4 Things your audience dislikes the most in a Presentation

Dave Paradi conducts a global survey every two years. He asks what annoys them the most about PowerPoint Presentations. Respondents are asked to pick the top three from a list of twelve options.

As a presenter, this survey helps you figure out the top mistakes that you need to avoid, because they annoy your audiences the most. Here is the result from Survey 2017:

• "The speaker read out the slides to us" (68%)
• "Full sentences for text" (52%)
• "Text too small to read" (49%)
• "Visuals too complex" (34%)

What does this mean for you as a presenter?

1. Never ever read out the text from your slide. Your audience can read it themselves. They don't need you to do it.
2. When presenting a deck in-person, do not write full sentences. Write 2-3 words and explain the rest of your content orally.
3. Use large and legible fonts. Never go below 20. If you are presenting in a very large venue, try to visit the venue beforehand to test your slides or go with a large font size of 30 or more.
4. Do not create complex charts and graphs. Avoid more than 2 charts on a slide. Avoid sharing too many data points on a slide. If your chart is complex, you might to only share the analysis and not the chart. After all, the audience cares more about the message.

Read the complete article here: Results of the 2017 Annoying PowerPoint survey