Table of Contents

One tip to change the outlook of your PowerPoint slides

You don't need a lot of effort to make a big difference in the way you present information on your slides.

At the beginning of the month, I wrote a post about some small tweaks to a slide deck that could lead to a much better visual presentation. One reader, Dan Jones, posted this comment:

powerpoint-comment

I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I actually suggested this particular tip within my organization recently after attending a monthly stats meeting. The more I look around, the more I see this particular engagement strategy being used… except it doesn’t seem to be used very frequently in the world of presentations or learning and development.  

Over the weekend, I was perusing ESPN and I saw this:

headline-grabber

99 times out of 100, if this was a PowerPoint presentation the headline would have been: Golden State vs. Los Angeles. Or maybe Visiting Team’s Jump Shot.

Both of those headlines are true, but neither really gets you excited for the story in the image. Ingram blocks Durant from behind actually makes me want to pause, maybe even click on the link to see it for myself.

I really like Dan Jones’ advice in his comment: “Tell a story with your slide title to share the key message from your slide.”

I went back and took a look at some old slide decks and wondered how I’d adjust them. Here is a slide from a presentation I gave in Saudi Arabia several years ago:

slide-old-title

The headline here is: The story continues. True, but what’s the story? Why am I making the learners work so hard when they’re looking at the slide? And what about those learners who might have been distracted or not paying attention in the exact moment that I told them what was happening on this slide?

This slide is about a particular process (abbreviated by the acronym HCRP) that has led to unprecedented growth in the developing world in the availability of corneas for transplant, which in turn helps restore sight to people who are blind. Perhaps it would have been a more effective and engaging slide if I had labelled it something like this:

slide-new-name

Or this:

slide-new-name-2

The point being: your slides become instruments of your story if you just spend a little bit of time massaging the headline.

Want to give it a try? Below is a slide I used during the same presentation. 

For context: Every time someone dies in a hospital in the U.S., that hospital is required to notify an organ donation agency of that death. This is known as a “required referral” law, and has helped dramatically increase the number of organs available for transplant each year. Such a law does not exist in India (or much of the rest of the world). The goal of this slide is to show how many more corneal transplants could occur in the next year with a simple change in the law to mandate “required referral” in India.

slide-example-what-is-the-new-title

If you were me, how would you re-title this slide to better tell the story? Let’s hear your thoughts and ideas in the Comment section below!

Articles Similar to One tip to change the outlook of your PowerPoint slides

Subscribe to Get Updates from Endurance Learning

Brian Washburn, Author

Brian Washburn
CEO & Chief Ideas Guy

Enter your information below and we’ll send you the latest updates from our blog. Thanks for following!

Let's Talk Training!

Brian Washburn

Brian Washburn
CEO & Chief Ideas Guy

Enter your information below and we’ll get back to you soon.

Download the Feedback Lesson Plan

Enter your email below and we’ll send you the lesson plan as a PDF.

feedback lesson plan
MS Word Job Aid Template

Download the Microsoft Word Job Aid Template

Enter your email below and we’ll send you the Word version of this template.

Download the Free Lesson Plan Template!

Enter your email below and we’ll send you a Word document that you can start using today!

training materials checklist

Download the Training Materials Checklist

Enter your email below and we’ll send you the PDF of the Training Materials Checklist.

Subscribe to Endurance Learning for updates

Get regular updates from the Endurance Learning team.