How to Make a Boring Presentation Interesting

Tips to make a Powerpoint presentation not boring

Whether presenting to colleagues at work or giving the keynote at a major conference, Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides and other slide presentations have become an absolutely essential way to share information.

They’re easy to use, offer a great way to combine images, video, and text, and require almost no training.

So, why are so many presentations so BORING?

All the elements are there for creating effective, eye-catching, and engaging presentations, but so often we’re forced to sit through slide after slide of overcrowded, hard-to-read text and fuzzy (or non-existent) images.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

You don’t need to be an expert at public speaking or worry about giving a Ted Talk level presentation.

You can make your presentations dazzle with just a few easy tips.

How to Make a Presentation Interesting

In order to be great, you need to combine story telling, authenticity, and visual supports.  

Basically, it’s all about what you say, how you say it, and giving your audience cool slides to look at while you say it. 

Tell a story 

Often times when we think about how to make a presentation interesting, we focus on the visuals. We add animations and transitions, hoping that will keep our audience engaged. 

Cool slide designs can help, there’s no doubt about that, but if most of your attention and time is spent on that portion of the presentation you are missing out on a key element that is crucial for making presentations interesting – the story. 

The best presentations draw in their viewers with a relatable narrative, but the narrative also helps the presentation to gain memorability as well. 

You should be spending a large portion of your preparation time on crafting your content – the actual information you will be sharing and how you will be sharing it. It deosn’t matter how cool your slide designs are if they aren’t supporting compelling content. 

You don’t have to weave an epic tale for your presentation, but if you are looking to make your presentation interesting you need to incorporate some story telling aspects, like personal connection and impact.  As you sit down to write, consider these questions:

  • What am I sharing? 
  • Why is it important? 
  • What can my audience do with the information once they have it?

These questions help you get to the most important part of any communication – the purpose.  

Most presentations try to accomplish one or two of these purposes: 

  • To persuade
  • To entertain

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Whether you want your presentation to inspire or to inform and persuade, you can build your story to achieve the goal!   

You’ll need an outline so that your purpose is kept at the centre of your presentation and so that you follow a familiar structure. You need to make sure that you have a clear beginning, middle, and end.  

Presentations that are interesting from beginning to end take the audience on a journey. If you just recite facts and highlight data your audience won’t be engaged enough to do anything with the information, but if you go on too many tangents with personal anecdotes you will lose them to confusion about what they are meant to be learning.  

To create an interesting presentation, before getting to the cool slides, be sure you structure your content in a way that makes it easy to tell the story and provide your audience with a journey that is relevant and memorable. 

Callouts show off the important statistics in a data shareout.

Be authentic and engaging

A key point that often gets forgotten when preparing presentations? YOU are the presentation.  

If you are putting on a show, creating a persona that you believe your audience would be more interested in or confident about, the audience will pick up on it almost immediately. The whole experience will be awkward for everyone.  

Instead, lean in to the parts of your personality that best serve the presentation’s purpose. Tell personal stories, speak in the same manner you normally do, and be open.  

Your energy is contagious. If you want to make your presentation more interesting, you’ve got to bring the right energy. 

High energy presenters get more engagement from their audiences, while coming in with low energy is a surefire way to destroy any hope of engagement, regardless of how good a story you have crafted with your presentation’s content. 

Memorize your content rather than relying on reading your slides, and be sure to use different speeds and volumes throughout the presentation in order to make it more interesting, draw attention to specific points, and present authentically.

Slide that shows callouts used to add information and ask questions during a presentation.

Prepare cool presentation slides

A recent study found that poorly constructed PowerPoint decks can lead to “distraction, boredom, and impeded learning,” while a well-crafted one enhances audience engagement and information retention .

Plus, let’s not forget that PowerPoint is a visual medium . People didn’t come to your presentation to read text off a slide. They came to listen to you present important information. And, the best way to present information is with visuals.

In fact, our research on the Value of Visuals shows that people actually absorb information faster and remember it better and for longer when it’s presented visually vs. text.

And a visual presentation doesn’t just help your audience, it will help you too!

So, not only will your audience enjoy your presentation and get more out of it, you’ll feel like a better presenter!

It’s a win-win!

How to Make Your Slides Look Cool 

While your content is crucial to the strength of your presentation, your slide deck has the power to add to or take away from the overall effectiveness.  Learning how to make a presentation more interesting requires skillful collaboration between the strength of your content and knowing how to make your slides look cool. 

Less is more

Learning how to make a presentation more interesting has a lot to do with learning what not to include on your slides. Less is more when it comes to slide content.  

Your slides should not be stuffed with content, especially text heavy content. Incorporating speaking points rather than fully developed ideas helps your audience follow your message without getting distracted by trying to read the slide.  

It doesn’t matter how cool your slide design is if you crowd in too much content. 

Use cool slide designs

You don’t have to start from scratch with every presentation! Chances are, you are not a graphic designer so why not use the templates that have been created by professionals? 

Using these presentation templates can help you make cool Powerpoint slides, cool Google slides, or slides for other platforms as well without spending too much time trying to create a professional look. 

You can easily find templates online for Google Slides and for Powerpoint. Each of these platforms offer themes within their software as well. 

These templates and themes have all been created by professional designers, so while you will need to make minor adjustments you should refrain from making significant changes to the cool slide designs you are using.

Be on-brand

Using consistent branding is an easy way to build familiarity and trust with your audience. If you have an established brand in place be sure to use it when building your slides.  

The colors and fonts used in your design should always adhere to your brand standards without deviation. 

If you don’t have a brand guide to work from, select a specific color palette, using color theory to ensure the message of your presentation is not counteracted by your color choices. 

Stick with just a few colors, and go the same route with fonts. Only choose a few to use, and try to avoid overly scripty options as they are difficult to read on screen.

Use quality images

Adding images to your cool slides that are blurry, pixelated, or otherwise low in quality is an easy way to let your audience “check out” of your presentation. 

If you don’t have access to high quality branded photos, use sites like Unsplash and Shutterstock to access high quality images for your presentations. 

Use screenshots

Adding screenshots can make your presentation more interesting than stock photos. Screenshots add a level of personalization that can’t be achieved with the use of generic photos. 

You can capture fantastic screenshots and even add highlights and notations with Snagit. Download your free trial here . 

Use infographics

A great way to reduce the amount of text content on your slides is with the use of infographics. 

Infographics are a great tool for making presentations interesting because they can successfully convey a lot of data in a visually interesting way.  

You don’t have to lock yourself in to the idea of charts as the primary visual for your infographics anymore. 

You can display many an idea through a good infographic, like steps in a process or historical values, and they are an excellent addition to your cool presentation slides. 

Add cool transitions to your slides

Adding transitions to your slides is a great way to make a presentation interesting. There is a fine balance to strike though between using enough and using too many. 

Limiting transitions to one per slide is a good place to start. These additions make your presentation more interactive and appealing. 

Use GIFs & memes

If you want to make a presentation more interesting, a GIF or two added to highlight some key points is a great way to go. 

GIFs are a great middle ground option between static images and videos. They can be used very effectively to drive home a specific point or to highlight a specific piece of data.  

GIFs are a great way to make your presentation more interesting and more memorable. Visuals always help with memorability and GIFs usually include a touch of humor and personality – both qualities that help information stick. 

While you are creating your cool slide designs, you may find the perfect place for a meme. These can be an effective tool, especially if the subject matter you are covering is light hearted, but use them with caution. 

They have the potential to go too far with the humor and that can detract from the focus of your presentation.

how to make presentations not boring

We live in a video world. A lot of the workforce is now comprised of Millennial and Gen Z workers. 

Something important to note about these two generations is that they have spent a lot of time consuming video content – it is a very comfortable medium for them and can be a really effective tool for keeping them engaged. 

Embedding videos directly into your slides can play a role in creating an interesting presentation. 

However, using too many videos (more than 3 in a standard presentation) can take away the impact your own content has, and using videos that are too long (longer than 2 minutes) can detract from your authority as the speaker – so choose wisely.

Create a Video to Share Your Cool Slides After Your Presentation 

You’ve now spent a lot of time and energy creating your presentation. You’ve done all you can to make it interesting and perfectly appealing for your audience. It would be a shame to only use it once!

You can make your presentation a reusable asset simply by turning it into a video. You have already taken the steps to make it visually appealing so it is naturally suitable to video format. 

You don’t need to add any new content, just a simple voiceover . You can use Snagit to screen record the presentation slides and Camtasia to add a voice over recording of you presenting the content!  

Doing this means that you can send your presentation to anyone who couldn’t attend in real time. You can also send it as followup material to those who did attend so that they can continue to access it as they need to.

FAQs about Successful Presentations with Cool Slides

To make a powerpoint presentation interesting you can consider the following:Tell a story Be authentic and engaging Create cool presentation slides

Google Slides and Microsoft Powerpoint both have built in capacity to add transitions on your cool slide designs.

You can find themes to make your presentation more interesting in the design settings on both Microsoft Powerpoint and Google Slides. 

how to make presentations not boring

Danielle Ezell

Danielle Ezell is a Marketing Content Strategist at TechSmith, where she writes about effective workplace communication, offering tips and strategies for using images and videos to collaborate more effectively in hybrid and remote environments.

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how to make presentations not boring

Michael Aragon

  • March 18, 2019
  • business , presentation , presentations

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7 PowerPoint Tips to Banish Boring Presentations

You know it and I know it: PowerPoint is boring.

Why? Because the minute we sit down to create a PowerPoint presentation, we forget everything we know about engagement and persuasion .

PowerPoint tip meme with Dwight

How do you make a PowerPoint presentation interesting?

It starts with the realization that attention is the only currency that matters. You need to hook your audience’s attention the moment you begin—and you can’t let go for even a second.

Fortunately, it’s not as difficult as you might think. And in this post, I’ll walk you through 7 PowerPoint tips to make your presentations more effective, so you can banish boring presentations forever.

PowerPoint Tip 1: Think Visual

The #1 most common mistake in PowerPoint presentations—and the reason they’re so boring—is that that we create them for us rather than our audience.

image of powerpoint tip about not putting too much text on a slide

And the temptation is real. If you’re afraid of forgetting an important point, you’ll want to put every word into your slideshow.

But your PowerPoint slides aren’t notecards to keep your presentation on track. They aren’t for you at all. They’re for your audience.

The slides are a supplement to your speech, not a transcript . Their job is to capture your viewers’ attention and clarify your points. And to do that, you need to create a slideshow that’s visual, not textual.

Here is how to make your PowerPoint presentation more visual:

Use text sparingly. You may have a slide with only 1 word, or no words at all. After all, less is more with PowerPoint presentations.

Be liberal with images and graphs. Use them as illustrations for your main points or to add another layer of meaning to your message. And don’t be afraid to let them fill up the screen—with no words at all.

Use videos for pacing and engagement. Videos are especially engaging. They can capture people’s attention at the beginning of your presentation and reengage them after a slow or boring section. They can also be used to transition from one part of your presentation to a dramatically different part, since they create a natural break.

Don’t try to be cute. Visuals should support your presentation. And yes, they may be entertaining, but they should never distract or interfere with the readability of your slides. At all costs, avoid creating slides like this :

image of fluffy cat with badly laid out text for powerpoint tip about distracting images

Of course, there may be times when visuals won’t work, and that’s okay. In some video sales letters , for example, the words are your visuals.

But even in a purely text-based presentation, you need to think about how it looks. Don’t put too many words on a single slide. Provide lots of white space. Give your audience just one thought at a time, so they stay engaged.

PowerPoint Tip 2: Think “Brand”

Whether it’s your company’s brand or your personal brand, you want to have a recognizable style.

When people see your presentations, they should know it’s yours—because the color and style scream you .

Apple is a good example of this. They’re the masters of “distinctive minimalism,” and everything they do reflects that.

You can pull any 2 slides from their presentations—often even years apart—and they still look like they belong to the same presentation.

Notice the trademark simplicity in this slide from an old Steve Jobs presentation.

image of Apple powerpoint for tip on ensuring branding

And here’s Tim Cook years later. The slides are almost identical.

another different image on an Apple powerpoint for tip on branding

But how do you make sure you are creating your own well-branded presentation?

Don’t copy other brands’ designs. Your brand should be distinctive. Your presentations should be too. Stick with your brand’s fonts, colors, and unique style.

Design your slides to reflect your brand’s personality. If your brand is bold, go bold in your design. If your brand is understated, go simple. The point is to stay true to your own branded look and feel.

PowerPoint Tip 3: Create a Quality Layout

To create recognizable presentations, you need to develop a high-quality layout that can become your signature style .

A good layout involves everything we’ve talked about so far. It includes the way you come across visually and your branded fonts, colors, and personality. But it’s strategic as well—because you want the layout of every slide to look like you .

To do that, you need to decide in advance how you’re going to handle different design elements, and then stay consistent.

For example, the presentation below could be laid out any number of ways. It could have a traditional layout, like this:

image of traditional style powerpoint layout for tip on consistent layout

Here, the text primary text box is at the top of each slide, with a secondary text box at the bottom. Images are centered with a yellow border that keeps them from bleeding into the blue background.

But if your brand is more modern, you might choose a more artsy layout, like this:

more modern layout for powerpoint tip on consistent layout

Now, both of these layouts can work. While most designers would agree the second version is “better,” in reality, the right choice is the one that aligns with your brand and works with the information you’ll be presenting. Here, the image is placed in the background and text is minimized. With this layout, slides are more engaging—less predictable.

What’s more important is that you create a PowerPoint layout that’s attractive to your audience. Then stick with it—don’t jump from one style to another.

And you can do that in several ways:

Use white space to your advantage. White space is the unfilled space between elements on the page (or in this case, the slide). It keeps things from feeling crowded and helps you keep your audience focused on what matters. White space is your friend. Embrace it.

Use animated transitions and multimedia sparingly. Animations can be classy or cheesy—and overdone, they’re usually irritating. An effective use of animation is to show one sentence or bullet point at a time. Avoid garish transitions that could become distracting.

Clip art is almost always a no-no.

Terrible image of old clipart for powerpoint tip on layout

Please. No.

Keep your layout simple. Every slide should have just one focal point.

Use gifs sparingly. Movement attracts attention, and gifs move nonstop. The problem is, they can distract people from your main message. So if you use gifs, don’t leave them up while you’re sharing important information. Show them, then move to the next slide while you talk.

PowerPoint Tip 4: Use a Template

Once you’ve settled on a good design for your presentation, turn it into a template. Then create a few variations for the different types of information you’ll present—say, a layout for lists, another for text with an image, and yet another for charts.

For example, this presentation by Edureka! has 3 primary layouts that keep everything looking consistent.

This is the primary template, which has text above and below a graphic:

image of template style for powerpoint tip on using templates

This is the template for introducing new subtopics:

image of another template style for powerpoint tip on using templates

And this is the template for discussions, case studies, and examples:

Templates can make your life much easier. Instead of reinventing the wheel every time you need to create a presentation, you can simply pull out your template. With the design work already done, you can focus on the content—so you’re sure your presentation will be interesting.

PowerPoint Tip 5: Create Flow

In a strong presentation, every idea leads to the next. There should be no “stops” or awkward transitions. That’s true for your speech and for your PowerPoint slides.

Every slide should bring your audience closer to your final slide—or call to action.

Of course, flow is nebulous. It’s hard to create it, but easy to spot when it’s missing. While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules to ensure flow, there are several things you can do to make it easier.

Know your goal. It’s a lot easier to lead people to a place when you know what that place is. Every slide should bring your audience closer to your final slide—or call to action.

Edit content to fit your template. Don’t depart from your template. If an image doesn’t fit, edit the image. If your text doesn’t fit on the screen, break it up and create extra slides. To make a PowerPoint presentation attractive, you need to embrace the boundaries of your template.

Create transition slides. If you need to transition smoothly from one subtopic to another, create transition slides to bridge the gap.

PowerPoint Tip 6: Test Your Hardware

If you’re presenting live—whether on a webinar or at an event—make sure your technology will work.

Nothing’s worse than apologizing to the audience for 15 minutes because your slide show isn’t loaded and ready. Always have a back-up plan.

For presentations, have your laptop or tablet ready. Make sure your PowerPoint is already open—just in case.

For webinars, do some dry runs to make sure the internet and your hardware and software work.

PowerPoint Tip 7: Use Presenter View

Finally, use PowerPoint’s Presenter View when delivering your presentation.

Presenter View lets you to view the entire presentation—along with any notes you’ve written to yourself—while the audience sees only your finished slides.

Powerpoint tip on using presenter mode

PowerPoint’s presenter view lets you see the final slides PLUS presenter notes.

If PowerPoint doesn’t prompt you to select Presenter View when you start your slideshow, you can find the option in the “SlideShow” tab. To find it after you’ve begun the slideshow, look for 3 dots below the main slide view—you can click on them to bring it up.

Use Presenter View to write notes to yourself. This is how you can avoid using your slides as index cards. Add prompts, tips on movements or gestures, or specific stats and numbers that you didn’t want to include on your slide.

Meanwhile, your audience just sees the slides flowing seamlessly, and you look like a genius, pulling stats and figures seemingly from thin air.

Pull up the appropriate slide if someone asks a question. In many cases, questions relate to one of the slides in your presentation. When that happens, find the slide in Presenter View before you put it on the screen—rather than forcing your audience to watch as you flip through the entire stack.

Final Thoughts

PowerPoint can be your best friend or your worst enemy. So many people use it badly that it’s almost synonymous with boring.

In fact, there’s even a political party focused on removing PowerPoint from business presentations.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

With a little thought and time, you can make effective PowerPoint presentations that grab your audience’s attention.

Make PowerPoint your friend: Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Keep it visual. And people will be excited that you’re the one giving the next presentation.

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10 tips for a killer presentation (that won’t bore your audience)

how to make presentations not boring

You need to give a presentation. And, ideally, you need to do so without boring your audience to tears. That can be more challenging than you think.

One study indicates that a whopping 91% of professionals admit to daydreaming during presentations. Even more cringe-worthy? 39% of people confess to actually falling asleep.

Other research shares that 41% of U.S. employees would rather do their taxes or visit the dentist than endure another slideshow. With that in mind, crafting an engaging presentation that grabs, and holds, the audience’s attention is a must.

Think it’s impossible? Here’s the good news: It’s not.

We’ve pulled together ten need-to-know tips for a presentation that won’t make your audience wish they were watching paint dry.

1. Start with a bang

A strong presentation starts with a strong opening. When we speak, we have 60 seconds on average to capture people’s attention – which means the beginning of your presentation carries some serious weight.

Skip the boilerplate “Today, I’m going to talk to you about…” and challenge yourself to think of something more creative. From a story to a demonstration, there are plenty more compelling ways to begin your presentation than simply stating the obvious.

Need some inspiration to get those creative juices flowing? Check out this opening from Toastmasters World Champion, Darren LaCroix . He hooks his audience right from the start:

Read more: How to choose the best format for your presentation

2. Make your visual aids visual

This seems obvious. But, it’s far too easy to fall into the trap of filling your presentation slides with heavy blocks of text.

Remember, the goal isn’t for the audience to read the information off of your slides. You want them focused on you and what you’re saying – then you can occasionally direct their attention to a visual that’s displayed on the screen when necessary.

Some of you may be thinking: “Oh, but I can use plenty of text as long as it’s well organized with bullet points.” That’s not necessarily the case. Take Steve Jobs, for example. He was an incredibly engaging presenter – yet he never used a single bullet point . Instead, he relied on displaying carefully chosen words and phrases with plenty of impactful imagery.

It’s a strategy worth replicating, particularly when you consider the  Picture Superiority Effect – which states we learn and retain information better when it’s presented in pictures.

When creating your presentation slides, keep Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule in mind:

  • You should use no more than 10 slides
  • Your slides should take no longer than 20 minutes to get through
  • Your font size shouldn’t go below 30-point font

And, yes, we know we just used bullets ourselves. They have their time and place.

3. Involve your audience

One surefire way to engage your audience: Rather than speaking at them, involve them in your presentation.

People don’t have the option to sit back and halfheartedly listen to your content when you actively involve them in what’s happening through things like:

  • Surveys and questions
  • Smaller group discussions
  • Demonstrations

There are plenty more ideas you can use to make your audience members a part of the action. Just check out this TED Talk from musician Bobby McFerrin , where he uses the audience to explain the pentatonic scale and how our brains are wired.

You likely won’t have your audience singing. But, the point remains the same: Involving your audience members is sure to hold their attention far better than just rambling on in front of them.

4. Keep it short

There’s a common theme that you’ve likely noticed with all TED Talks: They’re incredibly short.

When research states that people can only focus on one subject for a finite amount of time (typically right around 10 minutes at the very most), TED decided that they would keep their own presentations under 18 minutes.

No presenter – it doesn’t matter who – is allowed to go past that 18-minute mark.

We know that feels like almost no time at all. And, there will likely be instances when you need to fill a longer presentation slot. At those times? It’s even more important to use strategies to involve your audience and split your presentation into different parts – like an opening, a small group discussion, and then a closing.

That structure and frequent changing of gears can help to hold their attention longer.

5. Rehearse (but don’t over-rehearse)

Practice makes perfect. And, that’s true – you definitely don’t want to fly by the seat of your pants when giving an important presentation.

But heed this warning: You don’t want to over-rehearse either. That can make you appear far too stiff and formal, which will only lose the focus and engagement of your audience.

Don’t read from any notecards. Instead, move around the stage, show passion and enthusiasm, and look different audience members in the eye. That’s far more compelling than watching someone white-knuckle the sides of a podium.

Look to professor Randy Pausch’s presentation at Carnegie Mellon for an example. While there’s a podium onstage, he still moves around to make it feel as if he’s having a more casual conversation with his audience:

6. Be clear on your core message

You have limited speaking time, so make sure you can answer this question definitely: What’s the message you’re trying to get across? Perhaps you’re a famous author and you want to tell them your biggest secret to finishing a novel. Or maybe you’re a marketing executive who wants to explain your top three tips to reaching a target audience.

Whoever you are, create your entire presentation — every sentence, every story — around that core message. Each minute is valuable, so you don’t want to waste any time on irrelevant content. For each part of your presentation, ask yourself, “Does this help me clearly and effectively communicate my lesson? Does it add substance, or does it add fluff?”

Take this example from Heidi Heikenfeld . From the very start, you know that she’s going to speak about the gender gap among portfolio managers in the investment community. She talks about what this gender gap means, why we should challenge it, and ties in some of her personal experiences as one of the few women in this career space. Every moment relates back to the core message: There’s a gender gap in this industry, and we need to do something about it.

7. Avoid sounding monotone

Your thoughtfully crafted presentation won’t matter one bit if you don’t keep the audience engaged. And keeping them engaged is difficult if you speak in a flat, dull voice the entire time. You might as well be a white noise machine, lulling your listeners into a deep, dark sleep.

“People who speak in a monotone voice or with inappropriate expression in their voices are perceived as untrustworthy, boring, or even shifty,” says Susan Ward , a small business expert and owner of a consulting firm.

When you practice, don’t just focus on memorization. Practice infusing your words with passion for the topic. You should be as animated as you’d be if you were telling a good friend about the dream vacation you just went on.

Here, James Veitch tells a story about a conversation he had with someone who sent him spam mail. As he winds his way through different parts of the story (such as the scam artist sending him gold — how fun!), his voice varies in intensity and volume.

8. Structure it like a story

There’s a reason why storytelling is so powerful. Stories are based on a simple structure that allows people to see the message clearly.

Your entire presentation doesn’t need to be one story (though it can be). Instead, you could start with a personal anecdote that helps introduce the topic and the problem. Either way, the most important thing is that your presentation follows this simple story arc: beginning, middle, and end.

Graham Shaw , for instance, begins by asking the audience, “Who thinks they can draw?” Turns out, most people in attendance think they can’t, and Shaw wants to prove them wrong. So he spends the middle portion of his talk — the bulk of the time — doing so. He has them grab a pen and some paper (a great example of audience involvement) and walks them through drawing a few cartoons, step by step.

And voilà everyone successfully drew the images. Sure, they probably won’t be featured in an art museum any time soon, but that’s not the point. Shaw wraps it up with the real point: that our lack of belief in ourselves is getting in our own way.

9. Don’t be afraid to admit you’re nervous

“I’m going to start by saying… I’m nervous,” Tracee Ellis Ross — actor, director, Golden Globe winner, and more — says. Those are the first words out of her mouth as she gets up on stage at Glamour Magazine’s Women of the Year Summit . “I’ve been writing this speech in between trying to live my life and do a job. And I care what I say, so bear with me.”

It may seem taboo to admit you’re nervous. Aren’t you supposed to fake it until you make it? , you might be thinking. I disagree. Yes, you should prepare — a lot. Yes, you should practice a decent amount. Yes, you want to avoid “um”-ing your way through it.

But this isn’t about that. This is about the fact that, despite how ready you are, despite how much you believe in your message, you still might be nervous. Ross admitting this doesn’t invalidate what she’s saying. It makes her more relatable to the audience. And in this instance, it’s especially powerful — sometimes it’s hard to relate to someone who’s been on TV and won a shiny golden statue in front of thousands of people.

Being honest, confessing that you’re human, too, helps break down that barrier between you and the audience, making it that much easier for your message to not only be heard, but positively received.

10. Tie everything together at the end

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into deciding on a strong core method and building your presentation around it. When you get to the end, it’s time to tie it all up in a bow.

Remind your listeners why they came to hear you speak today. Reference things you talked about and how they relate to the overall message. List the key takeaways and any possible calls to action; now that they’ve got all this great information, what should they do with it?

This is the last thing your audience will hear. It’s the last chance to drive home the point you were trying to make and keep it fresh in their minds even after you leave the stage.

In his speech about what contributes to company success, Bill Gross outlines five different factors, touching on each separately. At the end, he brings them all back together again and provides his insight on which factors he believes matter the most. This says to the audience, “Here are the five things we just mentioned, in case you forgot. And going forward, here are the ones I think you should prioritize.”

Ready to engage your audience? You’ve sat through your own fair share of boring presentations, and you’d rather not be one of them. Fortunately, you don’t have to be. Put these ten key tips to work, and you’re sure to educate and engage your entire audience – yes, even those typical back-row nappers.

Related articles

Storydoc

12 Easy Steps to Make a Presentation Creative (+ Examples)

Learn how to make a presentation creative without PowerPoint, and draw inspiration from creative presentation examples by industry and use case.

how to make presentations not boring

Dominika Krukowska

9 minute read

How to make a presentation creative

Short answer

How can I make a presentation more creative?

  • Start with captivating cover videos
  • Add chapters for smooth navigation
  • Weave in personalization using dynamic variables
  • Enhance storytelling with animations
  • Highlight key points using subtle visual cues
  • Engage with interactive elements
  • Showcase ideas using vibrant images
  • Sprinkle in video narrations
  • Wrap up with a smart CTA

Boring presentations can damage your brand’s image

Boring presentations can feel like those endless meetings where one person monopolizes the conversation. You know, the ones where you’re zoning out, doodling on the side of your notes, just waiting for it to end so you could move on to something more engaging.

That's the disconnect your audience experiences when faced with a boring presentation.

What’s even worse is that when your presentation is dull, it doesn't just bore your audience—it subtly suggests that you or your brand might be, well, kind of boring too .

The good thing is that with the right tweaks and insights, every presentation holds the potential to be memorable.

In this post, we're diving deep into the heart of what makes a presentation creative. We'll explore the mistakes that lead to forgettable slides and the strategies to elevate your content.

By the end, you’ll have all it takes to transform your presentation from mundane to magnetic and have your audience engage with it from the first click to the last.

Let’s go!

What makes a presentation boring?

A boring presentation is a mix of repetitive designs and long chunks of text without a human touch. When slides come off as too generic or overly complex, or they swing between being too predictable or hard to grasp, they lose their spark.

Add in a lack of visuals, real stories, or interaction, and you've got a recipe for audience disinterest.

To truly engage, a presentation should blend interaction, emotion, and content that is relevant to the audience.

How to make a presentation creative step-by-step

Modern presentations are more than just slides—they're experiences. Gone are the days of static bullet points; today's audience craves engagement, interactivity, and a touch of the unexpected.

Let's explore how to make your presentation more creative step-by-step:

1) Add videos to break up text

Videos can set the tone, explain complex ideas, or simply entertain. By strategically placing them at key moments where you feel energy might dip, you make sure your audience remains engaged, and your message is reinforced.

Whether it's a real-life testimonial, a product demo, or a fun animation, videos can breathe life into abstract concepts, making them tangible and relatable.

And, there’s science behind it too: presentations with a video on the cover slide see 32% more engagement . But the magic of videos doesn't stop at the cover. Presentations sprinkled with videos throughout held people's attention 37% longer and even boosted the click-through rate on calls-to-action by 17%.

2) Create a non-linear flow

Who said presentations have to be a straight line? Let's mix it up! By linking slides, you're handing the remote to your audience. It's like those 'choose your own adventure' books from our childhood.

Group your slides into themes or create chapters and let them pick what they want to see next. It's a fun, interactive way to keep them on their toes and engaged.

3) Use personalization for creating tailored stories

You know those emails that greet you by name and make you feel all special? Imagine bringing that warmth to your presentations using dynamic variables.

By integrating with your CRM, you can fetch specific data about your audience and weave it into your slides. This simple trick can make your audience feel like the content was crafted specifically for them, creating a deeper connection.

If you’re making a presentation to showcase your product, you can even use dynamic variables to create a mock-up with your prospect’s name and logo on it to make your deck stand out.

4) Use narrated design

Scrollytelling is where the magic of scrolling meets the art of storytelling. It's an interactive content experience that weaves text, images, videos, and animations into a captivating narrative.

Instead of static slides, scrollytelling guides readers through a story, allowing them to control the pace. It breaks down complex content into bite-sized chunks, enhancing engagement and retention.

Our founder, Itai Amoza, wanted everyone to enjoy this dynamic content experience. So, he joined forces with visualization expert Prof. Steven Franconeri to weave scrollytelling into Storydoc.

Thanks to their partnership, we have dedicated storytelling slides in Storydoc, like the narrator slide you can see below , designed to make content both clear and captivating for all.

Narrator slide example

5) Tell stories with videos

Videos have this unique power to turn complex ideas into simple, engaging stories. A video might break down a tricky process into fun, easy-to-follow narrative, or give us a peek into real-life examples or experiences.

It's all about making your content feel alive, relatable, and super easy to understand. Because, let's face it, everyone's a sucker for a good story.

Here's a great example of a storytelling video:

6) Use roadmap and timeline slides

Ever tried reading a long-winded description of a company's journey or a product's development process? Yawn, right?

Now, imagine swapping that snooze-fest with a vibrant roadmap or timeline. Instead of slogging through paragraphs, you get a fun, visual play-by-play.

Picture a colorful line showing a startup's journey from a garage brainstorm to its first big sale.

Or a playful timeline marking the stages of turning a wild idea into a bestselling product. It's like turning a history lesson into a comic strip—way more fun and a whole lot clearer!

You can see what it looks like below:

Video timeline slide

7) Direct attention using animations

Ever been to a theater where the spotlight focuses on the main act? That's what animations do for your presentation.

Whether it's a cheeky arrow pointing out a fun fact, a grand entrance animation for a new idea, or using grayed-out content to highlight a key point, animations are your stage directors.

They ensure your audience's eyes are exactly where you want them to be, soaking in all the important bits.

Here's a great example:

Animated slide example

8) Add interactive calculators

Who said numbers have to be boring? With interactive calculators, you're turning math into a fun game. Let your audience punch in numbers and see real-time results.

Whether they're calculating potential savings, ROI, or just playing around, it's an engaging and creative way to make your points tangible. It's like turning your presentation into a hands-on workshop.

9) Use AI-generated images

Instead of sifting through countless stock photos, thanks to the magic of AI, you can have an image that's tailor-made for your slide in seconds.

Storydoc presentation maker lets you generate any image directly in your deck - just give the AI assistant a short description and you’re good to go.

What's great is that you always get an image that matches your topic to a tee. No more "that'll do" compromises. Plus, think of all the time you save when you don't have to hunt for the right picture or take it yourself.

Here's a short video showing how it works:

Storydoc AI image generator

10) Pop into the presentation with video bubble narration

Imagine if, during a presentation, a mini version of you could pop up, share a quick tip, or clarify a point. That's video bubble narration in a nutshell.

It's like having a friendly guide accompanying your audience, ensuring they get the most out of your content. It adds a creative personal touch, making your presentation feel like a cozy chat between friends.

11) Use before-and-after to show transformation

There's something magical about witnessing a transformation. Just think about the buzz online when someone shares a 'before and after' of a design revamp, weight loss journey, or how they helped a client grow their business.

With a before-and-after slide , you're giving your audience that 'aha!' moment. Even if you can't see their reactions in real-time, you can bet they're sliding back and forth, captivated by the change.

Whether it's showcasing a product's impact, a website redesign, or a process improvement, it's a visual treat that makes your message more powerful.

Here's an example of a before-and-after slide:

Before-and-after slide example

12) Close with a smart CTA

The grand finale of your presentation deserves a touch of flair. Instead of a simple 'Thank you' slide, imagine ending with an interactive live chat prompt or a calendar invite for a follow-up. It's like the encore at the end of a concert, giving your audience a chance to engage further.

These smart CTAs aren't just functional; they're creative extensions of your narrative. By integrating them, you're not just concluding your presentation; you're opening doors to new conversations and possibilities.

Here's a great example of a smart CTA:

Next steps slide example

3 presentation opening ideas

Kicking off a presentation with a bang can set the tone for everything that follows. Here are 3 captivating ways to grab your audience's attention right from the get-go:

Dive into a story: Begin with a personal anecdote or a relatable tale. It's like inviting your audience around a campfire, setting the stage for a memorable narrative.

Pose a thought-provoking question: Challenge your viewers with a question that gets their gears turning. It's an instant engagement booster, making them active participants.

Share a startling statistic: Drop a number that makes jaws drop. When you hit them with a fact that's hard to ignore, you've got their undivided attention.

Want more insights on crafting the perfect presentation opener? Check out our article on how to start a presentation people read to the end .

3 presentation closing ideas

Wrapping up a presentation is just as crucial as the opening. It's your final chance to leave a lasting impression. Here are 3 best ways to ensure your audience walks away inspired:

Circle back to the start: Revisit your opening story or statement, bringing your narrative full circle. It's a neat way to tie everything together and reinforce your key message.

End with a Call-to-Action: End with a captivating personal video message or a lively animation. It's a unique way to engage, surprise, and guide your audience on what's next.

Share an inspiring quote: Leave them with words that resonate. A powerful quote can sum up your message and linger in their minds long after.

Here's an example of a presentation with a personal video message at the end:

Slide with a personal video message

Hungry for more tips on crafting the perfect presentation finale? Read our blog post on how to end a presentation and get people to act .

Best tools for making creative presentations

Crafting creative presentations is an art, and like any artist, you need the right tools to bring your vision to life. Here's a curated list of platforms that are pushing the envelope in presentation design:

Storydoc : Beyond traditional slides, Storydoc offers interactive web stories. It's not just about displaying content; it's about creating experiences. With dynamic visuals and interactive elements, your audience is in for a treat.

Pitch : Collaboration is Pitch's forte. Designed for teams, it offers real-time editing, customizable templates, and a sleek interface. It's where ideas transform into visually stunning stories.

Genially : From animated presentations to responsive infographics, Genially provides tools that make your content come alive on the screen.

Beautiful.ai : Automated design assistance is its claim to fame. Feed in your content, and watch as the tool intuitively crafts slides that are both coherent and captivating.

Canva : A versatile design platform, Canva boasts a variety of templates for presentations, graphics, and more. Its drag-and-drop interface ensures even design novices feel like pros.

Visme : Tailored for visual storytelling, Visme offers a rich library of assets. Think dynamic charts, data widgets, and a suite of animations that turn your data into visual narratives.

Creative presentation templates

Ever felt the weight of the cursor blinking on an empty slide, almost taunting you to come up with something creative?

It's like being handed a stage with an eager audience, but the script is yet to be written. That initial step can be the hardest, but what if you had a little nudge in the right direction?

Creative presentation templates can help you shape your story in a way that stands out in a sea of monotony. Think of them as the paint-by-numbers kits, where the structure is set, but the colors and flair? That's all you.

Grab one and see for yourself.

how to make presentations not boring

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

how to make presentations not boring

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Blog > 6 Tips to turn your boring slides into stunning presentations

6 Tips to turn your boring slides into stunning presentations

01.18.22   •  #design #tips #powerpoint.

Recall those conferences or meetings where you were forced to sit through slide after slide of hard-to-read and overcrowded text with nebulous or no images. Didn’t you feel claustrophobic or overwhelmed? Now, let’s do a reality check! Even though we all abhor a distracting, boring, and cluttered presentation, when it comes to crafting our own, do we really ace it? Well, most of us fail to prepare winning slides despite putting in lots of effort and investing tons of hours. Do you know that you don’t have to be an experienced and professional graphic designer to add a spark to your slideshows? Yes, you heard it right! You can make your monotonous slides dazzle with just a few easy tips. So, let's take a bit of a deeper dive into the blog!

1. Structure and Organize Your Presentation Aptly

According to research studies, the information presented in a structured format is retained 40% more accurately by the audience than unstructured information. Craft your presentation in a simple and logical way so that you can stay on topic while presenting, and your audience can easily grab the key message. The structure of your presentation depends on several factors, such as the settings where you will be delivering your speech, whether you need any visual assistance, how knowledgeable your audience is on the given subject, etc.

The Explanation

  • What is the objective of your presentation?
  • Who is your audience?
  • What key message do you want your audience to take home?

Pro Tip: You can choose pre-designed PowerPoint templates to give a logical flow to the information and a professional touch to the overall presentation.

2. Less is more

Many presenters put everything they know about the topic on the slides for the sake of making the presentation information-rich. But the truth is, too much information in the form of bullet points or long paragraphs will only make your slides look cluttered and difficult to comprehend, drifting off the audience in a few minutes. Keep in mind that the audience is more likely to be enlightened, engaged, and influenced if you provide them meaningful information with fewer words.

Slide Content

  • Slides stuffed with too many images do more harm than good to your presentations. If you need to include multiple images, rather than putting them all in one slide, put one on each side.
  • Use the fewest characters and words on slides to tell your story. Provide handouts or do follow-up emails if you want to furnish longer information.
  • Keep titles and subtitles short.

Pro Tip : Your slides should not be a data/information dump; instead, they must be an aid to support your key points.

3. Power Your Slides with the Right Visuals

You will be surprised to know that the average attention span of humans (8 seconds) is shorter than a goldfish’s (9 seconds). So, to grab their attention really quick and keep them hooked to your slideshow without getting distracted, include the right visuals, and you are all set to deliver a gripping presentation. Moreover, adding visuals save you valuable time compared to writing out a whole bunch of text and increases your credibility as a presenter.

Attention Span

People tend to grab the information quickly and remember it for longer if it is presented in a visually appealing manner. Research also confirms that in comparison to plain text, visuals are processed 60,000 times faster. So, if you really want the linguistically diverse, neuro-diverse, and culturally diverse audience to get more out of your presentation, use high-resolution and good-quality visuals that reinforce and complement the core message. Depending on your presentation, you can include graphs, images, icons, videos, charts, infographics, screenshots, memes, or GIFs.

Pro Tip : Visuals do make a great impact if they are formatted properly, perfectly match with the slide content, and evoke the right emotion.

4. Keep the Formatting (Color and Font) Simple Yet Engaging

Your presentation acts as an ambassador of your brand. Misaligned text boxes, wrong line spacing, and other formatting mistakes may undermine your key message. In a nutshell, a poorly-formatted presentation can put your company’s/brand’s reputation at stake. So, take time to format your slides properly and give them a professional touch before you present them in front of the intended audience.

Clear Formatting

  • Leave adequate white space around the text to give it clarity and an uncramped look. But refrain from double spacing errors.
  • Use the right size and color of fonts to improve the readability of the content. Avoid using multiple font colors.
  • For increasing comprehension, use contrasting color palettes for text and background.
  • Keep the design consistent in all the slides.

5. Make it Audience-Centered and Interactive

  • Include only relevant and meaningful points.
  • Avoid using jargon or technical language.
  • Add a title to each slide to make your audience understand what the slide is all about.
  • Make your slides interactive by adding questions, polls, surprising facts, and other icebreaking elements to keep the audience active.
  • Allow the audience to ask questions and share their feedback to increase their participation and make your presentation a two-way communication.

6. Include a powerful Call-to-Action

End your presentation with an effective call-to-action (CTA) that guides the audience about what to do with the information you have shared and encourages them to take the right action.

Call to Action

  • Choose the CTA that closely matches the purpose/objective of your presentation.
  • The CTA should not be complicated and confusing; it should be concise and clear. For example, “Download Now,” “Subscribe Today,” etc.
  • If you want to elicit a strong response from the audience, your CTA must be enthusiastic. For example, “plan your dream vacation today,” “buy now and get 60% off,” etc.

The bottom Line

The above tips will help you create a truly amazing presentation, but you can achieve success only if you deliver it with confidence. It is important to prepare thoroughly and practice a lot to deliver a unique experience to the audience. In addition, to avoid your slideshow from being a “snoozefest,” make your narration exciting and lively. Also, make sure you speak neither too slow nor too fast/loud.

Related articles

About the author.

Ashish Arora

Ashish Arora is the Co-Founder of SketchBubble.com , a leading provider of result-driven, professionally built presentation templates. Travelling the world to gather new creative ideas, he has been working in the digital marketing space since 2007 and has a passion for designing presentations. You can also find him on Twitter or LinkedIn .

how to make presentations not boring

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Extemporaneous Speech

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how to make presentations not boring

No More Boring Presentations – Avoid Death By PowerPoint

How to turn boring presentations into awesome slides using aesthetic designs.

It’s time to bid a farewell to boring presentations that literally put people to sleep at some point in time. They’ve managed to conjure sleep at times that needed your undivided attention. They’ve been around for a while and now, it’s just time to say goodbye for those boring presentations . Let’s vow to leave them in the past and bring presentations to life with creativity, designs, ideas, and brilliance.

With creative, innovative, informative, and aesthetic presentations, Visual Sculptors can help you ace every presentation with perfection. The next time you’re on your way to design a presentation that will do you no good, take a quick detour and drive yourself to Visual Sculptors. We’ve managed to list down some of the most exceptional features that set our presentations apart from the rest. With a plethora of presentation services, we’re certain you would love what’s in store!

How to Avoid Death by PowerPoint

Business executive create a PowerPoint presentation before the meeting and present them as slideshow. Professionals know the importance PowerPoint template. Templates for presentations offer a structured pre-designed layouts to be used for consistency and uniform brand image. It is worth spending money on a presentation design agency that can deliver a branded PowerPoint presentation template.

To prevent death by PowerPoint, it’s important to keep your slides simple and visually appealing. Use images and graphics to break up text and keep your audience engaged. Don’t overload your slides with too much information, and avoid reading directly from your slides. Practice your presentation beforehand and engage with your audience to keep them interested. Follow the 1-6-6 Rule -This rule dictates that presenters limit their slide content to no more than 6 lines, each containing a maximum of 6 words.

Professional, but aesthetic   

No More Boring Presentations - Chart Data Representation

No More Boring Presentations – Chart Data Representation

It’s quite difficult to ensure your presentation is professional but looks appealing. With our team of experienced designers, we ensure every presentation is creatively designed with intricate detail but doesn’t lose its professionalism. Easy on the eyes but stays in the mind.

Maintaining an aesthetic and professional look throughout our designs is the exceptional forte that helps us deliver the perfect presentation you’ve been looking for. Every presentation must deliver and achieve your desired goal.

Many agencies offer varied level of PowerPoint slides template and by choosing the appropriate template, one can create an impressive slideshow deck. Templates for PowerPoint presentation is vital, as it sets the base for building uniform design layouts, that can be used by all employees of a company across different locations. Be it a PowerPoint template for IT presentation or for a board meeting, for every type of presentation meetings, unique set of design layouts can be incorporated and come up with a branded PPT template.

Strike the perfect balance between content and design

No More Boring Presentations - Process Flow Visualization

No More Boring Presentations – Process Flow Visualization

To begin with, building PowerPoint slides or PPT slides may look easy. Successful presentation professionals take the best advantage of the latest updates and salient features of PowerPoint and design their slides to look super professional.

They follow the latest presentation design trends while building their PowerPoint presentation slides. One can browse through varied PowerPoint samples for presentation and learn the tricks of easy slides building with minimal efforts. These samples explain the PowerPoint features along with suitable design ideas and layouts.

Your content and design always need to be just enough. Never too much or too little. Too much content makes your presentation too wordy and takes away the interest of your viewers. We use crisp and informative sentences to deliver your content. We ensure to support this content with informative images and graphics that make your slides easy to decipher.

Using too many images or going overboard with the design makes it look quite unprofessional. By striking this balance between content and design, we can help your audience understand just what you need them to just with a glance at every presentation slide.

The unique touch of creativity  

No More Boring Presentations – Creative Visualization

Your PowerPoint design should inspire your audience to sit and understand your ideas all through the meeting till end. If your PPT design looks in a boring theme, then more chances your audience will feel sleepy. It would be helpful to search online PowerPoint how to make your slides interesting for your audience and you would be filled with tons of resourceful ideas for design inspirations. You can also assign this design task to an expert presentation design agency to deliver a best PowerPoint template along with visual enhancement to your existing slides.

Our skilled team of professionals comes with their expertise in brilliantly crafting every aspect of a presentation. With our experience in delivering just what you’re looking for, we incorporate creative designs to deliver presentations you could only dream of. Intricately designed slides, layouts, infographics , and templates help you achieve the desired appeal and connect with your audience. A simple glance at your presentation must captivate every member of the audience and keep them hooked. Well, that’s just what creativity is for!

Audience-oriented

No More Boring Presentations - Audience Centric Visuals

No More Boring Presentations – Audience Centric Visuals

Every presentation at Visual Sculptors is designed for keeping your audience in mind. Audience-oriented presentations help you captivate your audience and keep them intrigued. It is designed to keep your audience’s perspective in mind. Understanding their perspective helps you understand their thinking and approach. This helps you understand what they would love to see and vouch for. Keeping yourself in the place of your audience and designing according to what they would like to see makes your presentation easy to understand and comprehend. It helps you deliver your presentation with ease and perfection while creating a perfect connection with them.

We deliver a professional PowerPoint template incorporating best PowerPoint design ideas and by using this template, you can be rest assured to design your slides consistently that looks more professional. If your existing slides look dull and boring, we can transform them with creative PPT design ideas and deliver a stunning slide deck that will impress your audience and keep them lively.

Our expert designers bring in professional PowerPoint layout in each slide and fine tune them matching the latest presentation design trends. Designing slides creatively is the front of our expert designers team and we are versatile to spruce up your existing slides with impressive PowerPoint ideas for design.

With intricately designed presentations slides, layouts and templates, Visual Sculptors can help you empower your business and achieve your goals. Creative and professional presentations can set you apart from the rest in a league of your own. It helps you save time and deliver presentations that your audience would look forward to.

Make a powerful impact on your audience and deliver the best presentations they have ever witnessed or been a part of. Creating, designing, and delivering the best presentations, we’ve got your presentation needs covered. Reach out to us and we would love to help you create presentations that you’ll remember forever!

Ideas for presentation involves thorough research and organization of your thoughts to ensure a cohesive and impactful presentation. Additionally, having a presentation design can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your delivery.

So, why take chances?

If you feel your existing slides are not great, then reach our VS team and see your slides shine with creativity that are sure to captivate your audience.

  • How do you avoid death by PowerPoint?

To avoid death by PowerPoint, it’s important to keep your slides simple and visually appealing. Use images and graphics to break up text-heavy slides, and limit the amount of text on each slide. Also, make sure to rehearse your presentation and engage with your audience to keep them interested and involved.

2. How do you make a PowerPoint presentation not boring?

There are several ways to make your PowerPoint presentation more engaging and less boring. Some tips include using visuals, incorporating storytelling, keeping text to a minimum, using humor, and engaging with your audience through questions or interactive elements.

3. What is 77 rule in presentation?

The 77 rule in presentation refers to the idea that you should limit your slides to 7 lines of text with 7 words per line, or a maximum of 77 words per slide. This helps to keep your presentation concise and focused, and prevents your audience from getting overwhelmed with too much information on one slide.

4. What is 248 rule for PPT?

The 248 rule for PowerPoint presentations states that you should use no more than two minutes and forty-eight seconds of text per slide. The rule also advises against using more than six lines of text or seventy words per slide to ensure your audience can absorb all the information in the time allotted.

5. What is 70 30 rule in presentation?

The 70-30 rule in presentation refers to the idea that a successful presentation should be 70% focused on the audience and 30% focused on the presenter. This means that the presenter should spend the majority of their time addressing the needs and interests of the audience, rather than simply talking about themselves or their topic. By following this rule, presenters can create a more engaging and impactful presentation that resonates with their audience.

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7 Tips To Ensure Your Presentations Are Not Boring

We have all experienced a presentation that was boring and was slowly putting us to sleep. The speaker was so focused on their content and their script that they forgot that they were speaking to a live audience.

Have you ever been that speaker? Have you ever struggled to engage your audience and keep them awake and interested in what you are saying? If so, here are 7 tips that you can use to keep your audience engaged and reduce the risk of you being seen as a boring presenter.

  • Don’t read from your script

Reading from a prepared script word for word is a sure fire way of putting your audience to sleep. Rather than read from your full script, do your preparation, know your content and either use a mind map, or a one-page outline or use a page with headings and bullet points to guide you through your presentation. This will help you achieve more of a conversational speaking style.

  • Don’t read from your PowerPoint slides

We have all heard of death by PowerPoint where the speaker reads from their slides, word for word, as if it is their teleprompter. Reading from your PowerPoint slides just shows that you are under-prepared. Your PowerPoint slides should be more of a visual aid than just words and a script. Your PowerPoint should enhance what you are saying – not replace what you are saying.

  • Involve the audience

Rather than just speak at the audience, or lecture to them, you should try and Involve the audience. Get them doing stuff and get them thinking. I use a little Model described to me by Matt Church. Use a cycle of;  TELL  –  SHOW – ASK  – SHARE . So tell your audience something, show them a visual ( slide, flip chart, prop) ask them to think about how that might apply to their situations, get them to share with the group or the person next to them.  If you run this cycle every 10 to 15 minutes within your presentation you will keep people engaged, thinking, and applying the information to their own personal circumstances.

4.  Be passionate and excited about your topic.

Passion is everything in a presentation. You need to show that you believe in what you are saying. You must be congruent with your message and you need to want to be before your audience. Passion is the best way to demonstrate that you believe in your message. Steve Jobs always said – “What makes your heart sing”.

  • Use your stories to engage the audience

Tell a story that illustrates your point effectively and takes your audience on an emotional roller coaster and you will never be boring.  More and more literature is surfacing on the importance of storytelling in public speaking and the role it has in engaging your audience. There is that famous saying, “people will not remember much of what you have said, but they will remember how you made them feel”. So tell powerful, relevant and engaging stories, take your audience on an emotional journey and you will be remembered.

  • Use appropriate and congruent body language

Simply put you need to “Walk the Talk”. Your body language and your non verbal’s speak louder than the words you say. One way to always lose me and put me to sleep is when a good message is not backed up with appropriate body language.

  • Show the audience that you care about them

As a speaker if you clearly demonstrate that your presentation is about the audience, for the audience, designed to help the audience, then you are less likely to be seen as boring. The term we use in public speaking is WiiFM – “What’s In It For Me”? If you demonstrate a clear WiiFM then you will be engaging and keep your audiences attention.

The next time you undertake a public speaking assignment, what are you going to do to ensure you are not seen as boring and that you engage audience.

If you would like more information on this article there is a 30 minute webinar recording that expands on the content.

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how to make presentations not boring

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5 Fool-proof Ways To Turn A Boring Topic Into An Exciting Presentation

Hrideep barot.

  • Presentation , Public Speaking

An audience that looks bored

To build interest in a topic in an audience which is ready to bolt out the door the second they get a chance may seem like a daunting task but what we are missing out on is the numerous possibilities and opportunities it presents us!

What is a “Boring” Topic?

Lets get this myth out of the way immediately. A topic. Any topic, can never be boring. There are only two ways that it is may seem “boring” either:

  • It hasn’t been presented in the right angle.
  • It is being presented to the wrong audience.

These are the only two reasons I can think of for a topic being termed as “boring.”

Think about it: A person who has taken Biology their whole life, have studied it and are doing PhD. in that respective field would find only one subject boring? Maybe if taught in a different angle, it would be one of their favourites!
In Case of Wrong Audience: For an audience homogenously established as sports fanatics, a presentation on the etymology of the word: “word” would be nothing more than a waste of time. If your don’t get to choose your topic or audience, you can choose your style of presentation. Use sports references, create games, take the presentation out in the field. Keep reading to learn how to use these techniques effectively and more!

How to Start a Presentation Effectively

Feet at an arrow showing the strong start of a presentation

At the end of the day, it is all about grabbing the audience’s attention. How do we do that right at the beginning? There are various tricks and tips that we can use, some are listed below!

You could start with a thought provoking or rhetorical question, get the audience thinking and creating their own opinions about your topic before you even begin, this could get them invested and excited about your topic as they begin to compare your presentation to their thoughts and point of view.

Here are a few other ways you can start a presentation:

  • Short Story
  • Audio / Video / Visual Screening – grab move their attention towards the stage.
  • State a shocking or thought provoking fact
  • Use powerful quotes
  • Small talk – short greeting and expect a reaction from the audience viz.,. nods, gestures, verbal confirmations.

If you are looking to learn more about how to start your killer presentation with the perfect entry, you can check out our video on the same!

How to Make an Exciting Presentation

We are now following the above mentioned assumption that there is no Boring Topic.

Now that, that is out of the way, lets get to checking out the techniques to find the right angle and / or topic for your next killer presentation!

1. Establish a Theme

One major reason we tend to feel bored about a topic is because it becomes repetitive.

Once a speaker establishes a Theme – For example: Hard Work, there seems to be a lot of circling back to it and you may not realise until you hear the first snore that it is becoming a bit to repetitive.

While establishing a theme and sticking through it gives the audience a sort of connecting touch-point to your whole speech lets try to not be completely on the face about it.

1.1. Show Don’t Tell

Some of your might have heard of this technique.

Show, don’t tell is a writing technique used to guide writers to help show the readers an emotion and create an opportunity for them to empathise with the character instead of simply telling the emotion the character is feeling.

This creates a form of connection between the reader and the character and that keeps them hooked onto the story.

This is a great technique which can be used in presentations to avoid repetitiveness.

Once you’ve established a theme with the audience (our current example being: Hard work), all you need to do is show how hard work pays off.

You can do it with anecdotes, a story or just examples throughout your presentation showing the positivity that hard work brings into ones life.

Remember, since we are showing the audience what if feels like to work hard, our main goal is to avoid the word “hard work” and wield our examples, and other additions to our presentations as weapons to get the message across.

Pro Tip: Sometimes while we begin explaining things we tend to exaggerate way more than necessary and this makes our sentence too complicated to understand or follow. For Example: 1. The statue felt rough, its aged façade caked with dust and grime as I weighed it in my hand, observing its jagged curves and Fanta-coloured hue. 2. It was heavier than it looked. Some of the orange façade crumbled in my hand as I picked it up. The second sentence makes it easier to follow and gets the message across quickly – It was heavy and old.

1.2. How to Establish a Theme?

While we’ve spoken a lot on what to do after establishing a theme, lets give some time to figuring out how to establish a theme in the first place!

1. Through the Title

A great way to be clear about your theme and avoid any confusion is title your presentation in a very direct sense.

For Example: Hard Work Pays Off And Why

This gives away the theme clearly to the audience and they know what you mean whenever you try to make metaphorical jokes! Bye Bye Blank Stares!

2. In the End

Another option would be give out your theme in the end.

One perk with this is that you could build suspense try to keep the audience guessing until the very end, and once you mention the theme, everything else about your presentation suddenly clicks and the audience suddenly sees your whole presentation in a new, more relevant angle.

Or you can direct your presentation to well rounded off moral that the audience kind of sees coming and is proud when they guess correctly.

Either way, it is a win-win!

2. Storytelling

Storytelling is a great and sure – fire way to get your presentation the applause it deserves!

Storytelling is the technique which speakers use to liven up their speeches / presentations while using other public speaking techniques to add to the flare.

Storytelling could be extremely effective if your topic is one which can be turned into a moral or has a strong take home value.

There are various tools like voice modulation and tonality, body language and expressions, stage usage and so many others that play a major role in the effective delivery of a story.

Check out our video on Storytelling to get a fair idea about the same!

3. Build your Presentation Skills.

An exciting presentation needs to be structured well and appropriately organised. Lets figure out how to make a solid presentation.

3.1. How to make a good presentation?

First things, first, you need to figure out the structure of your presentation. If you have your speech ready, you can use that as an outline or work on the topics you want to cover and try to make them as systematic and chronological as possible.

Your presentation needs to be formal, yet fun, simple, yet colourful and there might be many other conditions set for an effective presentation, we are not here to remind you of that nightmare, we’re here to help. 🙂

The easiest way through this is to pick out 3-4 colours that complement each other, make sure they are soft and not extremely bright.

If you find that a template would be easier, there are multiple sites that provide you with templates for various types of presentations. Here are some popular ones:

  • Slides Carnival

Once you have your colours ready you can add infographics, (templates usually have a slide dedicated to them, so do multiple sites.)

A good presentation should be both engaging and at the same time self-explanatory. Self – explanatory presentations are a great asset, because if for any reason someone needs your presentation for reference, it would be easy to understand.

Another cool feature in presentations are flow charts and other infographics. Infographics are a great tool when you need to keep things concise and to the point. You can also add avatars and other animations in your presentation if you are going to be engaging a younger crowd or will be presenting in a more informal set up.

Check out our article to work on your presentation skills!: 5 Presentation Tools To Use With Multimedia Presentations

Apart from your presentation making skills there are a few others things you should focus on while presenting.

3.2. How do I present?

Once you have your presentation ready, lets get working on your delivery.

Some accessories which I find really cool is a laser pointer and a remote to switch slides. If the organising committee is providing them, JUMP ON THAT OPPORTUNITY, or if you find them as cool as I do, you can always invest in one!

Know that all the points in your presentation while self-explanatory are still just points and the audience is relying on you to elaborate on them. Those points are only there for your reference.

DO NOT READ FROM THE SLIDE. I can’t stress on this enough, while you’re trying to make a topic interesting, it is not going to help if you simply turn your back on the audience and begin reading from the slides.

Check out this video to help you understand and work on your presentation skills:

4. Explain with Examples

Examples are an extremely important tool. They help build a connection with the topic and at the same time help us remember.

For Example:

Without Example: Companies need to be held responsible for their actions and accountable of the effect it has on its customers.
With Example: Companies need to be held responsible for their actions and accountable of the effect it has on its customers. Let’s take the McDonald’s Coffee Case. For the ones who don’t know, McDonald’s keep their coffee at an extremely high temperature to make sure they don’t go cold before someone has ordered it. The temperature is so high that a woman suffered 3rd Degree burns and was hospitalised. This is how we know that McDonald’s coffee isn’t just hot, it is unsafe to consume hot. Do you think they should be held accountable for the burns that woman faced?

Taking an example which is easy to relate to and understand helps the audience follow where you are leading them.

The sentence in itself was complete, and would’ve have been okay, but adding an example of coffee – something everyone knows about and a company that is well known piques their interest because who doesn’t love controversies and very “in the news” cases like this one?

(Bonus points if someone in the audience knows this case – this will make them more interested because it is something they already know something about and want to listen to know how that case relates to the topic.)

Apart from getting people excited and interested about your topic, you can also build engagement by asking their opinion about the example / situation.

This brings out different perspectives and opinions and keeps them interested in your presentation.

Person taking a break from their presentation to engage the audience

Taking breaks during presentation could be a welcome change and give you and your audience a chance to freshen up and organise thoughts.

Now hold on. I don’t mean getting up, grabbing a cup of coffee, few finger sized sandwiches and coming back. Not only would this break your flow but also affect your audience’s attention span.

Breaks could be anything from a recap, Q&A session, games and so much more, keeping you in the spotlight and focus while engaging the audience.

Take a few minutes to recap what you have said so far goes a long way when trying to deliver a technical topic. It helps you catch a breath, and mentally form a path in your head to line up the next topics.

You can even create a specific slide at intervals that show the topics covered so far!

5.2. Q&A

Having a Question and Answer session at intervals benefits both you and the audience.

They don’t have to wait until the end of your presentation and maybe forget the questions they might’ve had and you don’t need to go back all the way to that one point when a question is asked. You can time the questions so that they don’t cut into your speaking time much.

You can also fuse recaps with Q&A sessions to make sure no one gets left behind.

Showing this inclusivity might help encourage your audience to pay attention and gives a chance to those who got lost to catch up and refocus their energy!

Everyone loves games! Especially if you are in a room with a presentation going on, you could always use a break from the monotony.

Games could be quick exercises like worksheets or puzzles in their workbooks or quick quizzes to randomly jolt up the energy of the room.

I personally like maintaining a running joke and add it in intervals just to help the audience remember and come back to the present after their stroll through day-dreamland.

Examples of Games that can be played during a presentation

1. jigsaw puzzles.

This is a great idea for both virtual and offline set-ups.

If you want your audience to remember a particular image or topic, you can create a jigsaw puzzle (various sites help you with that) and simply take a break while they try to solve it.

You can create it into a competition just to liven things up!

For Example: You want to show the impact a brand has in our lives, you can take an image / logo of a well known brand (make sure it is popular among the audience’s demographic) and create a jigsaw puzzle!

A quick an easy way to make your audience remember a concept and increase their engagement.

Lets say your topic is fruits.

You can ask an audience member to choose a fruit, eg: Watermelon. The next one now needs to say the previous fruit and add their own new fruit. eg: Watermelon, Apple.

Pro Tip: To keep things interesting, you can pick people at random to make sure everyone is alert and you don’t make any section of the audience feel left out!

3. Crosswords / Find the Words

These types of games are a hit among juniors and seniors alike!

You can create your own crosswords or find the words games with various sites online and share a link on your virtual platform or print them out and send it across to the audience seated in front of you!

For Example: You are presenting the topic: Mental Health Crosswords: You can ask questions on various topics you have covered so far. Find the Words: You can mention words like Kindness, Me Time, Positivity, Calm, Zen, Anxious, Annoyed, Bored, etc., and ask them to circle the ones they find and relate to. To keep things active, you can make it a competition if your topic isn’t a sensitive one like Mental Health, where everyone needs their own space and time.

How to make virtual presentations more engaging?

An active and participative virtual audience

The pandemic is real and as much as we can try moving on from that fact, we have shifted into a digital world and this digital audience is even more difficult to grab the attention of. However, we’ve figured out a few ways to make a topic seem interesting and your presentations more engaging!

Even in virtual platforms that limit your access to tools like stage usage and body language, you can always count on visuals and reactions to keep the audience attentive and engaged!

You could do so much! Screen videos, show images and flow charts, share itineraries, ask for feedback and reactions and with a little more exploring, this list could be endless!

2. Involve the Audience

There is nothing more engaging in getting to call the shots in someone else’s presentation while you sit and watch what effect you have made in that. I have found the following two ways to be extremely effective in getting the audience interested about your topic.

2.1. Polling

Taking a poll about any segment in your presentation and reviewing them with your audience creates an opportunity to learn not only for the audience but for you as well!

You may see some completely new perspectives and it is okay to admit that it is a new point of view to you and thank the people who have provided it, on the other hand the audience gets to see their opinion on screen and being discussed and understood.

This technique has been inspired form the children’s book: Goosebumps (giving credit where it is due always is a good practice)

The audience gets to choose what happens next. You can create your presentation to be a form of situation and then as each step / segment comes by, you can ask someone from the audience to choose what to do next and review those results and go back to the alternative and review those results as well.

This will create an immersive environment for the audience and you’ll be a hit!

Various Topic Ideas

After so many ideas being bounced about and pitched, you might be stumped about which topic to choose. Below is a list of the topics that have been considered interesting and can perk someone’s ear up at the mention of it. Hope it helps!

  • The Human Brain
  • The Romantic Era / English Literature
  • How To Stay Productive During A Pandemic
  • Gender Identity And Sexual Orientation – How They Are Different.
  • The Importance Of Inclusivity
  • Mental Health And How To Work On Yourself
  • Pets And Your Relationship
  • The History Of A Particular Topic
  • Beauty Standards And Its Acceptance By All Genders
  • A Detailed Presentation On A Controversy – Eg: The Illuminati

Last Words:

A boring topic doesn’t exist because what might be unamusing to A might be the most profound piece of information in existence to B.

The key here is to find your interest in the topics you present and project that interest to the audience when you deliver. The methods above are simply tools and some can not be used all the time; understand that a little bit of nervousness is good. It keeps you on your toes.

What you can do is work on yourself, hydrate, practice and know your material. Excitement and interest is contagious, use the above tools as a catalyst and you will get a positive reaction.

Good luck! 🙂

Hrideep Barot

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Cheat Death by PowerPoint!

How to make presentations less boring

March 2, 2016 by Laura Foley 1 Comment

“There is no such thing as a boring project. There are only boring executions.” So said Irene Etzkorn, one of the United States’ leading experts on plain English writing and simplifying communications.

Many of us will be faced at some point with communicating information on a boring subject. But what is boring? Cell mitosis, Massachusetts tax codes, the rules of football, town meetings, plumbing…these might seem like dull topics. But presented in the right way, each of these topics could come alive and be fascinating! And no matter what the subject, somewhere in the world there lives an enthusiastic fan. The trick is to channel that enthusiasm and spread it around.

Here are some things you can do the next time you’re faced with presenting on a “boring” subject to make it more interesting for you and your audience:

Tell a story

People have been storytelling since time immemorial. Stories are relatable, repeatable and memorable, making them excellent vehicles to convey information about your subject. For example, if you’re talking about bankruptcy law, don’t just list the steps that one must complete in order to file for bankruptcy or talk in strictly legal terms. Tell the story of an actual person who has gone through bankruptcy proceedings. What were they doing before it happened (accumulated then blew through a massive fortune, suffered a tragic accident, ignored warnings from a trusted advisor, became the victim of identity theft, etc.)? How long did it last? How did it affect their financial lives afterwards? A juicy story can really make a subject come alive!

Use pictures

When I redesign presentations for my clients, I always, always always include photographs. Not only do photos break the monotony of text, they can communicate ideas far more effectively and quickly than words often do. Not that it’s impossible to paint vivid mental pictures using words; writers do this all the time. But presentations are about the performance of the speaker and the visuals. People don’t attend meetings and presentations to read evocative passages. They’re there to learn, and the more efficiently you do it the better for everyone.

What does this picture say to you? I’ll bet your response is immediate and unambiguous!

shark-pat

Don’t just stand there, DO something!

Here’s a clip from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off that shows a very uninteresting teacher:

His monotonous voice, his lack of movement and his boring body language all add up to a huge snooze. By varying the pitch, tone and tempo of your voice you can make what you’re saying more interesting. Using expressive body language and broad gestures can grab and hold your audience’s attention.

Bringing things that engages the senses really make a presentation interesting! I know of a sales rep from a local egg farm who instead of just talking about the omega 3 fatty acids in the eggs or the cage-free environment the hens enjoy, he cooks up a batch of scrambled eggs when he’s making his pitch. He lets prospective distributors see, smell and taste the eggs he’s trying to get them to sell. How cool is that? Think of things you could bring to your next presentation that would help your audience to better understand what you’re talking about.

Think like your audience

Finally, think about your presentation from the audience’s point of view. If you were talking to yourself, would you be interested in what you have to say? If you can’t imagine what that’d be like, ask a colleague, friend or family member to listen to your presentation and offer suggestions for improvement. Getting a fresh perspective can really help you to improve!

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how to make presentations not boring

How To Make a PowerPoint Not Boring? Here Are 5 Tips To Make It Interesting

Making a PowerPoint presentation can be a daunting task, especially when you want to keep your audience engaged.

You dont want your presentation to be boring – you want to make it interesting.

But how? Look no further! Here are five tips to ensure that your PowerPoint presentation is both interesting and engaging for your audience.

Well discuss incorporating multimedia, animations, creative transitions, concise text, storytelling techniques, interactive elements, and more.

So lets get started!

Table of Contents

Short Answer

There are several ways to make a PowerPoint presentation not boring.

One way is to incorporate visuals such as images, videos, or charts in addition to text.

This will help to keep the audience engaged and allow them to take away more from the presentation.

Additionally, its important to make sure your presentation is organized and clear, so the audience can easily follow your ideas.

Finally, try to make your presentation interactive by asking questions or having the audience participate in activities.

Incorporating Multimedia into Presentations

When it comes to creating an engaging and interesting PowerPoint presentation, one of the best things you can do is incorporate multimedia into your slides.

By using videos, images, audio, and other interactive elements, you can make your presentation more dynamic and exciting.

Videos are a great way to draw in your audience and keep them engaged, while images can be used to add visual appeal to your slides.

Additionally, audio can be used to add an extra layer of interest and help bring your ideas to life.

Finally, interactive elements, such as polls and quizzes, can be used to make your presentation more engaging and help your audience retain the information you’re presenting.

With the use of multimedia, you can make sure your PowerPoint presentation is anything but boring.

Adding Animations and Creative Transitions

Adding animations and creative transitions to your PowerPoint presentation can help keep your audience engaged and make your slides more dynamic.

Animations, such as transitions between slides and effects when objects appear on the screen, can draw attention to important points.

Creative transitions can also help break up the monotony of a typical slide-by-slide presentation and make the slides more visually appealing.

When it comes to animations, there are a variety of options available in PowerPoint.

You can choose from a range of fade, wipe, zoom, and other motion effects to make your slides more dynamic.

Additionally, you can add audio effects to certain elements of your presentation to make them more engaging.

When it comes to creative transitions, the options are nearly limitless.

You can use a variety of creative techniques, such as customizing the transition between slides, adding custom animations, or using a different transition for each slide.

You can also use creative graphics, such as parallax backgrounds, to make your slides more visually appealing.

Just be sure to use these elements sparingly to avoid distracting from the content of your presentation.

Finally, dont forget to use animation and creative transitions to break up the monotony of a typical slide-by-slide presentation.

By adding animations and creative transitions, you can ensure that your presentation is engaging and visually appealing.

With these tips, you can make sure your PowerPoint presentation is anything but boring!

Keeping the Text Concise and Clear

When it comes to creating a PowerPoint presentation that is both engaging and interesting, it is important to keep the text concise and clear.

Too often, presenters attempt to cram too much information onto a single slide, making it difficult to read and digest.

Instead, focus on using fewer words to get the message across.

Consider using bullet points or short phrases to ensure that your audience can easily understand and retain the information.

Additionally, be sure to use an easy-to-read font and a consistent font size throughout the presentation.

This will help to ensure that your audience can read and understand the text without any difficulty.

Additionally, use a few visuals such as charts or graphs to help illustrate key points and break up the text.

Avoiding Too Many Bullet Points

When it comes to creating an engaging PowerPoint presentation, its important to avoid using too many bullet points.

While bullet points can be a useful tool for summarizing key points in a presentation, they can quickly become overwhelming and cause your audience to lose interest.

Instead, try to use visuals, such as charts and graphs, to highlight key points.

You can also use images and videos to illustrate concepts and create an interactive experience for your audience.

Additionally, when using bullet points, make sure they are concise and easy to understand.

Keep in mind that the more text you have on a slide, the more likely it is that your audience will become bored and disengaged.

By avoiding too many bullet points, you can create an engaging and interesting PowerPoint presentation that will captivate your audience.

Using Storytelling Techniques

Storytelling is a powerful tool that can be used to make any PowerPoint presentation interesting and engaging. By incorporating creative storytelling techniques, you can captivate your audience and make sure they stay attentive throughout your presentation. Here are some tips on how to use storytelling in your PowerPoint presentation:

1. Establish a Theme: Before you begin your presentation, decide on a theme or central idea that will anchor your story. This will help you create a cohesive narrative that your audience can easily follow and understand.

2. Use Visuals: Incorporate visuals into your presentation to help illustrate your story. Images, videos, and animations can help bring your story to life and make it easier for your audience to remember and connect with the narrative.

3. Use Dialogue: Incorporate dialogue into your presentation to keep your audience engaged. Instead of simply reading from a script, use natural-sounding dialogue to bring your story to life.

4. Use Humor: Incorporate humor into your presentation to keep your audience entertained. By adding a bit of levity to your presentation, you can ensure that your audience remains interested and engaged.

5. Keep It Concise: Make sure your story is concise and to the point. Dont include too many details that are unnecessary to the story. Keep your presentation short and sweet to keep your audience focused and engaged.

By following these tips, you can make sure your PowerPoint presentation is anything but boring.

Incorporating storytelling techniques into your presentation can help you captivate your audience and ensure that they stay attentive throughout your presentation.

Incorporating Interactive Elements

When it comes to creating an engaging and interesting PowerPoint presentation, incorporating interactive elements can go a long way.

For instance, adding video clips, audio files, and other multimedia content to your slides can help to keep your audience engaged.

Additionally, interactive elements such as polls and quizzes can help to break up the traditional slide-by-slide format and add a fun element to your presentation.

Furthermore, by incorporating interactive elements into your presentation, you can provide your audience with an immersive experience that will help them to better absorb and retain the information you are presenting.

When using interactive elements, its important to ensure that they are relevant to the topic and that they are easy to use.

Furthermore, you should make sure that the interactive elements are properly tested before launching them in a presentation.

This will help to ensure that they run smoothly and that the audience is able to interact with them without any issues.

Additionally, you should also make sure to provide instructions on how to use the interactive elements in your presentation.

This will help to ensure that the audience is able to make the most of the interactive elements and that the presentation runs smoothly.

Making the Presentation Engaging

Creating an engaging PowerPoint presentation is key to ensuring that your audience stays interested and engaged.

Rather than relying on traditional slide-by-slide presentations, incorporating multimedia elements can help to make your presentation more dynamic.

By incorporating videos, images, audio, and interactive elements, you can make your presentation more visually appealing and keep your audiences attention.

Additionally, you can use animation and creative transitions to make your slides more dynamic and engaging.

When it comes to the text of your presentation, make sure that it is concise and clear.

Avoid using too many bullet points and break up long blocks of text with images or videos.

Also, be sure to use storytelling techniques to bring your ideas to life.

Using storytelling methods can help to keep your audience engaged and can be an effective way to communicate your message.

By following these tips, you can make sure that your PowerPoint presentation is anything but boring.

Incorporating multimedia elements, animation, and creative transitions can help to make your presentation more engaging and interesting.

Additionally, using clear and concise text and storytelling techniques can help to keep your audience engaged throughout your presentation.

With these tips, your PowerPoint presentation will be anything but boring.

Final Thoughts

Incorporate multimedia, animations, transitions, and storytelling techniques to make it more engaging and interactive.

Keep the text concise and clear, and avoid too many bullet points.

Finally, make sure to add interactive elements to make your presentation come alive and keep your audience engaged.

With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to create a PowerPoint presentation that is both interesting and informative.

James Wilson

James Wilson has extensive knowledge in the information technology industry.His second love, besides dealing with computers, is smart home technology. He is continually updating information to better comprehend this problem and has a deep understanding of the apartment’s support system.

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Presentation Training Institute

Presentation Training Institute

A division of bold new directions training, how to give a boring presentation.

Chances are you don’t jump up with excitement when you receive an invitation to a presentation. That’s because more often than not, presentations are more of a snooze fest than an informative and engaging experience. From poor structure and text heavy slides to complicated jargon and a monotone speaking voice, there are several reasons why a presentation can be boring and unappealing. The ability to deliver a powerful, convincing, and impactful presentation is not an easy task, but it starts by understanding what makes a presentation boring. This ensures you know what NOT to do as a presenter. To avoid a disastrous presentation, consider the following things presenters do that make their presentation boring. 

1. Read from a slide.

Believe it or not, your audience can read very well without your assistance. Rather than reading to your audience, why not save everyone the time and hassle and send them a copy of your slideshow? Presentations are not a time to read from a slide verbatim. That is just a surefire way to lose their attention right off the bat. 

2. Start with a boring introduction.

Those first few words out of your mouth can set the tone for your entire presentation. “Hi, my name is ___ and today we are going to talk about__” is boring. Likewise, never start a presentation with an apology such as “I’m sorry you have been dragged here today but I will try to make this fun.” You might as well tell the audience that your presentation is going to be boring. 

3. Load your slides with text.

Be careful when designing your slide deck that you don’t put too much text on a slide. You should never have full sentences, let alone paragraphs, on a slide. This is way too much information to include and your audience did not come to read full paragraphs on every slide. 

4. Don’t make eye contact with your audience.

Eye contact is one of the most important components of communication. In order to engage with your audience, you must make eye contact with them. When you see a presenter look down and read from their notes, or read slides with their back to the audience, you immediately feel bored and disengaged.

5. Don’t practice enough. 

Very few people are able to “wing it” and deliver a great presentation. The best speakers tend to practice regularly until they know their material backward and forward. If you don’t practice and rehearse, your audience will notice and they will immediately lose interest. If you want people to listen to you, you have to appear confident and well prepared.

6. Tell long winded stories. 

Stories are great, but not when they drag on for fifteen minutes. The biggest mistake a presenter can make when telling a story is to drag it out with useless details. For example, you should never say something like this: “Last Tuesday I was at the grocery store…or wait, was it Wednesday? No, I’m pretty sure it was Tuesday because I remember picking up my son from soccer practice. Anyway…”  By this point your audience is already half asleep. If you are going to tell a story, keep it short, simple, and to the point.

7. Use unnecessary filler words.

Nothing will lose an audience faster than “um,” “so,” “like,” “you know, “ah.” These filler words are the result of nervousness but they are completely unnecessary. Not only will they make you sound less credible, but they will also distract the audience from what you are trying to say. 

8. Have technical difficulties.

Technical difficulties will almost definitely cause your audience to zone out. They are not going to wait patiently while you fix your microphone, reset your computer, start your slideshow over, or change the batteries in your presentation remote. Make sure you have tested and prepared all of your technology ahead of time. 

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COMMENTS

  1. How to Make a Boring Presentation Interesting

    All the elements are there for creating effective, eye-catching, and engaging presentations, but so often we're forced to sit through slide after slide of overcrowded, hard-to-read text and fuzzy (or non-existent) images. It doesn't have to be that way.

  2. 7 PowerPoint Tips to Banish Boring Presentations

    PowerPoint Tip 1: Think Visual The #1 most common mistake in PowerPoint presentations—and the reason they're so boring—is that that we create them for us rather than our audience. And the temptation is real. If you're afraid of forgetting an important point, you'll want to put every word into your slideshow.

  3. 10 tips for a killer presentation (that won't bore your audience)

    1. Start with a bang A strong presentation starts with a strong opening. When we speak, we have 60 seconds on average to capture people's attention - which means the beginning of your presentation carries some serious weight. Skip the boilerplate "Today, I'm going to talk to you about…" and challenge yourself to think of something more creative.

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    1. Less Slide Content, More Speaking Points If there's one trap that I see rookie presenters fall into, it's this: they load their presentation slides with far too much content. To learn how to make a presentation interesting, it might be about removing slide content.

  5. 12 Easy Steps to Make a Presentation Creative (+ Examples)

    5) Tell stories with videos. Videos have this unique power to turn complex ideas into simple, engaging stories. A video might break down a tricky process into fun, easy-to-follow narrative, or give us a peek into real-life examples or experiences. It's all about making your content feel alive, relatable, and super easy to understand.

  6. How To Turn A 'Boring' PowerPoint Into An Engaging Presentation

    #1 Add a splash of color Color adds visual interest to your presentation. It can be used to convey meaning too: Blue is seen as trustworthy Green is calming Red communicates confidence and excitement Before you go wild with your presentation color palette, bear in mind that you don't need to use much color to get the desired effect.

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    1. Structure and Organize Your Presentation Aptly According to research studies, the information presented in a structured format is retained 40% more accurately by the audience than unstructured information.

  8. 4 Reasons Your Presentation Is Boring (& How To Fix It)

    1. No Presentation Structure If your presentation does not have the right structure, you risk losing your audience. Structuring your presentation's content inefficiently will lower your audience's information retention rate. Without proper structure, you will be more prone to duplicate your verbal presentation in your slides.

  9. No More Boring Presentations

    Follow the 1-6-6 Rule -This rule dictates that presenters limit their slide content to no more than 6 lines, each containing a maximum of 6 words. Professional, but aesthetic No More Boring Presentations - Chart Data Representation It's quite difficult to ensure your presentation is professional but looks appealing.

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    Structure, content, and design. Whether you are teaching a course to college students or running corporate training sessions, there are some guidelines to follow that will help make your PowerPoint presentations more memorable and less boring. 3 Tips For Better PowerPoint Presentations 1. Structure Your Presentation

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    Being lazy, not taking up extra work, not good at making a presentation or having the presentation skills etc. However, the most common reasons for avoiding presentations are getting that uncomfortable feeling before presentation, fear of public speaking or the fear of boring out the audience or messing up.

  13. 9 Ways To Turn a Boring Topic Into An Engaging Presentation

    1- Start with why How you start your presentation will determine if people listen to you or not. Two of the big questions your audience members have when they are in the room with you is "Why am I here?" "Why is this is important to me?"

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    7. Use Analogies and Contrast. Another tip when thinking about how to add humor to a presentation is to use techniques like contrast, surprise, tension and analogies. Some of the examples shared earlier illustrate how surprise works to get attention. Here's an example of an analogy being used in a funny PowerPoint.

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    Tell a story that illustrates your point effectively and takes your audience on an emotional roller coaster and you will never be boring. More and more literature is surfacing on the importance of storytelling in public speaking and the role it has in engaging your audience.

  16. 5 Fool-proof Ways To Turn A Boring Topic Into An Exciting Presentation

    1. Establish a Theme. One major reason we tend to feel bored about a topic is because it becomes repetitive. Once a speaker establishes a Theme - For example: Hard Work, there seems to be a lot of circling back to it and you may not realise until you hear the first snore that it is becoming a bit to repetitive.

  17. How to stop giving boring presentation-3 tips for keeping your audience

    #1 - Open with a bang! Or at least a sizzle You cannot keep what you don't have. This is also true of your audience's attention. Your opening (among other things) must get your audience engaged. Research shows that you have about 20 seconds to make an impression.

  18. 20 Ways to Create an Interactive Presentation That Stands Out

    1 Start your interactive presentation with an icebreaker. The first step is creating a rapport with your audience. You can do this by helping them to get to know you a little better and get to know each other as well. The way you go about this will depend on the size of your audience.

  19. How to make presentations less boring

    Watch on. His monotonous voice, his lack of movement and his boring body language all add up to a huge snooze. By varying the pitch, tone and tempo of your voice you can make what you're saying more interesting. Using expressive body language and broad gestures can grab and hold your audience's attention.

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    Loud, bright colors, like orange, or lime green, are probably not the best for a presentation. Also, take into consideration that for your public to be able to read easily you need to contrast your colors. For example, black letters on a white background, despite looking very simple, is also very easy to read.

  22. How To Make a PowerPoint Not Boring? Here Are 5 Tips To Make It

    Short Answer There are several ways to make a PowerPoint presentation not boring. One way is to incorporate visuals such as images, videos, or charts in addition to text. This will help to keep the audience engaged and allow them to take away more from the presentation.

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    For in-person presentations, break away from the slides after 10 minutes and involve the audience. Now's the time for them to see and touch a product, take a turn at the whiteboard, ask questions ...

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    Presentations are not a time to read from a slide verbatim. That is just a surefire way to lose their attention right off the bat. 2. Start with a boring introduction. Those first few words out of your mouth can set the tone for your entire presentation. "Hi, my name is ___ and today we are going to talk about__" is boring.

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