How do you make a good visual presentation?

When giving presentations, either on a video conference call or in person, your slides, videos and graphics (or lack of them) can be an important element in helping you tell your story or express your idea. This is the first of a series of blog posts that will give you tips and tricks on how to perfect your visual presentations.

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What is a good visual presentation?
How can I make my presentation visually interesting?

Your job as a presenter is to build your idea -- step-by-step -- in the minds of your audience members. One tool to do that is presentation graphics, such as slides and videos.

Why graphics for your presentation?

A common mistake is using slides or videos as a crutch, even if they don’t actually add anything to your presentation. Not all presentations need graphics. Lots of presentations work wonderfully with just one person standing on a stage telling a story, as demonstrated by many TED Talks.

You should only use slides if they serve a purpose: conveying scientific information, art, and things that are hard to explain without pictures. Once you have decided on using slides, you will have a number of decisions to make. We’ll help you with the basics of making a presentation that is, above all, clear and easy to understand. The most important thing to remember here is: less is more.

Less is so much more

You want to aim for the fewest number of slides, the fewest number of photos, the fewest words per slide, the least cluttered slides and the most white space on your slides. This is the most violated slide rule, but it is the secret to success. Take a look at these examples.

Keep titles short

As you can see in the above example, you don’t need fancy backgrounds or extra words to convey a simple concept. If you take “Everything you need to know about Turtles”, and delete “everything you need to know about” leaving just “turtles”, the slide has become much easier for your audience to read, and tells the story with economy.

Keep to one image per slide

The above example demonstrates that a single image that fills the entire screen is far more powerful than a slide cluttered with images. A slide with too many images may be detrimental to your presentation. The audience will spend more mental energy trying to sort through the clutter than listening to your presentation. If you need multiple images, then put each one on its own slide. Make each image high-resolution and have it fill the entire screen. If the photos are not the same dimensions as the screen, put them on a black background. Don’t use other colors, especially white.

Minimize text

Your slides will be much more effective if you use the fewest words, characters, and pictures needed to tell your story. Long paragraphs make the audience strain to read them, which means they are not paying attention to you. Your audience may even get stressed if you move on to your next slide before they’ve finished reading your paragraph. The best way to make sure the attention stays on you is to limit word count to no more than 10 words per slide. As presentation expert Nancy Duarte says “any slide with more than 10 words is a document.” If you really do need a longer explanation of something, handouts or follow-up emails are the way to go.

Following a “less is more” approach is one of the simplest things you can do to improve your presentation visuals and the impact of your presentation overall. Make sure your visuals add to your presentation rather than distract from it and get your message across.

Ready to learn more about how to make your presentation even better? Get TED Masterclass and develop your ideas into TED-style talks.

Tom Rielly

Take a walk back through the history of digital media, and you'll find our colleague Tom Rielly every step along the way. He entered the mediasphere with a memorable turn in the 1980 film *The Bodyguard*. A lifelong performer, he soon found a second love in personal computing. He recognized early on the incredible power of Macs, CD-ROMs and the Web, founding Yale's Macintosh User Group in 1984, then working at SuperMac, Farallon and Voyager, among other pioneering companies. Across TED, Tom is known for his stellar visual presentations.

We’ve all sat through presentations that have paragraphs and paragraphs on a single slide that are impossible to read and follow. Then, you sit in on presentations where you think ‘wow, how do I do that?’ Here are some tips on how to make a strong presentation.

1. Have an Agenda

Have a slide where you outline the agenda for the presentation. This is a great way to set expectations on what the audience is going to learn. You can even have a mini agenda that shows as a bar at the top of each slide. This can remind the audience of how far along you are on the agenda and what topics are coming next.

2. Key Takeaways

Prior to opening up for questions, have a slide that summarizes the key points of your presentation. These are the points that you want the audience to walk away with and remember. If your presentation is based around a product you are promoting, this is where you should highlight your top selling points.

3. Engaging Visuals

Please do not just use graphics as a way to fill up slide space. When visuals are used in your presentation, make sure they are meaningful and complement your speaking points. Engaging visuals can leave a lasting impression if used right.

4. Logo

Continue to promote your brand during your presentation by including your logo on each slide. If the slides are printed or a digital copy is distributed, this is a sure way that you’ll still have representation over your work.

5. Data

Be sure to include data in your presentation to make it stronger. These are also memorable key points that can leave a lasting impression with your audience and support your point of view.

6. Backup Slides

Create slides with additional information to answer questions you anticipate will come from the audience. When you are answering those questions, have an ‘appendix’ slide open and bookmark the slides to certain topics. When one of those anticipated questions comes up you can easily navigate to the correct slide so that your audience can engage with your visuals again.

What is a good visual presentation?

A well designed visual presentation has a great story behind it and a well rehearsed voice telling it as well. Engaging the audience is also a great way to associate meaning or connection to the content of your slide decks. Ask questions and tell stories while showing off a great visual presentation!