I don’t dislike them because the idea of looking at slides on a large screen is bad, but because the people who create these presentations are generally out of touch with what inspires the very people they create them for. They appear to be more interested in taking advantage of every feature found in PowerPoint or Keynote.
Which of these PowerPoint slides would you rather look at from across the room?
Giving a great PowerPoint presentation is relatively simple once you understand a few of the basics in giving a memorable presentation. The very first thing to consider, as is the case with any design project, is to understand who the audience is. What would interest them? What information will resonate with them? Once you have those answered, you can move on to the actual presentation itself.
DesignShack has posted an excellent article covering some of my own pet-peeves about PowerPoint presentations. In particular, using stock themes, overloading slides with bullet-points, and cramming too much onto a slide.
You can read Designing Presentations That Don’t Suck: Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. They’re well worth the read.
The one thing the articles don’t cover is the second most important thing to consider when delivering a PowerPoint presentation. People come to a presentation to listen to the person giving the presentation. They aren’t going to sit through 45 slides while you read them word-for-word (usually much slower than they can read them for themselves). Use the PowerPoint slides to highlight points you’re talking about. Ultimately, you want people to remember YOU and what YOU SAY, not the fact that the headlines on your slides danced across the screen!