How to Design Your PowerPoint Slides

Imagine that you must give an executive presentation in the upcoming weeks. You must ensure that your PowerPoint slides are well-designed and professional to engage your audience. But, if you’ve never presented at an executive level before, it can seem like an intimidating task. 

It can be easy to blame the software for a poor presentation. However, better presentation software is not the secret to a great presentation. A great communicator can use any presentation software and deliver a stunning speech. 

And the secret lies in how you design your PowerPoint slides.

7 Steps to Design Your PowerPoint Slides

Step 1: Plan

The first step is to plan your presentation. If you do not lay the groundwork, your presentation will be messy and unfocused. Start with sticky notes or a notepad. Write out all the ideas so that you can move them around. 

It is very important to take the ideas from your head and put them on paper. Once you have your ideas written down, you can filter them based on your presentation topic. 

Step 2: Focus

Step 2 is to capture the focus of your audience. How do you immediately capture their attention? And how will you hold their attention?

One of the most important items to capture focus is your presentation title. Often, your title will determine the success of your message landing. It should be active, clear, and attention-grabbing. 

There are two ways you can approach your title. First, you could craft a clear and concise title. This type of title would grab their attention because it is direct. It should tell the audience what you are talking about in a few words or phrases. Second, you could create a provocative title. This type of title would make your audience curious and entice them to learn more. It could be a pun, an interesting statistic, or something that is out of the ordinary. 

When it comes to holding your audience’s attention, you will want to ensure there are no visual distractions in your PowerPoint Slides. This helps your audience stay focused on your ideas. Use simple backgrounds that align with your brand. As you go through each slide, ensure that your eye can follow a simple path from left to right. 

Step 3: Signpost

The third step is to signpost. Your presentation must match your branding. 

Start with your brand logo. If you are unsure of your organisation's brand colours, check with your Communications department. Look for a hex code (# + a 6-digit number) or 3 numbers for Red, Green, and Blue to mix the colours. Your Communications department may also provide you with complimentary colours to use. 

Don't be lazy and use a white background and just one brand colour. That's boring!

It is important to stick with your colour palette. After all, your colour palette gives your presentation slides a signature look. In addition, your audience will have less to focus on visually, which helps them focus on your content. 

Step 4: Highlight

Once you have laid the groundwork for your slides, you are ready to start building your presentation!

Step 4 is all about highlighting the main idea. Give your ideas the space they need so your audience can easily understand your message. As you create each slide, ask yourself this question. 

“What is the one thing I want my audience to take from this slide?”

If you have multiple ideas, you will want to create a slide for each idea. 

Another important part of highlighting your ideas is through visuals. Visuals are a powerful way to convey information faster. Studies have shown that the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text!

Visuals like photos and diagrams also help you tell a story. As the saying goes, “Show, don’t tell.” Visuals help you interpret the meaning of numbers and complex ideas. Remember, text requires the audience to spend more energy reading than focusing on your ideas. Therefore, ensure you use more visuals and less text when you explain the main point in each slide. 

Step 5: Edit

Now that you have the main points on each slide, you can edit your slides to ensure there is enough white space. White space is the open space around your images and text. 

Your eyes are drawn to the things that stand out. That is why white space can help your audience focus on the main elements of your PowerPoint slides. 

Step 6: Include

Step 6 is to include easy-to-read text.

Not only is this important for our overloaded and tired brains, but also key for our non-native English-speaking colleagues and our visually and hearing-impaired friends. Studies show that hearing loss is the fourth highest cause of disability globally. And in the US, 4.4 million people with hearing loss are of working age, so considering inclusion here is key. It is easy to miss the nuance orally without visual enforcement. Remember, you are usually not designing slides just for yourself!

During your presentation, you will be expanding on each main idea in your PowerPoint slides. Therefore, you will want to write the short and easy-to-skim text so that your audience can quickly absorb the information and listen to your presentation. 

At a minimum, your font size should be 28. For laptops, you may consider 24-point font, and for mobile devices, you will need at least 32-point font. Your font should be easy to read while remaining consistent with your branding. Consider using a serif or sans-serif font.

If you have headlines and subheadings in a slide, ensure they are big enough and easy to read if used with visuals. 

It is also important to include a clear call to action at the end. What do you want your audience to take away from your presentation? 

Step 7: Choreograph

The final step is to choreograph your slides. Doesn't your audience deserve this final step?

As you move from slide to slide, you may want to add motion through animation.  It's so engaging! Animation shows the order of your story, your bullet points, and your great ideas. You can also use them to change the pace and flow or even the mood of your presentation.

Use animation to help transition from one slide to another. These animations should be quick, taking no more than 0.5 to 1 second. Animations help tell your audience the most important thing they should focus on at that moment. You can also animate photos and text to create contrast, explain changes, or show direction. 

Design Your PowerPoint Slides to Move Your Audience to Action

An important step to mastering the art of public speaking is to master PowerPoint slide design.  If your slides are well-designed and work in harmony with your words, voice, and body language, you will have the power to move your audience to action. Follow the 7-step process of Plan, Focus, Signpost, Highlight, Edit, Include, and Choreograph to create professional and compelling slides that will bring a lasting impression on your audience. Then make sure you practice so you can be confident when giving your presentation. 

My 4-hour workshop takes professionals through this 7-step process in detail, with fun and thought-provoking activities along the way. And what is super exciting is that later in 2023, I will be releasing the entire process as a self-study 'Think visually' course. 100% of my clients need support in this area, including internal and external Marketing and Communications personnel, so soon, my methodology will be accessible to all.

If you want to discuss your organisation’s (corporate, NGOs, Associations and Universities) Public speaking or Presentation skills needs, I offer free 30-minute consultations through my site. I’d love to meet you.