Effective PowerPoint Checklist: Is Your PowerPoint Good?

We all use PowerPoint. Here's a checklist to determine if we're using it *well*.

I’ve been working with a number of presenters to help them develop more effective, engaging presentations for upcoming conference or training sessions. While PowerPoint should never be the focal point of a presentation, effective slide design is important for those presenters who choose to use PowerPoint in their sessions.

To help presenters determine whether their slides are any good, I put together the Effective PowerPoint Checklist to help them perform a self-assessment.

Definition of an Effective PowerPoint Deck

I don’t know that there’s any one, universal definition for “good” PowerPoint design, but I think “good” slides have several things in common:

They’re visually attractive.
They’re easy to read.
They don’t distract from the presenter or the presentation.

In the spirit of these three characteristics, here is the aforementioned checklist (and you can download a PDF of the Effective PowerPoint Checklist):

What’s missing from the Effective PowerPoint Checklist? I’d love to hear any suggestions in the comment section.

Brian Washburn

Brian has over 25 years of experience in Learning & Development including the last 7 as CEO of Endurance Learning.

Brian is always available to chat about learning & development and to talk about whether Endurance Learning can be your training team’s “extra set of hands”.

See author's posts