be overdone at the same time.