what is presentation session

Structuring an Effective Class Session or Presentation

The way you structure and facilitate class sessions or other presentations can have a profound impact on learning. There are evidence-based approaches to designing the learning experience from start to finish to enhance engagement, understanding, and retention of information. This resource is valuable for anyone planning a synchronous (live) learning experience in a variety of contexts, including a class session, presentation, or workshop, in-person or remote.

How do I decide what to include in a class session or presentation?

Start planning by articulating the learning outcomes . What do you want the learner to know or be able to do by the end of that session? For a course, the learning outcomes for a specific class session should fit within the overarching course learning outcomes and help to move students towards achieving those. Use the learning outcomes to make intentional decisions about what content and activities to include in your class session or presentation by assessing their alignment.

As you make these decisions about which content to prioritize for synchronous time together, consider planning for flexibility. Which content is key to cover together, and which activities are vital to your learners’ experiences? Consider structuring your session such that the most vital content happens first to both prioritize it and ensure you have enough time to devote to it. Also plan for content that can be skipped over or moved to the next session in case activities go over time or learners have many questions.

How should I structure a class session or presentation to enhance learning?

When planning a class session or presentation, you should divide the time into segments, starting with an opening and ending with a closing. The main portion between opening and closing should be broken into periods of interactive lecture and individual or group activities, depending on your learning goals.

Starting a Session

The start should be welcoming and set the tone for an interactive learning experience. You might begin by playing music from a shared playlist, asking learners how they are feeling, encouraging them to check in with one another, or posing a lighthearted icebreaker question. Creating this welcoming atmosphere helps support learners’ social-emotional learning.

It is common to share outcome(s), purpose, goals, and/or an agenda at the start of a class session or presentation. In addition, set aside intentional time to “warm up” to the topic, establish context, and connect to learners’ prior knowledge and experiences . An interactive warm up also sets the expectation that the session will be collaborative and interactive. You can engage learners at the start by capturing their attention and curiosity with a “hook”, helping them make connections to prior experiences (academic or personal), or asking them to share beliefs and expectations about a topic. Some examples include:

• What do you know about [Topic]? What do you want to know?
• What do you think is going on in this picture?
• What are your personal thoughts about [topic]?
• What experience do you have with [topic]?

Interactive Content Delivery

Lecturing (i.e., direct oral presentation of information) is efficient and can be effective when the background information is not available or accessible, the facts or problems are conflicting or confusing, or your experience as the presenter will contribute to clarification. Be sure to ask yourself if the best way to understand the content is through oral presentation, or if the content could be explored some other way (e.g., small group exercises or individual reflection). Consider how much of your time will be devoted to lecture, which may depend on how much of the information you want to share will come from the lecture versus assigned course materials (e.g., readings, videos). Is the goal of lecture to supplement the information from course materials, highlight major points, or present separate information?

When designing a lecture-based class session, or any type of presentation, aiming for interaction and engagement will support deeper comprehension and greater retention of information. “We need not abandon the lecture because of its liabilities; rather, we need to find ways to make it work better” (Silver & Perini, 2010). Once you’ve determined what content is best presented through a lecture, there are many ways to improve the lecture presentation:

• “Chunk” the content, or break it up into smaller, focused sections. Aim to speak for no more than a few minutes straight without checking in, even if just with a rhetorical question for learners to ponder as they listen.
• Intersperse active learning activities such as informal discussion, think-pair-share, minute paper, polls, or quick quiz questions ensure that learners are actively processing the information as you present it.
• Use multimedia (e.g., images, audio, video, infographics) throughout your lecture to enhance comprehension and accessibility. However, keep in mind that your multimedia should be focused and related to the course content; avoid .gifs or overly illustrative materials, as these take learners’ focus away from the content and can contribute to extraneous cognitive load.
• Clarify for learners how they should approach taking notes, information they need to commit to memory, and how you expect them to apply the content in the future.
• Allow learners to ask questions at different points within a lecture. Pause periodically to ask, “What questions do you have?” or “What’s on your mind?” After you pose a question, allow “wait time” for a response, giving time for learners to formulate ideas. We may be used to asking, “Do you have any questions?” but students may feel that they are being intrusive or not paying attention if they do have a question. Asking “What questions do you have?” normalizes the fact that students are likely to have questions when learning new content.

Individual or Group Activities

Either before or after presenting content, provide opportunities for learners to interact with the content at a deeper level through individual or group activities. Individually, learners could engage in independent work time or reflection. In small or large groups, learners could discuss the topic in more detail or engage in peer review opportunities. Other ways to encourage reflection, critical thinking, and problem solving, which could be done individually or in groups, include case studies, debates, concepts maps, or game-based instruction.

Ending a Session

At the end of a class session or presentation, be sure to save time to tie everything together and assess learning. It is very common to run out of time and rush to conclude, but end-of-class reflection supports retaining information and helps to clarify what comes next. At the end of a session, you might summarize, or ask learners to summarize, key takeaways, especially in conjunction with revisiting the learning outcomes. Other options include asking learners to submit a written reflection on what they’ve learned, how they might apply what they’ve learned and/or what questions they still have or which concepts were unclear.

Lastly, if teaching a course, you can wrap up by previewing what’s to come, connecting the material to assignments or other work to be completed, or asking questions you want learners to think about before meeting again. You can also provide context on the homework assigned for next class, such as guiding questions for a reading or viewing, or leave time to answer student questions about an upcoming assignment.

How can I make sure my class session or presentation is accessible?

Overall, following the principles of Universal Design for Learning promotes flexibility and adaptation of the learning environment so that all learners can succeed and achieve the intended outcomes. As you consider the guidelines and session structure above, consider how you can provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and action and expression.

Regardless of the structure of your class session or presentation, we highly recommend you use slides or another visual means to communicate information and directions as you progress through the session. Even if your session involves minimal to no “content,” slides, or at least a written agenda, help to keep learners on track with what is being asked of them. If you use slides, decide how and when to make them available.  The CTRL accessibility guide provides more detailed guidance for how to ensure slides and documents used in a session are accessible

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What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation

• Carmine Gallo

Five tips to set yourself apart.

Never underestimate the power of great communication. It can help you land the job of your dreams, attract investors to back your idea, or elevate your stature within your organization. But while there are plenty of good speakers in the world, you can set yourself apart out by being the person who can deliver something great over and over. Here are a few tips for business professionals who want to move from being good speakers to great ones: be concise (the fewer words, the better); never use bullet points (photos and images paired together are more memorable); don’t underestimate the power of your voice (raise and lower it for emphasis); give your audience something extra (unexpected moments will grab their attention); rehearse (the best speakers are the best because they practice — a lot).

I was sitting across the table from a Silicon Valley CEO who had pioneered a technology that touches many of our lives — the flash memory that stores data on smartphones, digital cameras, and computers. He was a frequent guest on CNBC and had been delivering business presentations for at least 20 years before we met. And yet, the CEO wanted to sharpen his public speaking skills.

• Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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What is a Poster Session? Definition, Guide & Examples

Published on 31 Mar 2022

What is a Poster Session?

Poster sessions are an integral (and fun!) part of academic conferences or annual meetings, and an important opportunity for researchers at all career stages to present and discuss their work with other researchers in their field.

Poster sessions typically take place in a large room where poster boards are set up and numbered and each presenter can hang a poster illustrating their methods and results. You can also have virtual poster sessions  where posters are presented using a virtual conference platform . 

Preparing a good poster takes some time and work, but it is well worth the effort in order to give your research a chance to shine!

How do poster sessions work?

During the poster session, conference attendees can wander around the poster hall to browse the posters. The presenters are expected to stay by their poster for the duration of the session so that other participants can come and listen to them talk about their work and ask them questions.

How long is the poster session?

A poster session usually lasts 1-2 hours, but can be longer or shorter depending on the size of the conference. Sometimes poster sessions are scheduled during a cocktail hour, which can actually be helpful to provide a bit of “Dutch courage” and facilitate more casual discussions.

What are the benefits of a poster session?

Presenting your research at a poster session is a great opportunity, especially for early-career researchers who are less likely to be invited to give a longer oral presentation at a big conference. These sessions are the best place to show off your impressive research results and for networking as well. You may even end up meeting a future employer and being offered your next job!

Need to organize a virtual poster session?

Guide to Your First Poster Session

1. read the guidelines.

The first step in any submission process is always to carefully read the instructions. Conferences may have different guidelines and formatting requirements, and it is very important that you follow them. If you don’t, your submission may be automatically rejected. 

Pay particular attention to word counts during the submission process, and size/formatting requirements of the poster itself (imagine showing up with a poster that doesn’t fit on the board), as well as the length of the poster session. 

For a longer poster session, you should prepare a 5 minute oral summary of your work, while for a shorter session you should probably cut that down to 1 or 2 minutes so that you don’t take up too much of anyone’s time. If someone visiting your poster is interested in hearing more, they will ask you questions.

Most conferences will require your abstract to include sections describing the methods, results, and discussion, while others may be more flexible and allow posters that describe methods that are still in development or studies that are planned for the future. Make sure that you know what is expected of you so that you have the best chance of having your abstract accepted and winning a coveted poster prize.

2. Write Your Abstract

Next, you will need to write an abstract that summarizes your work in a few hundred words. To do this you will need to choose what portion of your research project you want to present.

While it may be tempting to try to impress by explaining everything, it is unrealistic to try to present all of your work in so few words. Set yourself up for success by picking one study or experiment that tells a short, cohesive, and interesting story.

Your abstract should first describe the background and rationale behind your work, and then summarize the methodology used, the main results and conclusions, and then briefly discuss the implications and relevance of your findings.

You will also need to come up with a good title for your abstract. Remember that your abstract will be published in an abstract booklet that all attendees of the conference will use to find specific posters and presenters during the conference. Having a catchy title and a well-written abstract will help increase interest in your work and ensure that plenty of people will visit your poster during the poster session.

For most large conferences, submitted abstracts are peer-reviewed before you are invited to present your poster. Once you receive confirmation that your abstract has been accepted, then you can start preparing your poster.

Check out this article for more detailed instructions on how to write a good abstract for a conference.

3. Create Your Poster

Once your abstract has been accepted for a conference presentation, you will need to start preparing your poster design using a program such as Powerpoint, Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator.

Your poster should be well-organized, with each section following clearly from the previous one, creating a visual path that tells a coherent story and ensuring readability. Someone who is looking at your poster should not have to jump from one side of the poster to the other in order to understand your work. Use color to group text, graphs, and images that belong together and numbers or arrows to indicate what comes next.

Like the abstract, your poster should have sections summarizing the background and rationale, methodology, results, and the implications of your work. This time, however, the story should be told mainly through figures rather than through text.

A little bit of text goes a long way on a poster - in fact, the fewer words the better. Posters with less text are more inviting and will draw more people. Don’t forget that you will be there to explain your work, so there is no reason to try to include everything in the text. You can even shorten your text by summarizing sections with bullet points and highlight the key messages.

Your poster should also include your contact information as well as the logos of the institution you work for and any organizations that funded your work. Some universities and research centers provide poster templates that use a specific color scheme and already include necessary logos. Check whether your institution has such a template and use it if they do - it will save you a lot of time!

Once you have finished creating your poster, you will need to get it printed. Again, it is very important that you read the instructions and conference guidelines very carefully and print your poster in the correct size and orientation.

Some institutions have dedicated printing facilities, but you can also visit a copy shop that has a large-format printer. If you are feeling creative, you might even choose to be a little bit different and print your poster on fabric so that you can reuse it as a unique table cloth or picnic blanket in the future. I have even seen fabric posters that use a special template that can be cut and sewn into a t-shirt! Unique posters tend to draw a lot of attention at conferences.

4. Prepare for the Session

Once you have created your poster, it’s time to prepare to present it! Poster sessions are much less formal than conference talks or lectures, so no need to stress about giving a perfectly practiced speech. Go into the poster session with the aim of having fruitful conversations with your fellow researchers.

You should be able to summarize your work in just a couple of minutes for anyone who visits your poster and then be prepared to answer any follow-up questions. Try to keep your summary short, since most attendees would like to visit several posters during the session and may be too polite to walk away if you keep them too long. You will have more interesting discussions if you allow visitors to ask you to elaborate on the parts of your research that they find most interesting.

Presenting your research can be stressful, especially the first time, but remember that no one knows your work better than yourself.

All of these tips are relevant to both in-person as well as virtual poster sessions, and you can find more detailed presenting tips here .

Poster Presentation Examples

Below you will find a few examples of posters with different formats.

This poster follows a typical scientific poster format. It has large figures, uses bullet points to minimize the amount of text, and uses a unified colour scheme. The simple layout makes it easy for the viewer to follow.

Source: UC Davis academic posters

Source: UC Davis academic posters - https://urc.ucdavis.edu/photo-galleries/uc-davis-academic-posters

This poster also follows the standard academic poster format, but it uses graphic design elements to add some flair and make it stand out from the rest. Adding color and custom graphics is a great way to draw attention to your poster without taking anything away from the quality of the work that it illustrates.

Source: Osvaldo Branquinho on Behance  

Source: Osvaldo Branquinho on Behance - https://www.behance.net/gallery/2284120/Scientific-Poster

If you are a social media user, you may have heard of the Better Poster campaign. This movement was started by a PhD candidate in Michigan in 2019 to try to transform the traditional poster into something more modern and efficient. The new format emphasizes just a few key points and adds a mobile-readable QR code that links to associated publications. While it may look strange if you are used to seeing traditional posters, this new format has become quite popular and it is now not unusual to see it at conferences. You can also watch the campaign video explaining the rationale behind this format - it’s actually quite interesting!

Source: Inside Higher Ed  

Source: Inside Higher Ed - https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/06/24/theres-movement-better-scientific-posters-are-they-really-better

These are some guidelines and ideas that will hopefully help you to create an attractive poster and have a successful poster session. While there are some general rules, poster sessions are also an opportunity to get creative (while still adhering to the conference guidelines of course) in order to draw more attention to your poster, generate interest and excitement in your research, and ensure lots of fruitful discussions!

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Presentation layer and Session layer of the OSI model

There are two popular networking models: the OSI layers model and the TCP/IP layers model. The presentation layer and session layer exist only in the OSI layers models. The TCP/IP layers model merges them into the application layer.

The Presentation Layer

The presentation layer is the sixth layer of the OSI Reference model. It defines how data and information is transmitted and presented to the user. It translates data and format code in such a way that it is correctly used by the application layer.

It identifies the syntaxes that different applications use and formats data using those syntaxes. For example, a web browser receives a web page from a web server in the HTML language. HTML language includes many tags and markup that have no meaning for the end user but they have special meaning for the web browser. the web browser uses the presentation layer's logic to read those syntaxes and format data in such a way the web server wants it to be present to the user.

On the sender device, it encapsulates and compresses data before sending it to the network to increase the speed and security of the network. On the receiver device, it de-encapsulates and decompresses data before presenting it to the user.

Examples of the presentation layer

Example standards for representing graphical information: JPEG, GIF, JPEG, and TIFF.

Example standards for representing audio information: WAV, MIDI, MP3.

Example standards for representing video information: WMV, MOV, MP4, MPEG.

Example standards for representing text information: doc, xls, txt, pdf.

Functions of the presentation layer

• It formats and presents data and information.
• It encrypts and compresses data before giving it to the session layer.
• It de-encrypts and decompresses the encrypted and compressed data it receives from the session layer.

Session layer

The session layer is the fifth layer of the OSI layers model. It is responsible for initiating, establishing, managing, and terminating sessions between the local application and the remote applications.

It defines standards for three modes of communication: full duplex, half-duplex, and simplex.

In the full duplex mode, both devices can send and receive data simultaneously. The internet connection is an example of the full duplex mode.

In the half duplex mode, only one device can send data at a time. A telephone conversation is an example of the half-duplex mode.

In the simplex mode, only one device can send data. A radio broadcast is an example of the simplex mode.

Functions of the session layer

• It is responsible for terminating sessions, creating checkpoints, and recovering data when sessions are interrupted.
• It opens and maintains logical communication channels between network applications running on the local host and network applications running on the remote host.
• If a network application uses an authentication mechanism before it opens a logical communication channel (session) with the remote host, it handles the authentication process.

Examples of the session layer

Structure Query Language (SQL), Remote Procedure Call (RPC), and Network File System (NFS) are examples of the session layer.

By ComputerNetworkingNotes Updated on 2023-04-25

ComputerNetworkingNotes CCNA Study Guide Presentation layer and Session layer of the OSI model

• EtherChannel Load Distribution Explained
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• Port Aggregation Protocol (PAgP) Explained
• EtherChannel Manual Configuration
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• STP, RSTP, PVST, RPVST, and MSTP
• Similarities and Differences between STP and RSTP
• RSTP / RPVST Explained with Examples
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• STP/RSTP Timers Explained

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How to Create an Inspiring Presentation for your Workshop

Have you ever been at a presentation or workshop and found yourself forcing your eyes to stay open? 

Bored out of your mind, and struggling to focus, the host is bleating on… and on. The concepts are too hard to follow, the words becoming a meaningless, tiresome cloud. Next time you struggle to sleep, it’ll be this guy’s waffling drivel that’ll send you to the land of nod.

Together, we’ll discover how to put the “Pow!” back into PowerPoint.

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In this article we’ll explore: 

• Why visual presentations are important
• What to consider when planning presentations

How to design an engaging visual presentation

• How to choose an engaging format
• Which tools are best for designing presentations
• Tips on how to deliver your workshop presentation

Why Are Visual Presentations Important?

The purpose is to share brilliant ideas with an audience. This might be a piece of work or an educational concept in a workshop; the aim is to communicate with people, make them feel something , and take action. We all want our audience to leave an event feeling motivated and inspired, and that the workshop was of value.

The importance of visuals is often overlooked, either due to a lack of confidence in working with visual design, lack of time or both. For a workshop facilitator, using visual aids could actually save time, better represent our ideas and concepts to a group, and help you present more confidently. “How?”, you ask.

When it comes to saving time, a picture is really worth a thousand words. There is no need to type up your presentations or make wordy bullet points on every slide when a simple image can share the message for you. 

Visual presentations put across an immediate message. Images are emotive and can deliver a story much faster than words, visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text . An image that can share an idea, can be more memorable than trying to remember very specific terminology. 

Creating visuals becomes part of a wider conversation in inclusive communication. Images are universally understood, and the eyes can “read” a picture with less effort than reading and comprehending several paragraphs. Imagine describing the color blue as a phrase. It is much easier to present it as it exists. 

Graphics are easy to share, and 65% of us are Visual learners . For anyone who has missed out on the meeting, a visual booklet can do the job of sharing the subject with them, and the added benefit of being able to view it in their own time. The power of social media also plays a huge part in the spreading of information and well-designed infographic slides can take your presentations and workshops outside of the room, with the potential to make a global impact. Sharability goes further with visual elements.

For me, a visual presentation is a lifesaver! Using slides has saved me a lot of time and made me feel more confident whilst presenting too. I don’t fumble around with notes, as the visuals can act as a prompt to remind me of where I’m at in my talk.

When presenting online, I find the value of visuals and slides even more important. It takes the attention away from my actions, and onto the graphics themselves. The participants can hear what I’m saying, but their eyes focus on the visual information which helps in retaining information and ideas beyond the workshop.    

What to consider when creating a visual presentation

I’m naturally quite a visual person, and I’ve often wondered if I could make a visual presentation without planning first what it is that I want to say. As an experiment, I gave it a go and it was a huge struggle. So, if you think that designing visuals is something that only designers can do and that they find it easy… it doesn’t and they don’t. 

As a starting point: get out a pen and paper and write down everything you want to say. This ensures you have all of the ideas and information out in black and white . I find that by leaving space between the writing and structuring, coming back at it with fresh eyes is a perfect way to work without feeling rushed. I rarely add to what I’ve written, it’s mostly about removing.

Recently I had written a LOT of information for an event. A day later, I took a second view to edit. A lot of writing is quite self-indulgent, so it helps to consider the audience . I cut up sections of the paper, keeping only what was the most necessary information , and collated it together. The rest of the sentences didn’t make the cut. You can try the editing exercise here . 

Less is More- an exercise in editing   #presentation   #presentation skills   #writing   #workshop   #meeting design   This exercise is ideal for editing written content in a hands-on way. A simple and effective exercise for editing workshop content or presentation text for talks. Use it when you have to write for a specific audience and want them to stay focused on the most important information.

As an expert in your field, it’s likely you’ll have a lot of content, and editing is so valuable to ensure your audience has relevant details. Don’t bore their socks off 😉

So now that you have an idea of your core content, you can move along the process, considering these factors before jumping into the design stages:

 Let’s start by asking, “ who is your audience? “

• if you are being commissioned to present a topic to a pre-determined group, then you’ll need to cater to their understanding of the topic. You’ll want to ensure that the information will be relevant and meets or goes beyond their expectations.
• if the topic is of your own choice, and the angle you’ve chosen to take, who do you want to take part? Finding them, and attracting them to the workshop will be part of your marketing efforts, as well as how you plan your structure and content.

We wouldn’t plan a workshop for ten-year-olds in the same way we might for adults. Consider what tone of voice you might use, the style in which we present how we use slides, and the content itself. You won’t be able to do this for each and every individual, but how you determine and empathize with your listeners can be done by creating a persona, or several personas . 

Create an overarching idea of who might be present, then consider how to engage them and meet their needs by asking yourself the following in more depth:

Why are they there?

Let’s look at their reason for attending your event. Have they come to learn from you in particular? If you are a specialist in your field and the workshop is an area of great interest to people, you’ll most likely have a deep understanding, and along with that, expectations to be filled. 

Have they come to gain a better understanding of the topic? Are they there to challenge themselves and their existing views, or perhaps yours?

How much do they know already?

Are your participants already proficient in the topic you’re delivering? You’d hopefully know this in advance of your workshop so you can adapt your material, and create a pitch in line with the group’s knowledge. If their experience level is unknown, an opener to your discussion might be to ask about their subject knowledge, ideas and expectations. That way you can tailor your language and approach.

It helps to be well versed in your workshop, to select sections you can skip out in favor of diving deeper into more advanced information. Improvisation isn’t usually a skill you’d immediately connect with presenting, but with practice, learning how to improvise can become an empowering tool to have.

For beginners, you’ll most likely take an introductory approach. This doesn’t mean it has to be dry or boring. Make it more interesting and engaging by weaving in an interactive exercise, or team debate within your presentation design. That way, the participants can gather more hands-on experience to support their understanding. This can of course use visual handouts, such as a workbook, or include a well-designed visual exercise on an interactive whiteboard.

What is their background and communication style?

Your presentation style, language, and cultural references should be considered in the writing and designing process. I recently attended a workshop on how we can create better inclusion for diverse audiences by considering the language we use. It really made me think about how we often lean towards using English as a “default” language, and how words often hold different weights and contexts in other languages.

Remote workshops and presentations mean we may have a very diverse audience than if we were presenting in-person, in one location. Online could mean 140 people in different time zones across different countries with different backgrounds. Being aware of differences makes it easier to use inclusive, easy-to-understand language in your presentation so that no one feels alienated. Speaking with clear articulation will make a big difference in how you are understood. 

You might have the best workshop on the planet, but if you don’t communicate in the style of your group, the impact will be lost. Do they want a short and snappy talk with a clear outcome at the end? Some audiences appreciate a motivational and inspirational talk that is led through emotional storytelling. Knowing their communication preferences can win over or lose your audience.

Before you begin designing your presentation, it’s important to consider what your purpose is. This is your mission statement, your project brief and your raison d’être. Here is where you want to ask yourself, what is it that you want your audience to think, feel or do? Are we creating an emotional impact or an educational goal?

Be as clear as possible with your core message, making it as specific as possible, so that you can keep this in mind throughout the process of writing, editing, designing and delivering presentations. This will keep your focus sharp, and avoid any unnecessary derailments taking your viewers away from what it is you hope to achieve.

Common purposes are to: inspire, inform, persuade or entertain .

• I want to inspire the audience to help reduce food poverty by leading a cookery workshop using supermarket waste.
• I want to inform the group about the future of rural tourism, so they might consider how they could adapt their own farming businesses to host visitors. 
• I want to persuade my team to reduce our use of plastic in the fashion industry, by presenting a viable alternative made from mushrooms.
• I want to entertain by pretending to be a Martian visiting Earth for the first time . My purpose is to help the participants understand their product from a new perspective!

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home   #creative thinking   #idea generation   #remote-friendly   #brainstorming   #energizer   #team   Use Craig Raine’s poem A Martian Sends a Postcard Home to spur creative thinking and encourage perspective shifting in a group. After a warm-up, you can then use this martian perspective to describe your product or service and gain new insights and ideas.

I recently designed a workshop called Design Thinking for Beginners and ran a SessionLab show and tell session aimed at facilitators who would like to run the workshop for teams new to design thinking. If you missed it, you can watch it back here. My purpose was to inform the attendees of the challenges newbies have with design thinking, and how they can make it a fun and digestible process.

I chose to relate each stage of design thinking to an everyday project of choosing or baking a birthday cake. My presentation was broken down into manageable chunks. Describing design thinking could be a laborious task, but keeping the text definition simple, with plenty of white space highlighted the point in one sentence. 

For the workshop itself, I incorporated interactive exercises throughout the process to lock in the understanding of design thinking and how we generate ideas. For the ideate stage of design thinking- I created a game show style exercise called the Ideas Vault where I chose to create a fun layout like a 90s computer game. The design process worked by gathering inspiration using a mix of pre-made Canva templates and adding my own twist. I talk more about Canva and design tools here .

The way you choose to structure a visual presentation will depend wholly on the purpose. The way you communicate your key message should be crafted in a way for the audience to follow along easily and act on those all-important takeaways at the end.

A solid structure will also make sure your points are clear so that you stay calm and on track when presenting. The structure of your topic, when written down and broken into manageable chunks will help hugely when it comes to creating the visual elements later. (we’ll get to that in the next section!)

Some common ways to structure your presentation could be

• Problem > Solution > Impact. Which you might use if your purpose is to inspire the audience to take action on a topic, by showing them a viable solution.
• You may start with an informative session and create a workshop as we mentioned before, to lead people through a learning process.
• A creative structure might be through storytelling , which might inspire and entertain. Once upon a time, this event happened, followed by the outcome and moral of the story.
• In any case, your presentation could follow the classic layout of: introduction, main body & conclusion, and you’d have a good foundation for your content.

Introduction

You have the first few seconds to grab people’s attention. First impressions are just as important as they’re made out to be! The introduction is the most important part, where the group will connect with you and decide if they want to listen to you or not. What would be a great hook for the audience to immediately buy into your presentation from the start?

Some people introduce themselves at the beginning- but you don’t have to. If you’re beginning with a story, this can be a very effective way to warm up your participants and make sure they’re really listening to you. Then you can introduce yourself when you know they have your attention, and they value what you have to say.

A quote or a provocative question or fact can get people thinking. You may use a thought-provoking image, which could be a prop, a video or a photo that introduces your presentation from the get-go. If you are offering a solution, go straight to the problem in your introduction.

Main body of presentation

Now that you’ve got your audience’s attention, and they have gathered an understanding and are intrigued to learn more, we can delve into the juice of your subject.

The main body involves presenting the data, and the important pieces of information. If you are offering a solution to the problem you introduced, expressing this with a visual, we place the subject right in front of them, and they don’t have to work so hard and use their imagination.

The main body doesn’t have to be a one-sided conversation. Listen! You might ask the group to interact, asking for their perspective. A talk or workshop can be a dialogue between the presenter and the group.

Your conclusion should be as snappy and engaging as your introduction. It may even loop back to the provocative question, or challenging problem. You’ll want to consider the impact on the attendees and most importantly, what you want them to do next! What action do you want them to take beyond the workshop?

What are the key takeaways? Highlight them as  Problem  > Solution  > Impact.

An effective class should tie up the opening question and objective, but still leave space for further exploration and discussion. Like a great film! They should not be saying, “I’m glad that’s over”. If it’s been designed with the audience in mind, they should feel something- energized or excited.

Now that you’ve written the content and designed the structure, here are our top tips to get you creating impactful visuals to complement what you present verbally. We’ll cover:

• How to design your slides and what information to include
• How typography impacts accessibility and design 
• Making smart color choices for both emotional connection and accessibility

Designing your slides

When approaching a blank canvas, it can be hard to know where to start. Some people start with deciding how many slides they’ll use- the question, “How many slides are too many slides?” crops up regularly in these types of articles. Expert presenters say not to go over 20 visual slides, but this will of course depend on the length and complexity of your subject. Another tip is not to spend more than a minute on each slide to keep it snappy and people engaged.

If I am creating a presentation from scratch, I’ll start with the first slide, and keep it very simple before moving on to the next one. Always asking “what is this slide saying? ” The first slide will be the title of my discussion, which will be visible to everyone joining the room. It sets the tone for what the topic will be about. If we were creating one around the topic of designing workshop slides, it might look like this:

I think the most important thing to remember is that each slide should have its own purpose, and not be overloaded with text. Where possible, use an image rather than words and think about how we might convey this message visually. Always start by defining the message and asking what the key takeaway for participants is. You can always further explain verbally.

When choosing an image, consider the audience and their context- a local photograph they can relate to, or a familiar face will often have more to say than a generic stock image.

Text will likely be used on your slides, and how much text is too much? If you begin planning your content by writing it all out and keeping only the most important parts, designing your slides will be a lot easier. I’d always recommend editing continuously throughout the process to create a meaningful message. If you can say something in 3 bullet points rather than 10, please do! Your audience will have a much easier time retaining the information.

“Good design is invisible”

Unless the subject of your presentation is about typography, it’s probably not the best time to be cracking out your most recently found, favorite font that’s “a bit different” or unusual. Stick to standard, trusted and most legible fonts that audiences can read and are familiar with. Otherwise, they’ll distract from the content. And content is King. 

“Good design is invisible”, a true and very useful phrase from Dieter Rams, who considers functionality in design as honest, long-lasting and with as little design as possible. This is a good theory to take throughout the design process. When looking for the right font, consider the tone you are using throughout your delivery too, and the overall message you are giving.

Good typography is your best friend for a presentation. When creating visuals for screens, as mentioned before, we are not typing out our speech word-for-word. Any text that is visually presented will have a very definite purpose as to why it is being displayed. This might be a quote, some data or the title of a book along with some further information in short form. Presentation slides are not a book.

Legibility is the most important thing when it comes to designing your visuals. Sans serif fonts are typically the best option for reading on a screen. Help your audience understand what you are communicating as quickly and easily as possible by ensuring the font sizes are easy to read. 

Create contrast and visual interest by choosing two fonts, one for headers and one for any body text. The contrast should still be harmonious, and not jarring to the eyes. Font hierarchy can help the audience differentiate between key points and more specific information. By choosing different weights and sizes, you can ensure your message is clearly heard and understood. 

• Minimum font size for main copy and bullets: 18 points
• Preferred font size for main copy and bullets: 24 points
• Preferred font size for headers or titles: 36 to 44 points

Personally, I like to choose font sizes slightly larger than recommended for body text. When we have a text-heavy page, I prefer to give the text plenty of surrounding white space and edit the copy as much as possible. From a design perspective, it helps legibility; and from a content perspective, it doubly ensures only the relevant text is presented on screen. I would definitely edit again at this stage. In this example for screens, the body text is 28pt and written in Open Sans, and the “Ideate” heading is 44pt in Agrandir wide.

Before creating any printed material for presentations, consider if it will truly be used and the environmental impact. I’d usually opt for sharing a digital version for people to refer back to after the workshop. It’s good practice to create a black and white version so that if it is printed out, the printing costs will be lower. There are of course digital accessibility issues, and some people might prefer a printed version. If so, select a serif font for any long text in a workbook or feedback form, with a minimum font size of 10-12pt.

Key points:

• Use Contrast

Deciding on the color scheme for a presentation is one of my favorite parts! Of course, you may have been given a branded color scheme to use, but if you have free reign in color choice and you enjoy the creative process, it can be a lot of fun.

For my show and tell on Design Thinking, I used the analogy of baking a cake and I felt that they conjure up an image of pastels. I used a gradient on the background so that I could use an array of colors without it being overbearing. I selected five key pastel colors for each stage of design thinking and to evoke a playful feel throughout. I was careful not to allow the colors to take over, so you’ll primarily see black and white use of color at the forefront for legibility.

Here are the key elements of how to choose a color scheme to complement your content :

The first, and most important point when choosing colors, is to use contrast. Make sure your text and graphics stand out from the background and are easily seen. Contrast is the difference in opposing colors so that they don’t blend in together A light background should use dark text and perhaps one or two bold accent colors to highlight key points. A dark background should use light fonts.

If you’re unsure of how easy a slide is to read, there are an array of online tools that can check the contrast for you by following the web accessibility guidelines. On Contrast Checker , you can enter the HEX code of the background and foreground colors, and you’ll get an idea of legibility. The sliders in the tool can be used if you need to improve the contrast and amend the color choices. There are also resources to guide you in how to select the color with an online eyedropper tool in case you’re not familiar with the HEX color codes.

Another contrast checker tool also shows the background and foreground with text examples and gives a rating to the accessibility of the text. This website has a whole host of tools, and can even pick a suitable palette for you.

If you’re working with a client, they may already have their own brand packaging and presentation template, including their colors. You may feel that this removes your choice of colors as it has been decided already, for example, they may use an in-house color language to refer to particular data on a graph. But the opposite may be true and might mean further considerations for visuals. It is important to know how to choose because when you create graphics or diagrams because you may have to select colors so that explanatory text can be seen on top of a shape or part of a graph.

When working with a client, it is important to share any documentation with their design team, and the best way to do this is by providing editable files. Working with a designer can massively lift the load on creating your presentation visuals. If there is no design team, but you are given design assets to work with, sharing both your visuals and your presentation agenda for collaboration and sign-off is a must. Create your agenda in SessionLab , and attach your visual presentation for ease of sharability. 

Studies have shown that color has an effect on expressing or feeling emotions. It will help to consider the tone that you are using throughout your presentation, the message you are delivering, and how you might want your audience to feel.

Warm colors, in the middle of the color spectrum, that aren’t too bold or too light create a warm and comfortable feeling. Bright reds and oranges can feel energetic and powerful. Or even create a sense of danger. In contrast, cooler colors such as greens, blues and purples can feel calm or evoke a sense of sadness.

We have an exercise that can help identify emotions and grow a better emotional vocabulary, the feelings wheel . It includes a visual attachment displaying the emotions in a range of colors- this may help select a tone for your color scheme. 

The Feeling Wheel   #emotional intelligence   #self-awareness   #icebreaker   #team building   #remote-friendly   By growing our emotional vocabulary, we can better identify our emotions, and check in with ourselves. Doing so can help bring a level of self-awareness, and a better understanding of others.

How to choose an engaging presentation format

We are almost there! The content is edited and your visual slides are ready, the next stage is to consider the format in which you’ll deliver your workshop or meeting. This is when you can consider any additional tools that you can use to your advantage when presenting. This might be video, photography or visual data. Or even props. Consider which other visual aids may help people to better understand the process or story you are conveying.

What presentation method will keep them engaged? How will you inspire and capture their imagination?

I’d recommend simplicity, and not try to include every form of media. Consider the purpose and message and select which format delivers it most effectively. Used with intention, video can be great. But animated graphics or flashy text is unnecessary and will add to the cognitive load of your audience, especially if they have any visual impairments.   

Video can be very effective, so long as it’s kept brief. If it’s longer than a minute, you may lose the attention of the audience, and the momentum of your presentation. A film clip should be creative and add another dimension, not an infomercial or promo piece, it’s a tool to say something that you cannot put across otherwise.

Films can have great benefits of showing a story. In a TED Talk about the intelligence of crows, the scientist showed a clip of the crow bending a hook to create a tool and fish a piece of food out of a tube. It put across his point better than anything he could’ve said.

I use recordings in situations like this, to demonstrate a case study. It’s often more powerful to have the original storyteller sharing their experience than me giving a second-hand account of the tale. Bringing in other voices in this way can add further diversity to your workshop.

Still images

JPEGs are compressed files and are used for photo formats. When a photo is taken, it is a RAW file that is editable. Once it’s compressed to a JPEG, it retains around a tenth of the information, meaning it is a smaller and less detailed file. JPEGS are used in photography, but not in vector graphics (drawings, typography, graphs, etc), as the detail lost can create pixelation if you aim to blow the image up to a larger size.

PNGs retain detail and are editable. They are still compressed files, but the pixels aren’t lost. Any graphics you create should be saved as a PNG, as you’ll be able to keep the image sharp, regardless of the size.

The photography you choose must be relatable. I’m definitely not against stock imagery per se, it’s amazing to have access to a library of searchable images to strengthen what you are saying. But, often you’ll see the same images repeated in different workshops and presentations and they’ll start to lose their meaning, or become too familiar. There are great free resources like Unsplash and if you spend time looking for a more unique way to put your point across, there are lots to choose from.

I’ve also had an Adobe Express subscription which gives access to photography and graphics and templates which you to customize in editing with little design skills. Ideally, being able to take your own photographs, or work with a professional photographer to capture exactly what you want is going to give your audience a far more unique experience. This is often a luxury.

As facilitators, a way around this could be to create our own library of photos that we capture at each presentation. When I’ve run crafting workshops, it feels quite natural to take photographs of the work we are creating. And those who are camera-shy, they’re more open to photographs of their hands in action. Over time, we’ll have a whole collection of resources.

If you enjoy photography, having a good camera as part of your kit might intrigue people, invite people to take photos of each other and the workshop process. This could be an exercise that you do to open or close your talk. Or in some cases, especially if it’s a visual presentation, and not too distracting, invite people to take their own photos and share after with a #hashtag (promo and photos in one!) And of course, get everyone’s signature attesting they are OK with photos.

Visual data & symbols

Visualizing data makes it more interesting, engaging and memorable than cold hard figures. For the majority of audiences, it’s easier to understand in a visual format than in a list of forgettable numbers. By creating charts, graphs or maps, we are able to see patterns and understand the context of the statistics. A pie chart displaying percentages in corresponding colors tells our brain quickly which section has the largest number.

Even when we analyze word-driven data, a visual representation is easier to see straight away. When I’ve worked with community groups in the design thinking process, we’ve often used Google surveys to capture written evidence. This type of qualitative data can be a challenge to sift through, so for an initial overview, a tool like word cloud can show how many times a particular word or phrase appears and turns it into an image. The more times a word appears, the larger it is on the image.

The use of icons and emojis (sparingly! And in context 😉) can add another element of visual understanding to presentations. Illustrations and hand-dawn symbols might better express your point than a photograph too. An opportunity to work with a live scribe or graphic facilitator whilst presenting could add an interesting dimension to a talk. If it involves audience participation, having someone on hand to capture the conversation visually can keep engagement and attention going!

The best tools for designing your presentation

Canva has become a much more powerful tool than it was. You can even edit your workshop recordings with it now! It’s perfect for anyone with little design knowledge as it has great templates for presentations, lots of which are free. It has social media templates too, which are perfect for advertising your upcoming workshop.

Adobe Creative Suite

I do love Creative Suite , and it still is a great package of tools for designers. Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are the industry standard for design tools and have all the capabilities you’d need as a graphic designer. If that package is beyond your scope, Adobe Express is a great option for pre-made templates and stock imagery. Like Canva, it also works well as an app on a smartphone.

Keynote 

Keynote comes as standard with MacBook and has had a whole new upgrade including being able to use the camera on your Mac or an external camera to show yourself directly on the slides. Super handy for an online event! You can also show the screen of a connected iPad or iPhone and it now has co-hosting capabilities. 

Of course! SessionLab is where you can keep all of your presentation notes, and break down the agenda into blocks, so if you decide to switch up parts of your presentation- you can drag and drop to a different section of your talk. It is a much easier process, as it will also keep any other attachments or exercises in that block neatly collated in one place. It’s easy to share with any co-hosts or clients before the presentation day arrives!

How to deliver a workshop presentation with visuals

Some people memorize their speech word for word, which can work well if you’re a dab hand at amateur dramatics. 

On the other hand, that might feel too stressful or rigid. Bill Murray is famously known to read a script once and throw it away! For you, it may be better to consider the key points you’d like to make, and really know your subject matter so whatever arises, you’ve got it covered. Your visuals might act as a prompt for you too, the main message will be communicated visually, and you can feel free to go into more depth.

The best way to ensure that you nailed the slide design for your session is to practice. It’s important to practice noting your timing, that you’ve covered all the important points, and that each slide transitions smoothly from one to the next. You want the presentation to be as seamless as possible. The best way to practice is in front of someone and gather feedback.

Before our design thinking for beginners show and tell, I rehearsed in front of my fellow team members, instructing them to wear their “facilitator’s hats” whilst listening, so they could hear from a facilitator’s perspective and give constructive feedback.

Afterward, you can continue to add and edit, removing some sections, and making room for more key discussions to be had in-depth. If it is an informal presentation that you will run more than once, it could develop over time. If it is a one-off very important meeting, it’s vital to get as much preparation practice as possible.

Expect nerves

If I get nervous, I purposely talk slightly slower than I usually would naturally, and it calms the nerves down. There’s also no harm in mentioning that you’re nervous, it’s an honest approach and can create an authentic connection.

We’re all human. And no one would expect you to not be nervous. Nerves, to an extent, can be a good thing. They bring a bit of energy and focus to your talk, and a little adrenaline. If you know your subject matter inside out, all you really need to do is breathe, and talk. 

Speaking with one of our community members, Yvonne Chin Irving on the subject of nerves, she suggested diaphragmatic breathing, or more a more fun term, “balloon breathing”:

Belly breathe. Slowly. Imagine your tummy has a balloon that fills up when you breathe. Exhale all the air. Notice your tummy as it flattens. Next, breathe in slowly and fill your “balloon” with breath 🎈. Do this a few times to help calm yourself down. You can start this on the way to your session, do it in the car or while you’re setting up for your session. (It really works) Yvonne Chin Irving

We’d love it if you joined the conversation in our SessionLab community!

Having a technical rehearsal beforehand can help avoid blips. Ensure the right people have screen-sharing abilities, and that screens in the in-person space work. Iron out any microphone issues or problems with echo prior to the big presentation! On the day itself a technical disaster could strike, so here are some practical tips to circumnavigate these and stay professional:

• Create different formats for your presentation. If it’s a Keynote or Powerpoint, have a PDF version available in case of any tech issues you’ll still have a high-quality version available.
• If including video, have backup screen-shots as images to demonstrate your points in case the video doesn’t run.
• Be analog ready. Know your presentation without the use of slides- or print them out so that if there is a complete technical breakdown, you can confidently present. This might include creating printed handouts for people to refer to when you direct them to do so. Or, if they have their own smartphones, send them the link to your visuals or any important videos to watch back after your talk, to avoid distractions as you speak.

Accessibility

Ensuring your audience has the best experience, requires being aware of accessibility needs. Is access to the building easy for anyone with physical disabilities? Are the seats comfortable, and allow for ease of viewing for people of different heights? 

We’ve discussed the best way to use typography for ease of reading for anyone with visual impairments, and when setting up your screen, it is a good idea to see how it will look in the actual event environment. Additionally, you may share larger-print handouts on yellow paper for anyone with dyslexia. This is another reason why knowing your audience in the planning stage will make sure your presentation is enjoyable and accessible for everyone.   

Agenda planning

SessionLab is an agenda planning tool that makes presenting a lot smoother! You are able to allocate time to each section of content to keep yourself on track throughout. In your preparation stage, you can attach all of your materials to your SessionLab agenda, knowing exactly when you’ll use each of them. It’s so neatly organized and easy to edit and shift blocks if you decide to change the order of content for a future session.

In conclusion

I hope you have found this guide valuable, and that it inspires lots of ideas when planning your next presentation! There are a wealth of resources dotted around this article, and I’ll include a few more here that I highly recommend:

Lean Presentation Design A whole website by Maurizo la Cava dedicated to presentation strategy

Ted Talk: How to Write Less, but say more is an excellent talk by Jim VandeHai about short and effective communication.

Five Things to Know About Your Audience Before You Present if You Want to Be Successful useful tips on how to empathize with your group for a more successful presentation.

Let us know below in the comments if you have any questions, or any tips of your own to add to the conversation!

Carrin is the community and partnerships manager at SessionLab. She’s helped community initiatives and NGOs tackle complex problems through facilitated design thinking workshops. As a lifelong learner, you’ll find Carrin hosting SessionLab community events featuring guest facilitators, trainers and coaches sharing their experiences.

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Preparation is the single most important part of making a successful presentation. It is an absolutely crucial foundation, and you should dedicate as much time to it as possible, avoiding short-cuts. Good preparation will ensure that you have thought carefully about the messages that you want (or need) to communicate in your presentation and it will also help boost your confidence.

There are a number of aspects that you need to consider when preparing a presentation. They include the aim of the presentation, the subject matter, the audience, the venue or place, the time of day, and the length of the talk. All these will affect what you say and how you say it, as well as the visual aids that you use to get your point across.

The Objective

Whenever you are asked to give a presentation or speak to a group of people, you need to start by asking the purpose of the presentation.

In other words, what is the presentation expected to achieve, and what outcome(s) do the organisers and the audience expect?

These outcomes will shape your presentation, because it must be designed to achieve the objective and deliver the desired outcomes.

For example, you might be asked to give a talk to a gardening club. You might be told that the purpose of the talk is to fill a regular meeting slot, and that the members of the club have expressed a desire to learn more about pruning. You therefore know that your talk needs to be entertaining, fairly light, but knowledgeable, and that your audience wants to learn something new.

As you prepare your presentation, make sure you keep asking yourself:

“How is saying this going to help to achieve the objective and outcomes?”

The Subject

The subject of your presentation or talk about comes from the objective. They are linked, but they are not necessarily exactly the same thing.

For example:

The subject may be given to you by the organisation that has invited you (such as talking about pruning to the gardening club).

You may be knowledgeable in a particular field (perhaps you have an interest in local history).

The subject may be entirely your choice within certain limitations (you might, for example, be asked to give a presentation at an interview on a project which you feel has particularly developed your skills).

The Audience

Before preparing material for a presentation, it is worth considering your prospective audience.

Tailoring your talk to the audience is important and the following points should be considered:

The size of the group or audience expected.

The age range - a talk aimed at retired people will be quite different from one aimed at teenagers.

Gender - will the audience be predominantly male or female?

Is it a captive audience or will they be there out of interest?

Will you be speaking in their work or leisure time?

Do they know something about your subject already or will it be totally new to them?  Is the subject part of their work?

Are you there to inform, teach, stimulate, or provoke?

Can you use humour and, if so, what would be considered appropriate? If you are in any doubt about this, it is probably best to avoid anything even remotely risqué.

It is important to have as much advance information as possible about the place where you are going to speak.

It can be helpful to arrange to see the venue before the event. It does much to quell fear if you can visualise the place while you are preparing your talk. However, even if you cannot visit, you will probably find it helpful to know:

The size of the room;

The seating arrangements (for example, theatre-style, with rows of seats; or round-table);

The availability of equipment, e.g., microphone, laptop and projector, flip chart;

The availability of power points and if an extension lead is required for any equipment you intend to use;

If the room has curtains or blinds. This is relevant if you intend to use visual aids, and so that you can ensure the correct ambiance for your presentation;

The position of the light switches.  Check if you need someone to help if you are using audio/visual equipment and need to turn off the lights;

The likelihood of outside distractions, e.g., noise from another room; and

The availability of parking facilities so you do not have a long walk carrying any equipment you might need to take.

If this information is not available ahead of time, it will help to get there a bit early, to give you time to set up.

There will often be no flexibility in the time of day that a presentation is made. However, it does affect what you can do, and how you might organise your presentation, because of the likely state of your audience (see box).

How time of day can affect your audience

The morning is the best time to speak because people are generally at their most alert. However, as it gets towards lunch time, people begin to feel hungry and lose concentration. This is particularly true if the event has not included a coffee break.

After lunch, people often feel sleepy and lethargic. If you are given a slot immediately after lunch, it is a good idea to get your audience involved. A discussion or getting your audience moving about will work a lot better than simply presenting a lot of slides. A flip chart may also be a more useful tool than a laptop and projector, especially if it means you can open blinds and use natural light.

Towards the end of the afternoon, people again tend to lose concentration as they start to worry about getting home, the traffic or collecting children from school.

Evening or Weekend:

Outside regular office hours, people are more likely to be present because they want to be rather than because they have to be there.  There is a better chance of audience attention in the evening. However, if the presentation goes on for too long, people may have to leave before you have finished. People will also be less tolerant of a poor presentation because you are in their time, not their employer’s.

Length of Talk

Always find out how long you have to talk and check if this includes or excludes time for questions.

Find out if there are other speakers and, if so, where you are placed in the running order.  Never elect to go last.  Beware of over-running, as this could be disastrous if there are other speakers following you.

It is important to remember that people find it difficult to maintain concentration for long periods of time. This is a good reason for making a presentation succinct, well-structured and interesting. Aim for 45 minutes as a maximum single-session presentation, and preferably leave at least 10 or 15 minutes for questions. Nobody minds finishing a session early.

Providing Information in Advance

Always check what information you will need to provide in advance.

Organisers of big events and conferences often like to have all the PowerPoint presentations several days ahead of the event. This gives them time to load all the presentations, and make sure that they are properly branded for the event.

Some events also need speakers’ biographies ahead of time, to put in conference literature. When you are asked to give the presentation, make sure you ask what is needed by when—and then supply it.

You will not be popular if you turn up on the day and announce that you have completely rewritten your presentation on the train. It is entirely possible that the organisers may even not be able to accommodate that, for example if the audio-visual is being supplied by a separate company or by the venue.

And finally…

Being asked to give a presentation is an honour, not a chore.

You are representing your organisation or yourself, if you are self-employed. You are also not there by right, but by invitation. It is therefore important that you put in the time and effort to ensure that you deliver what your audience wants. That way, you may just be invited back another time.

Continue to: Organising the Presentation Material

See also: Can Presentation Science Improve Your Presentation? Preparing for Oral Presentations Managing the Presentation Event Coping with Presentation Nerves

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6 presentation skills and how to improve them

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What are presentation skills?

The importance of presentation skills, 6 presentation skills examples, how to improve presentation skills.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety

Learn how to captivate an audience with ease

Capturing an audience’s attention takes practice. 

Over time, great presenters learn how to organize their speeches and captivate an audience from start to finish. They spark curiosity, know how to read a room , and understand what their audience needs to walk away feeling like they learned something valuable.

Regardless of your profession, you most likely use presentation skills on a monthly or even weekly basis. Maybe you lead brainstorming sessions or host client calls. 

Developing effective presentation skills makes it easier to contribute ideas with confidence and show others you’re someone to trust. Although speaking in front of a crowd sometimes brings nerves and anxiety , it also sparks new opportunities.

Presentation skills are the qualities and abilities you need to communicate ideas effectively and deliver a compelling speech. They influence how you structure a presentation and how an audience receives it. Understanding body language , creating impactful visual aids, and projecting your voice all fall under this umbrella.

A great presentation depends on more than what you say. It’s about how you say it. Storytelling , stage presence, and voice projection all shape how well you express your ideas and connect with the audience. These skills do take practice, but they’re worth developing — especially if public speaking makes you nervous. 

Engaging a crowd isn’t easy. You may feel anxious to step in front of an audience and have all eyes and ears on you.

But feeling that anxiety doesn’t mean your ideas aren’t worth sharing. Whether you’re giving an inspiring speech or delivering a monthly recap at work, your audience is there to listen to you. Harness that nervous energy and turn it into progress.

Strong presentation skills make it easier to convey your thoughts to audiences of all sizes. They can help you tell a compelling story, convince people of a pitch , or teach a group something entirely new to them. And when it comes to the workplace, the strength of your presentation skills could play a part in getting a promotion or contributing to a new initiative.

To fully understand the impact these skills have on creating a successful presentation, it’s helpful to look at each one individually. Here are six valuable skills you can develop:

1. Active listening

Active listening is an excellent communication skill for any professional to hone. When you have strong active listening skills, you can listen to others effectively and observe their nonverbal cues . This helps you assess whether or not your audience members are engaged in and understand what you’re sharing. 

Great public speakers use active listening to assess the audience’s reactions and adjust their speech if they find it lacks impact. Signs like slouching, negative facial expressions, and roaming eye contact are all signs to watch out for when giving a presentation.

2. Body language

If you’re researching presentation skills, chances are you’ve already watched a few notable speeches like TED Talks or industry seminars. And one thing you probably noticed is that speakers can capture attention with their body language. 

A mixture of eye contact, hand gestures , and purposeful pacing makes a presentation more interesting and engaging. If you stand in one spot and don’t move your body, the audience might zone out.

3. Stage presence

A great stage presence looks different for everyone. A comedian might aim for more movement and excitement, and a conference speaker might focus their energy on the content of their speech. Although neither is better than the other, both understand their strengths and their audience’s needs. 

Developing a stage presence involves finding your own unique communication style . Lean into your strengths, whether that’s adding an injection of humor or asking questions to make it interactive . To give a great presentation, you might even incorporate relevant props or presentation slides.

4. Storytelling

According to Forbes, audiences typically pay attention for about 10 minutes before tuning out . But you can lengthen their attention span by offering a presentation that interests them for longer. Include a narrative they’ll want to listen to, and tell a story as you go along. 

Shaping your content to follow a clear narrative can spark your audience’s curiosity and entice them to pay careful attention. You can use anecdotes from your personal or professional life that take your audience along through relevant moments. If you’re pitching a product, you can start with a problem and lead your audience through the stages of how your product provides a solution.

5. Voice projection

Although this skill may be obvious, you need your audience to hear what you’re saying. This can be challenging if you’re naturally soft-spoken and struggle to project your voice.

Remember to straighten your posture and take deep breaths before speaking, which will help you speak louder and fill the room. If you’re talking into a microphone or participating in a virtual meeting, you can use your regular conversational voice, but you still want to sound confident and self-assured with a strong tone.

If you’re unsure whether everyone can hear you, you can always ask the audience at the beginning of your speech and wait for confirmation. That way, they won’t have to potentially interrupt you later.

Ensuring everyone can hear you also includes your speed and annunciation. It’s easy to speak quickly when nervous, but try to slow down and pronounce every word. Mumbling can make your presentation difficult to understand and pay attention to.

6. Verbal communication 

Although verbal communication involves your projection and tone, it also covers the language and pacing you use to get your point across. This includes where you choose to place pauses in your speech or the tone you use to emphasize important ideas.

If you’re giving a presentation on collaboration in the workplace , you might start your speech by saying, “There’s something every workplace needs to succeed: teamwork.” By placing emphasis on the word “ teamwork ,” you give your audience a hint on what ideas will follow.

To further connect with your audience through diction, pay careful attention to who you’re speaking to. The way you talk to your colleagues might be different from how you speak to a group of superiors, even if you’re discussing the same subject. You might use more humor and a conversational tone for the former and more serious, formal diction for the latter.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses when it comes to presenting. Maybe you’re confident in your use of body language, but your voice projection needs work. Maybe you’re a great storyteller in small group settings, but need to work on your stage presence in front of larger crowds. 

The first step to improving presentation skills is pinpointing your gaps and determining which qualities to build upon first. Here are four tips for enhancing your presentation skills:

1. Build self-confidence

Confident people know how to speak with authority and share their ideas. Although feeling good about your presentation skills is easier said than done, building confidence is key to helping your audience believe in what you’re saying. Try practicing positive self-talk and continuously researching your topic's ins and outs.

If you don’t feel confident on the inside, fake it until you make it. Stand up straight, project your voice, and try your best to appear engaged and excited. Chances are, the audience doesn’t know you’re unsure of your skills — and they don’t need to.

Another tip is to lean into your slideshow, if you’re using one. Create something colorful and interesting so the audience’s eyes fall there instead of on you. And when you feel proud of your slideshow, you’ll be more eager to share it with others, bringing more energy to your presentation.

2. Watch other presentations

Developing the soft skills necessary for a good presentation can be challenging without seeing them in action. Watch as many as possible to become more familiar with public speaking skills and what makes a great presentation. You could attend events with keynote speakers or view past speeches on similar topics online.

Take a close look at how those presenters use verbal communication and body language to engage their audiences. Grab a notebook and jot down what you enjoyed and your main takeaways. Try to recall the techniques they used to emphasize their main points, whether they used pauses effectively, had interesting visual aids, or told a fascinating story.

3. Get in front of a crowd

You don’t need a large auditorium to practice public speaking. There are dozens of other ways to feel confident and develop good presentation skills.

If you’re a natural comedian, consider joining a small stand-up comedy club. If you’re an avid writer, participate in a public poetry reading. Even music and acting can help you feel more comfortable in front of a crowd.

If you’d rather keep it professional, you can still work on your presentation skills in the office. Challenge yourself to participate at least once in every team meeting, or plan and present a project to become more comfortable vocalizing your ideas. You could also speak to your manager about opportunities that flex your public speaking abilities.

4. Overcome fear

Many people experience feelings of fear before presenting in front of an audience, whether those feelings appear as a few butterflies or more severe anxiety. Try grounding yourself to shift your focus to the present moment. If you’re stuck dwelling on previous experiences that didn’t go well, use those mistakes as learning experiences and focus on what you can improve to do better in the future.

Tips for dealing with presentation anxiety 

It’s normal to feel nervous when sharing your ideas. In fact, according to a report from the Journal of Graduate Medical Education, public speaking anxiety is prevalent in 15–30% of the general population .

Even though having a fear of public speaking is common, it doesn’t make it easier. You might feel overwhelmed, become stiff, and forget what you were going to say. But although the moment might scare you, there are ways to overcome the fear and put mind over matter.

Use these tactics to reduce your stress when you have to make a presentation:

1. Practice breathing techniques

If you experience anxiety often, you’re probably familiar with breathing techniques for stress relief . Incorporating these exercises into your daily routine can help you stop worrying and regulate anxious feelings. 

Before a big presentation, take a moment alone to practice breathing techniques, ground yourself, and reduce tension. It’s also a good idea to take breaths throughout the presentation to speak slower and calm yourself down .

2. Get organized

The more organized you are, the more prepared you’ll feel. Carefully outline all of the critical information you want to use in your presentation, including your main talking points and visual aids, so you don’t forget anything. Use bullet points and visuals on each slide to remind you of what you want to talk about, and create handheld notes to help you stay on track.

3. Embrace moments of silence

It’s okay to lose your train of thought. It happens to even the most experienced public speakers once in a while. If your mind goes blank, don’t panic. Take a moment to breathe, gather your thoughts, and refer to your notes to see where you left off. You can drink some water or make a quick joke to ease the silence or regain your footing. And it’s okay to say, “Give me a moment while I find my notes.” Chances are, people understand the position you’re in.

4. Practice makes progress

Before presenting, rehearse in front of friends and family members you trust. This gives you the chance to work out any weak spots in your speech and become comfortable communicating out loud. If you want to go the extra mile, ask your makeshift audience to ask a surprise question. This tests your on-the-spot thinking and will prove that you can keep cool when things come up.

Whether you’re new to public speaking or are a seasoned presenter, you’re bound to make a few slip-ups. It happens to everyone. The most important thing is that you try your best, brush things off, and work on improving your skills to do better in your next presentation.

Although your job may require a different level of public speaking than your favorite TED Talk , developing presentation skills is handy in any profession. You can use presentation skills in a wide range of tasks in the workplace, whether you’re sharing your ideas with colleagues, expressing concerns to higher-ups, or pitching strategies to potential clients.

Remember to use active listening to read the room and engage your audience with an interesting narrative. Don’t forget to step outside your comfort zone once in a while and put your skills to practice in front of a crowd. After facing your fears, you’ll feel confident enough to put presentation skills on your resume.

If you’re trying to build your skills and become a better employee overall, try a communications coach with BetterUp. 

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Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

8 tips to improve your public speaking skills

The significance of written communication in the workplace, the 11 tips that will improve your public speaking skills, what is an entrepreneur understanding the different types and examples of entrepreneurship, get smart about your goals at work and start seeing results, 9 signs that you’re being pushed out of your job, goal-setting theory: why it’s important, and how to use it at work, the importance of good speech: 5 tips to be more articulate, empathic listening: what it is and how to use it, how to write a speech that your audience remembers, impression management: developing your self-presentation skills, 30 presentation feedback examples, your guide to what storytelling is and how to be a good storyteller, how to give a good presentation that captivates any audience, 8 clever hooks for presentations (with tips), how to make a presentation interactive and exciting, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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Difference between Poster Session and Oral Session

I'm a student with a question on conferences. What is the main difference between an oral session and a poster session? I want to know the difference in detail. I can understand the meaning a little bit, but what else can you tell me about the differences in the details?

In an oral session, speakers present their work one-by-one in a series of short lectures (usually no more than 30 minutes, and potentially as little as 10 minutes). Each speaker presents, takes questions for a few minutes, and is followed by the next one. These presentations are usually in a room with a seated audience, in a lecture-style format.

In a poster session, a number of presenters each prepare a poster (in a standard size) and mount them on boards in a large room. For a fixed period of time during the conference, all participants are invited to wander round the posters, reading and asking questions as they deem fit. Poster presenters typically stand by the posters and answer questions as people come by.

For more information, see:

• Talks vs. poster presentations: Which is better for advertising your research and building research networks?
• How important are poster sessions in conferences?
• What are some general good principles for creating a poster for a poster session?

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How to Structure your Presentation, with Examples

August 3, 2018 - Dom Barnard

For many people the thought of delivering a presentation is a daunting task and brings about a  great deal of nerves . However, if you take some time to understand how effective presentations are structured and then apply this structure to your own presentation, you’ll appear much more confident and relaxed.

Here is our complete guide for structuring your presentation, with examples at the end of the article to demonstrate these points.

Why is structuring a presentation so important?

If you’ve ever sat through a great presentation, you’ll have left feeling either inspired or informed on a given topic. This isn’t because the speaker was the most knowledgeable or motivating person in the world. Instead, it’s because they know how to structure presentations – they have crafted their message in a logical and simple way that has allowed the audience can keep up with them and take away key messages.

Research has supported this, with studies showing that audiences retain structured information  40% more accurately  than unstructured information.

In fact, not only is structuring a presentation important for the benefit of the audience’s understanding, it’s also important for you as the speaker. A good structure helps you remain calm, stay on topic, and avoid any awkward silences.

What will affect your presentation structure?

Generally speaking, there is a natural flow that any decent presentation will follow which we will go into shortly. However, you should be aware that all presentation structures will be different in their own unique way and this will be due to a number of factors, including:

• Whether you need to deliver any demonstrations
• How  knowledgeable the audience  already is on the given subject
• How much interaction you want from the audience
• Any time constraints there are for your talk
• What setting you are in
• Your ability to use any kinds of visual assistance

Before choosing the presentation’s structure answer these questions first:

• What is your presentation’s aim?
• Who are the audience?
• What are the main points your audience should remember afterwards?

When reading the points below, think critically about what things may cause your presentation structure to be slightly different. You can add in certain elements and add more focus to certain moments if that works better for your speech.

What is the typical presentation structure?

This is the usual flow of a presentation, which covers all the vital sections and is a good starting point for yours. It allows your audience to easily follow along and sets out a solid structure you can add your content to.

1. Greet the audience and introduce yourself

Before you start delivering your talk, introduce yourself to the audience and clarify who you are and your relevant expertise. This does not need to be long or incredibly detailed, but will help build an immediate relationship between you and the audience. It gives you the chance to briefly clarify your expertise and why you are worth listening to. This will help establish your ethos so the audience will trust you more and think you’re credible.

Read our tips on  How to Start a Presentation Effectively

2. Introduction

In the introduction you need to explain the subject and purpose of your presentation whilst gaining the audience’s interest and confidence. It’s sometimes helpful to think of your introduction as funnel-shaped to help filter down your topic:

• Introduce your general topic
• Explain your topic area
• State the issues/challenges in this area you will be exploring
• State your presentation’s purpose – this is the basis of your presentation so ensure that you provide a statement explaining how the topic will be treated, for example, “I will argue that…” or maybe you will “compare”, “analyse”, “evaluate”, “describe” etc.
• Provide a statement of what you’re hoping the outcome of the presentation will be, for example, “I’m hoping this will be provide you with…”
• Show a preview of the organisation of your presentation

In this section also explain:

• The length of the talk.
• Signal whether you want audience interaction – some presenters prefer the audience to ask questions throughout whereas others allocate a specific section for this.
• If it applies, inform the audience whether to take notes or whether you will be providing handouts.

The way you structure your introduction can depend on the amount of time you have been given to present: a  sales pitch  may consist of a quick presentation so you may begin with your conclusion and then provide the evidence. Conversely, a speaker presenting their idea for change in the world would be better suited to start with the evidence and then conclude what this means for the audience.

Keep in mind that the main aim of the introduction is to grab the audience’s attention and connect with them.

3. The main body of your talk

The main body of your talk needs to meet the promises you made in the introduction. Depending on the nature of your presentation, clearly segment the different topics you will be discussing, and then work your way through them one at a time – it’s important for everything to be organised logically for the audience to fully understand. There are many different ways to organise your main points, such as, by priority, theme, chronologically etc.

• Main points should be addressed one by one with supporting evidence and examples.
• Before moving on to the next point you should provide a mini-summary.
• Links should be clearly stated between ideas and you must make it clear when you’re moving onto the next point.
• Allow time for people to take relevant notes and stick to the topics you have prepared beforehand rather than straying too far off topic.

When planning your presentation write a list of main points you want to make and ask yourself “What I am telling the audience? What should they understand from this?” refining your answers this way will help you produce clear messages.

4. Conclusion

In presentations the conclusion is frequently underdeveloped and lacks purpose which is a shame as it’s the best place to reinforce your messages. Typically, your presentation has a specific goal – that could be to convert a number of the audience members into customers, lead to a certain number of enquiries to make people knowledgeable on specific key points, or to motivate them towards a shared goal.

Regardless of what that goal is, be sure to summarise your main points and their implications. This clarifies the overall purpose of your talk and reinforces your reason for being there.

Follow these steps:

• Signal that it’s nearly the end of your presentation, for example, “As we wrap up/as we wind down the talk…”
• Restate the topic and purpose of your presentation – “In this speech I wanted to compare…”
• Summarise the main points, including their implications and conclusions
• Indicate what is next/a call to action/a thought-provoking takeaway
• Move on to the last section

5. Thank the audience and invite questions

Conclude your talk by thanking the audience for their time and invite them to  ask any questions  they may have. As mentioned earlier, personal circumstances will affect the structure of your presentation.

Many presenters prefer to make the Q&A session the key part of their talk and try to speed through the main body of the presentation. This is totally fine, but it is still best to focus on delivering some sort of initial presentation to set the tone and topics for discussion in the Q&A.

Other common presentation structures

The above was a description of a basic presentation, here are some more specific presentation layouts:

Demonstration

Use the demonstration structure when you have something useful to show. This is usually used when you want to show how a product works. Steve Jobs frequently used this technique in his presentations.

• Explain why the product is valuable.
• Describe why the product is necessary.
• Explain what problems it can solve for the audience.
• Demonstrate the product  to support what you’ve been saying.
• Make suggestions of other things it can do to make the audience curious.

Problem-solution

This structure is particularly useful in persuading the audience.

• Briefly frame the issue.
• Go into the issue in detail showing why it ‘s such a problem. Use logos and pathos for this – the logical and emotional appeals.
• Provide the solution and explain why this would also help the audience.
• Call to action – something you want the audience to do which is straightforward and pertinent to the solution.

Storytelling

As well as incorporating  stories in your presentation , you can organise your whole presentation as a story. There are lots of different type of story structures you can use – a popular choice is the monomyth – the hero’s journey. In a monomyth, a hero goes on a difficult journey or takes on a challenge – they move from the familiar into the unknown. After facing obstacles and ultimately succeeding the hero returns home, transformed and with newfound wisdom.

Storytelling for Business Success  webinar , where well-know storyteller Javier Bernad shares strategies for crafting compelling narratives.

Another popular choice for using a story to structure your presentation is in media ras (in the middle of thing). In this type of story you launch right into the action by providing a snippet/teaser of what’s happening and then you start explaining the events that led to that event. This is engaging because you’re starting your story at the most exciting part which will make the audience curious – they’ll want to know how you got there.

• Great storytelling: Examples from Alibaba Founder, Jack Ma

Remaining method

The remaining method structure is good for situations where you’re presenting your perspective on a controversial topic which has split people’s opinions.

• Go into the issue in detail showing why it’s such a problem – use logos and pathos.
• Rebut your opponents’ solutions  – explain why their solutions could be useful because the audience will see this as fair and will therefore think you’re trustworthy, and then explain why you think these solutions are not valid.
• After you’ve presented all the alternatives provide your solution, the remaining solution. This is very persuasive because it looks like the winning idea, especially with the audience believing that you’re fair and trustworthy.

Transitions

When delivering presentations it’s important for your words and ideas to flow so your audience can understand how everything links together and why it’s all relevant. This can be done  using speech transitions  which are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence – there are many different forms, here are some examples:

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

• Now that you’re aware of the overview, let’s begin with…
• First, let’s begin with…
• I will first cover…
• My first point covers…
• To get started, let’s look at…

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

• In the same way…
• Likewise…
• Equally…
• This is similar to…
• Similarly…

Internal summaries

Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You must inform the audience:

• What part of the presentation you covered – “In the first part of this speech we’ve covered…”
• What the key points were – “Precisely how…”
• How this links in with the overall presentation – “So that’s the context…”
• What you’re moving on to – “Now I’d like to move on to the second part of presentation which looks at…”

Physical movement

You can move your body and your standing location when you transition to another point. The audience find it easier to follow your presentation and movement will increase their interest.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Key slides for your presentation

Slides are a useful tool for most presentations: they can greatly assist in the delivery of your message and help the audience follow along with what you are saying. Key slides include:

• An intro slide outlining your ideas
• A  summary slide  with core points to remember
• High quality image slides to supplement what you are saying

There are some presenters who choose not to use slides at all, though this is more of a rarity. Slides can be a powerful tool if used properly, but the problem is that many fail to do just that. Here are some golden rules to follow when using slides in a presentation:

• Don’t over fill them  – your slides are there to assist your speech, rather than be the focal point. They should have as little information as possible, to avoid distracting people from your talk.
• A picture says a thousand words  – instead of filling a slide with text, instead, focus on one or two images or diagrams to help support and explain the point you are discussing at that time.
• Make them readable  – depending on the size of your audience, some may not be able to see small text or images, so make everything large enough to fill the space.
• Don’t rush through slides  – give the audience enough time to digest each slide.

Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should follow a  10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

Here are some additional resources for slide design:

• 7 design tips for effective, beautiful PowerPoint presentations
• 11 design tips for beautiful presentations
• 10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

Group Presentations

Group presentations are structured in the same way as presentations with one speaker but usually require more rehearsal and practices.  Clean transitioning between speakers  is very important in producing a presentation that flows well. One way of doing this consists of:

• Briefly recap on what you covered in your section: “So that was a brief introduction on what health anxiety is and how it can affect somebody”
• Introduce the next speaker in the team and explain what they will discuss: “Now Elnaz will talk about the prevalence of health anxiety.”
• Then end by looking at the next speaker, gesturing towards them and saying their name: “Elnaz”.
• The next speaker should acknowledge this with a quick: “Thank you Joe.”

From this example you can see how the different sections of the presentations link which makes it easier for the audience to follow and remain engaged.

Example of great presentation structure and delivery

Having examples of great presentations will help inspire your own structures, here are a few such examples, each unique and inspiring in their own way.

How Google Works – by Eric Schmidt

This presentation by ex-Google CEO  Eric Schmidt  demonstrates some of the most important lessons he and his team have learnt with regards to working with some of the most talented individuals they hired. The simplistic yet cohesive style of all of the slides is something to be appreciated. They are relatively straightforward, yet add power and clarity to the narrative of the presentation.

Start with why – by Simon Sinek

Since being released in 2009, this presentation has been viewed almost four million times all around the world. The message itself is very powerful, however, it’s not an idea that hasn’t been heard before. What makes this presentation so powerful is the simple message he is getting across, and the straightforward and understandable manner in which he delivers it. Also note that he doesn’t use any slides, just a whiteboard where he creates a simple diagram of his opinion.

The Wisdom of a Third Grade Dropout – by Rick Rigsby

Here’s an example of a presentation given by a relatively unknown individual looking to inspire the next generation of graduates. Rick’s presentation is unique in many ways compared to the two above. Notably, he uses no visual prompts and includes a great deal of humour.

However, what is similar is the structure he uses. He first introduces his message that the wisest man he knew was a third-grade dropout. He then proceeds to deliver his main body of argument, and in the end, concludes with his message. This powerful speech keeps the viewer engaged throughout, through a mixture of heart-warming sentiment, powerful life advice and engaging humour.

As you can see from the examples above, and as it has been expressed throughout, a great presentation structure means analysing the core message of your presentation. Decide on a key message you want to impart the audience with, and then craft an engaging way of delivering it.

By preparing a solid structure, and  practising your talk  beforehand, you can walk into the presentation with confidence and deliver a meaningful message to an interested audience.

It’s important for a presentation to be well-structured so it can have the most impact on your audience. An unstructured presentation can be difficult to follow and even frustrating to listen to. The heart of your speech are your main points supported by evidence and your transitions should assist the movement between points and clarify how everything is linked.

Research suggests that the audience remember the first and last things you say so your introduction and conclusion are vital for reinforcing your points. Essentially, ensure you spend the time structuring your presentation and addressing all of the sections.

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Blog Marketing 15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

Written by: Krystle Wong Aug 04, 2023

As attention spans continue to shrink, the challenge of engaging audiences in a short timeframe has never been more significant. Let’s face it — grabbing and keeping your audience’s attention can be quite the challenge, especially when time is ticking away. But fear not, I’ve got the perfect solution: interactive presentations!

Believe it or not, creating an interactive presentation is easier than you might think. In this guide, I’ll show you how to effortlessly turn ordinary slides into captivating experiences with 15 interactive presentation ideas that will leave your audience begging for more. From quirky polls and fun games to storytelling adventures and multimedia magic, these ideas will take your presentation game to the next level.

Venngage is a game-changer when it comes to empowering interactive presentations. With just a few clicks, users can customize their favorite presentation templates , add multimedia content and create immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact. Whether you’re a seasoned presenter or a newcomer, get started with Venngage to elevate your presentation game to new heights of engagement and creativity.

Click to jump ahead:

What is an interactive presentation?

15 ways to make a presentation interactive, 7 best interactive presentation software, what are some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive presentations, interactive presentation faqs, how to create an interactive presentation with venngage.

An interactive presentation is a dynamic and engaging communication format that involves active participation and collaboration between the presenter and the audience. Unlike traditional presentations where information is delivered in a one-way manner, interactive presentations invite the audience to interact, respond and contribute throughout the session.

Think of it as a two-way street where you and your audience have a friendly chat. It’s like playing a fun game where you ask questions, get live feedback and encourage people to share their thoughts. 

To make a good presentation , you can utilize various tools and techniques such as clickable buttons, polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements to transform your slides into an interactive presentation. Whether you’re presenting in-person or giving a virtual presentation — when people are actively participating, they’re more likely to remember the stuff you’re talking about.

Interactive presentations leave a lasting impression on the audience. By encouraging active participation and feedback, interactive presentations facilitate better understanding and knowledge retention. Here are 15 innovative 5-minute interactive presentation ideas to captivate your audience from start to finish:

1. Ice-breaker questions

Start your presentation with intriguing and thought-provoking questions or a fun icebreaker game. These questions should be designed to pique the audience’s curiosity and encourage them to think about the topic you’ll be covering. By doing so, you create an immediate connection with your audience and set the stage for a more engaged and attentive audience.

For example, if you’re giving a business presentation about management and leadership training, you could ask audience questions such as “What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received, and how has it impacted your career?”

2. Live polling

Incorporate live polls during your presentation using audience response systems or polling apps . This allows you to collect real-time feedback, opinions and insights from active participants. Live polling encourages active participation and involvement, making your presentation feel like a collaborative and interactive experience.

3. Q&A sessions

Encourage the audience to ask questions throughout your presentation, especially for pitch deck presentations . Address these questions in real-time, which fosters a more interactive and dynamic atmosphere. This approach shows that you value the audience’s input and promotes a two-way communication flow.

4. Clickable buttons

Add clickable buttons to your slides, allowing the audience to navigate to specific sections or external resources at their own pace. For example, you could include links to your social media accounts or extra reading materials in your education presentation to give further information about the topic and get your students engaged.

By providing this autonomy, you empower the audience to explore areas of particular interest, creating a more personalized and engaging experience through your interactive slideshow.

5. Storytelling

Incorporate anecdotes or personal stories related to your topic. Storytelling is a powerful way to emotionally connect with your audience, making your presentation more relatable and memorable. A little storytelling along with a set of creative slides draws the audience in and keeps them engaged as they follow the narrative.

6. Interactive charts and graphs

Use interactive charts and graphs that respond to user input to make your presentation interactive. For instance, allow the audience to click on data points to view more detailed information or to change the displayed data series. Creating charts with interactive visuals help the audience interact with the data, fostering better understanding and engagement.

7. Animated infographics

Add animations to your infographics, making them visually dynamic and progressive. Animated infographics reveal information gradually, keeping the audience curious and attentive. This transforms complex data into an easily digestible and engaging format.

Venngage’s extensive library of infographic templates is a powerful tool to visualize data and elevate the interactivity of your presentations. Personalizing the visuals ensures a cohesive and professional look throughout your interactive presentation. The templates are highly customizable, allowing you to adjust colors, fonts, and styles to match your presentation’s theme and branding. 

8. Gamification

Introduce an interactive quiz, puzzles, or challenges related to your presentation content. Gamification adds an element of fun and competition, motivating the audience to participate actively and boosting their learning experience. Here are some gaming presentation templates you could use. 

9. Virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR)

If applicable, leverage VR or AR technologies to provide immersive experiences. These interactive presentation tools transport the audience into a virtual or augmented environment, making your presentation more captivating and memorable.

10. Collaborative whiteboarding

Get your audience involved in your presentation by utilizing digital whiteboards or collaborative tools to brainstorm ideas collectively. This fosters teamwork and creativity, enabling the audience to actively contribute and feel a sense of involvement in the presentation.

11. Hyperlinked text

Keep the information in your slides minimal with a simple presentation and incorporate hyperlinks to direct viewers to relevant websites or blogs , resources, or additional information. This encourages self-exploration and gives the audience the opportunity to delve deeper into topics of interest.

12. Role-playing

Engage the audience in role-playing scenarios to explore different perspectives. Role-playing promotes active learning and helps the audience relate the content to real-life situations, enhancing their understanding and retention.

13. Embedded videos

Include video clips in your slides to provide visual explanations, demonstrations, or interviews. Videos add a dynamic element to your presentation, enriching the content and keeping the audience engaged. You can create these visual clips on a budget using a free screen recorder .

14. Audience-generated content

Encourage the audience to contribute ideas, stories or examples related to your professional presentation . Audience-generated content fosters a sense of ownership and involvement, making the presentation more interactive and personalized.

15. Slide transitions

Use slide transitions to create smooth animations between slides. Well-planned transitions maintain the audience’s interest and keep the presentation slides flowing seamlessly.

Interactive elements aside, enhance your presentation with these guides on how to summarize information for a captivating presentation and how to make a persuasive presentation to captivate your audience. 

If you’re looking to create engaging and interactive presentation slides that captivate your audience, these presentation software options are sure to elevate your game:

Prezi is renowned for its dynamic and non-linear presentation style, enabling users to craft visually stunning and interactive presentations. With an array of templates and animation effects, Prezi enhances audience engagement, making your presentations more captivating and memorable.

2. Mentimeter

Mentimeter serves as an audience response system, empowering real-time interaction during presentations. Users can create interactive polls, quizzes, word clouds and more, allowing the audience to respond using their smartphones or other devices. This fosters active participation and provides valuable feedback instantly.

3. Google Slides

Google Slides is a free cloud-based presentation software that not only offers collaboration features but also enables real-time interactions. It includes add-ons and third-party integrations to further enhance interactivity, making it an excellent choice for collaborative and engaging presentations.

4. Microsoft PowerPoint

PowerPoint, a classic presentation software, has evolved to incorporate more interactive features like live captions, real-time collaboration and interactive elements such as quizzes and forms. With its familiar interface and versatile functionalities, PowerPoint remains a reliable choice for interactive presentations.

5. Prezentor

Prezentor caters to sales-oriented presentations focusing on interactive storytelling and data-driven content. It offers analytics to track audience engagement and behavior during presentations, allowing you to fine-tune your approach and keep your audience hooked.

6. Opinion Stage

Opinion Stage is a visual and interactive data collection tool designed to engage and excite audiences whether sitting in a lecture hall, participating in a live Zoom, or watching an on-demand webinar. The Opinion Stage tools are simple and intuitive, making it easy to create attention-grabbing quizzes, surveys, and polls in minutes. A great way to spice up any presentation, encourage audience participation, and collect authentic feedback.

7 . Venngage

Venngage stands out as a versatile design tool that facilitates the creation of interactive infographics, data visualizations and presentations with ease. Offering various interactive elements and animations, Venngage empowers you to craft visually appealing and engaging presentations effortlessly.

With these interactive presentation software options at your disposal, you can unleash your creativity and deliver presentations that leave a lasting impact on your audience. So, go ahead and make your presentations interactive, captivating and memorable!

For more presentation software options, check out this blog on the 12 best presentation software for 2023.

Creating interactive presentations can be a game-changer for engaging your audience and enhancing your presentation skills, but steering clear of common pitfalls is essential. Here are some key mistakes to avoid when crafting your interactive presentations:

1. Overloading with interactivity

While interactivity is fantastic, bombarding your audience with too many interactive elements can backfire. Strive for a balanced approach that enhances engagement without overwhelming your listeners.

2. Ignoring audience relevance

Failing to tailor interactive elements to your audience’s interests and preferences can lead to disconnection. Make sure your interactions resonate with your specific audience for a more meaningful experience.

3. Not testing interactive elements

Skipping thorough testing of interactive features before showtime can spell disaster. Avoid technical glitches by diligently testing all interactive components in advance.

4. Poor timing and pace

Timing is everything, especially with interactive activities. Ensure seamless integration by planning your key points and the timing of your interactive elements carefully.

5. Lack of clear purpose

Every interactive element should serve a purpose and contribute to your presentation’s objectives. Don’t add interactions just for the sake of it — ensure they add value and align with your message.

6. Failing to engage beyond interactivity

While interactive elements are powerful tools, remember that content is king. Combine your interactive features with compelling storytelling and valuable insights to create an immersive and impactful presentation.

Incorporating animated slides into your interactive presentations enhances the overall appeal and interaction, turning an ordinary presentation into an engaging experience. Try it out with one of our animated presentation templates to get started. 

How do you start an interactive presentation?

Begin by grabbing the audience’s attention with an intriguing question or a surprising fact, setting the tone for a dynamic and engaging session.

Which type of presentation is the most interactive?

Workshops and seminars are often the most interactive types of presentations as they encourage active participation, discussions and hands-on activities.

How can interactive presentations enhance audience engagement?

Interactive presentations foster a two-way communication flow, involving the audience through polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements, leading to increased interest, attentiveness and better retention of information.

What are some common interactive elements to include in a presentation?

Common interactive elements include clickable buttons, hyperlinked text, polls, quizzes, interactive charts, multimedia content and audience participation activities.

Can interactive presentations be used for educational purposes?

Absolutely! Interactive presentations are highly effective for educational purposes as they promote active learning, encourage critical thinking, and provide real-time feedback and knowledge exchange opportunities.

Need inspiration on how to give an engaging presentation ? Here are 120+ presentation ideas you could use. 

Venngage makes it easy for anyone to infuse interactivity into their presentations. From clickable buttons and hyperlinked text to interactive infographics and dynamic charts, Venngage offers a diverse range of interactive elements to captivate and engage the audience. Here’s how you can make your presentation more fun and interesting with Venngage:

• Sign up or log in to Venngage to access the platform.
• Choose a presentation template or start with a blank canvas to begin designing your interactive presentation.
• Add and edit slides in the Venngage editor to structure your presentation content effectively.
• Customize the design by selecting themes, fonts, colors and backgrounds to match your style and branding.
• Use interactive elements like buttons, links, pop-ups and hover effects to engage the audience during the presentation.
• Enhance engagement by incorporating interactive media such as videos and audio clips.
• Preview and test your entire presentation to ensure everything works smoothly before presenting it to your audience.
• Save your interactive presentation on Venngage and share it online or download it in various formats for presenting purposes.

Well, I hope these 15 5-minute interactive presentation examples can help unlock a new level of audience engagement for your next presentation. From fun quizzes and interactive storytelling to multimedia magic and gamified challenges, the possibilities are endless. So, don’t be afraid to experiment, tailor the ideas to suit your audience members and let your creativity shine.  

That said, remember to strike a balance and keep the interactivity purposeful and relevant. Some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive slides include overloading the presentation with too many interactive elements and failing to align the interactive elements with the overall presentation goals and content. 

Got it? Great. Now let’s turn that boring presentation around!

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10 Tips For Giving Effective Virtual Presentations

What to know before you go live.

September 26, 2016

Presenting online? Try these suggestions to improve your results. | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

As audiences go global and you need to reach more people through technology (including webinars, conference calls and teleconference), you must consider the challenges to connecting with a virtual audience. Here I pinpoint 10 valuable best practices to ensure you communicate successfully.

1. Be Brief

Audiences begin to lose attention after roughly 10 minutes of hearing from the same presenter. If you have more than 10 minutes of content, use interactive activities to keep your audience engaged (for example, take a poll, give quizzes, or ask audience members for their opinions via chat).

2. Be Simple

Keep slides simple — avoid too many words, graphics and animation features. Less is definitely more!

Light yourself well | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

3. Be a TV Personality

Look straight into your camera, not the screen. Wear clothing that is neutral in color (no plaids or stripes). Light yourself well and from above. Be mindful of what appears behind you in the background. Invest in a good microphone.

4. Be Standing

Even though your audience cannot see you, stand when you present. This allows you to stay focused and use good presentation delivery skills such as belly breathing, vocal variety, and pausing.

5. Be Prepared

Practice delivering your presentation with your technology in advance of your talk. Make sure all of the features of the technology work. Record your practice using the recording feature of your tool. Watch and listen to learn what works and what you can improve.

6. Be Assisted

Have someone available to deal with technical issues and to field email/text questions. Also, if you have multiple remote audience members in one location, be sure to pick one of them to be your “eyes and ears.” Ask them to queue up questions and facilitate discussion on your behalf.

7. Be Specific

Ask pointed questions to avoid too many people answering at once. For example, rather than ask, “Are there any questions?” try “Who has a question about the solution I provided?” Set a ground rule that people state their names prior to speaking.

Imagine your audience | Illustration by Tricia Seibold

8. Be Synchronized

Transitions are critical. You must connect what you just said to what is coming next when you move from point to point. Transitions between topics and slides are good opportunities to get people reengaged to your talk.

9. Be Connected

Imagine your audience even though you can’t see them. You can place pictures of audience members behind your camera so you can look at people as you present.

10. Be Early

Encourage your audience to access your call or webinar in advance of the start time so you can iron out any technical issues in advance and get them familiar with the technology.

Matt Abrahams is a Stanford GSB organizational behavior lecturer, author, and communications coach.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

Explore More

Can we be candid how to communicate clearly and directly, directive speech vs. dialogue: how leaders communicate with clarity, balance, class takeaways — how to run a meeting effectively, editor’s picks.

April 04, 2016 A Big Data Approach to Public Speaking Key takeaways from analyzing 100,000 presentations.

November 19, 2014 Matt Abrahams: The Power of the Paraphrase An expert on public speaking shows how paraphrasing can help you navigate tricky communication situations.

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How to Prepare for a Poster Session

• Introduction to Poster Sessions
• Components of a Poster Presentation
• Designing Your Poster
• Printing Your Poster
• Archiving Your Poster
• Additional Resources

Components of a Poster Session

Presentation.

Prior to the poster session, you should prepare and practice a 1-2 minute "elevator pitch" or "lightning talk" about your research project. In preparing for your presentation, think about how much information can reasonably be conveyed in 1-2 minutes. Since your poster already contains a lot of information, your presentation should aim to complement and highlight the information on the poster, not repeat it. Present information that provides context for the information on your poster, while following the organizational structure of the poster. 

One simple approach is to think about a unique experience or insight that adds a human element to your research. What makes your project interesting? How did you become involved in this work to begin with? A brief anecdote may be useful, and can serve as a way to catch people's attention and get them interested in learning more about your research.

In preparing your presentation, it's important to think about your anticipated audience. Are you presenting at a conference likely to be attended by specialists in your field, or are you presenting at a multidisciplinary event that will be attended by people with different backgrounds and levels of expertise? In either case, a good rule of thumb is to minimize your use of jargon or overly technical language, and this is particularly important for events that will draw a more general audience. Try practicing your presentation for a friend who doesn't have any background in your area of research. If they find your presentation difficult to follow, this is a good indicator that you should work on simplifying your language to make the information more accessible. 

Finally, think about what sorts of questions people may have for you. If you are able to practice in front of someone, encourage them to ask you questions about your research. And don't worry if you don't know the answer to someone's question. Thank them for your question, and offer to the follow up with them later after you've had some time to think it over. 

While your presentation is arguably the most important element of a poster presentation, the poster itself is generally what catches people's attention. This portion of the guide discusses the role that your poster plays in presenting your research. For information about formatting and designing your poster, see the Designing Your Poster page . 

The role of the poster is to provide a visual outline of your research project. It should not aim to represent the project in full detail. It may be helpful to think of your poster as a highlight reel of your research project. It is important to strike a balance between including enough information so that the poster is informative, while avoiding including too much information as this can make your poster difficult for people to take in, or create information overload. Aim to strike a balance between text and visuals. The question of what types of visuals are appropriate will depend on the details of your project, but some possibilities are data visualizations (e.g. charts or graphs) or photographs. 

The best approach may be to think of your poster as a visual aid for your presentation. So in preparing your poster, consider what you can cover in your presentation, and how this might be enhanced by visual material that you can include on the poster. What might it be useful to refer to on your poster in the course of giving your presentation? Visuals are especially useful when they can convey information that is difficult to express with text alone. 

The final component of a successful poster presentation is a handout. While handouts are generally not required, they can be beneficial for a number of reasons. First, they provide you with more space with which you can convey additional information, information that may be important to convey, but not quite important enough to include on your poster. Handouts also serve as a way to help attendees remember you (so be sure to include your name and contact information!). 

In most cases you should limit your handout to a single sheet of paper which can contain information on both sides. On one side, consider including an image fo the poster. This will help attendees associate the handout with their interactions with you during the session. Color printing can be expensive, so it's alright to use a black and white image of the poster so long as it's clear and legible. You can always include a URL to a full color image of the poster online. In addition to supplementary information, you can use the handout to list URLs for your website, or any place online where people can learn more about your research. 

• << Previous: Introduction to Poster Sessions
• Next: Designing Your Poster >>
• Last Updated: Feb 6, 2024 10:59 AM
• URL: https://libguides.wvu.edu/poster

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20 Ways to Create an Interactive Presentation That Stands Out

Written by: Chloe West

When you’re putting together a presentation, you want it to be engaging. Whether you’re presenting it live or embedding it on your website, you want to keep your audience entertained.

The best way to do that is by creating an interactive presentation that holds audience's attention and even allows them to participate.

Sitting in a boring presentation where the speaker simply talks at their audience can make eyes glaze over and cause the speaker to lose their listener.

Adding interactivity to your presentation is the best way to spice up your speech, engage your audience and stand out from other presenters. The best part is, it doesn't have to be more work!

With these 17 ways to create an interactive presentation, you’ll be sure to grab your audience’s attention and keep them entertained throughout the entire presentation.

Before you get started, take a look at this video to see how Visme can amp up your interactive marketing efforts.

Here’s a short selection of 10 easy-to-edit job presentation templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more templates below:

• An interactive presentation is a dynamic type of presentation that supports increased engagement and interactions with the audience.
• Try integrating media techniques like video clips, audio narratives, music, and interactive quizzes.
• Involve your audience by polling them, encouraging movement, getting them to ask questions, letting them lead the direction, and asking them to share with a hashtag for social interactions.
• Play with non-linear and other creative transitions, animations, and even props.
• Include animated data visualizations and stories to enrich the interactivity in your presentation.

Before we jump right in, let’s explain what an interactive presentation is

What is an Interactive Presentation

An interactive presentation is a dynamic type of presentation that supports increased engagement and interactions with the audience. It involves using interactive elements to create a more personal and engaging experience with your audience.

Whether you’re doing a live or pre-recorded presentation, there are various interactive tools for presentations and interactive ways to present information. It could be as simple as embedding audio and video in your presentation. Or, it could take the form of using charts, surveys, navigation, transitions, hyperlinks, hotspots and other elements in your presentation.

If you ever wondered how to make a presentation interactive, this is your opportunity to try out a variety of techniques. Implement one or two ideas first and see how it fits with your brand guidelines.

Remember that any interactivity you add to your presentations must make sense with the rest of the content, otherwise, it could be distracting instead of engaging.

If using Monday.com , create and share your presentation and collaborate easily inside your workspace using our account integration. Also, take advantage of our wide range of integrations to boost productivity.

Here’s how to make an interactive presentation

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. If you’re presenting in a small group setting or workshop, you can easily go around the room and have everyone share a bit about themselves.

However, if you’re speaking with a crowd or at a conference with a larger audience, it would make more sense to simply have your audience introduce themselves to a neighbor or two before you dive in.

You could ask the audience to answer a question out loud or to their neighbor, ask them to prepare a few questions about your topic or a list of things they'd like to learn or put together a fun icebreaker game.

Visualize the icebreaker question on a slide using text animations. Your Visme editor offers a variety of eye-catching movements for your textual content. Choose from options like typewriter, rise up, ease in and more.

Here are just a few icebreaker games you can choose from for your next interactive presentation. Also, read this article on how to start your presentation and 12 ways to keep your audience hooked.

2 Use video clips in a slide or two.

You don’t have to be the only one talking during your presentation. Videos are one of the most effective interactive learning tools for presentations.

Embed a video into one of your slides to switch up your audience’s focus. With Visme's animated presentation software , you can easily embed a YouTube or Vimeo video into your slide for your audience to view on their own or for you to feature during your interactive slideshow. Here's how you can do that.

Simply go to the Media tab in the left sidebar of your Visme editor and click on Insert Video.

Add a video from anywhere, your computer or your phone. Download the Visme iOS app and add videos to your presentations in minutes. Edit your presentation effectively by resizing, placing into shapes, trimming with the timeline editor and selecting playback settings.

Sharing video clips can be a great way to further emphasize your argument by bringing in other opinions or even to just add a break for your audience during longer presentations. You can also share a video of yourself demonstrating how to do something.

If you’re embedding the slideshow on your website, adding a video to a slide or two allows your audience to take a break from reading and jump into a different way of consuming your content.

There are so many other types of content you can embed into your presentation with Visme as well, like quizzes, surveys and more!

3 Add Animated Icons

Create interactive slides with unique touches like animated icons. Using vibrant design elements like beautiful icons that move your audience’s attention to the areas you want them to notice. Also, using icons instead of text offers white space for the viewer to feel a sense of balance on the slide.

Here’s how to do it:

Choose a slide where you’d like to add an animated icon. In terms of options, you have two; use the native, animated icons or animate static icons with the animation tools.

On the left toolbar, click on graphics and select the icons you want. The animated ones are at the bottom next to the animated illustrations, customizable characters, avatars and 3D arrows.

Place the icon and click on the Animate button on the top right. Select the style of animation and duration for each icon and ensure everything is balanced and not overdone. You might not need more than one or two repetitions for each icon.

4 Add Pop-Ups with Extra Info

A great way to inspire your audience to interact with your presentation is to add popups with extra info using hotspots. This is how you can do it.

Click on a text, shape or object you’d like to add a popup and hotspot to and click on the Actions button on the top right. Add an action and choose the function; it can be another slide, or a popup that you can design from scratch.

Add visual hotspots as markers for the audience to know there is something special going on.

Watch this video to learn how to create interactive pop up effects in Visme

Make your popups more interesting by using AI-generated graphics prompted by your visual brand guidelines.

5 Make your interactive presentation non-linear.

Not every slideshow you create needs to simply flow from slide to slide. Get creative with it and see if it makes sense to add in a non-linear flow. So, what exactly is a non-linear presentation?

When you create links between slides so you can click around different areas of your presentation, you’re putting together a non-linear presentation.

You’re not going from slide one to slide two to slide three, and so on. Instead, you’re creating an interactive way for you and your audience to jump around your presentation.

You can create a table of contents page and link it to the slides that start each section. If your presentation is embedded, this allows your audience to navigate in their own preferred order.

It also gives your presentation a different edge from the regular flow, and can keep readers intrigued about what’s coming next.

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6 Have a Q&A session.

Want to get the audience involved? Ask them questions! This is a must-have interactive tool for presentations.

It’s also one of the most popular ideas for interactive presentations.

While many presenters always plan to host a Q&A at the end of their presentation for the audience to ask questions , it can go both ways.

You can easily put together a few slides where you’re asking your audience questions throughout your presentation. Before you move onto the next section, ask your listeners what they think first.

Don’t make it intimidating, like a pop quiz. A simple “What do you think about..?” can work wonders.

You can also take several breaks throughout your presentation to give the audience a chance to ask you questions. If you had them write down a few things they want to make sure they learn from you at the beginning of the presentation, this is a great time to ask.

7 Create an interactive quiz.

Take it a step further and actually create a quiz in your interactive presentation. This engaging presentation idea works well for both live and embedded presentations.

In Visme, you can link elements in your slide together so that one element appears when another element is clicked. So ask your audience a question, gather their answers and then click to expose the correct answer.

If you’re embedding the presentation, make sure you include a button that says something like “Click to see if you’re right!” so that your viewer knows they’re able to interact with the slide.

While you don’t necessarily want to use this as a way to sneakily check if your audience has been paying attention, it can be a fun way to gauge expertise in your audience and understand how much information you should cover.

Struggling to generate content for your quiz? Use Visme’s AI writer to generate high-quality content for your presentation, quiz or other aspects of your presentation.

8 Add a Flipbook Effect

Add another dose of interactivity for the audience’s viewing experience by using Visme’s flipbook effect . Mixing a physical “flipping” action with a digital document or presentation makes it easy for the audience to swipe from slide to slide. It’ll also create an emotional association with magazines and books, these are generally positive associations.

All presentations made with Visme, when shared via a live Visme link, will be viewable as a flipbook. You can turn the option and off in the sharing settings.

Flipbook isn’t just available for presentations, any document and even whiteboard can be shared as a digital flipbook. All your audience has to do is swipe and the slides/pages will flip like a magazine.

Like Kimberly Barrett, Wellbeing Consultant at Ameritas says, “You can do everything within Visme, you don’t have to use multiple tools to get something completed and delivered. Everything is just in one place, and it’s all-encompassing.”

9 Bring props along to your interactive presentation.

Want to really grab your audience’s attention? Want to really grab your audience’s attention? Props are also useful interactive tools for presentations.

Bringing props along with you to help you demonstrate and visually tell your story can be a great way to keep people watching and listening.

The first thing to keep in mind when deciding which props to help convey your story is that they need to be relevant. Don’t bring random props that are interesting but are a huge stretch to fit in with your content.

Instead, bring props that intrigue your audience but still make sense with the information you’re sharing.

Here’s a great example of a prop that definitely secured the audience’s full attention. Bill Gates released a swarm of live mosquitos into the audience during his TED Talk on Mosquitos, Malaria and Education.

Sanitary? Maybe not. Attention getting? You bet.

10 Tell your audience a story.

One of the most interactive ways to present information is storytelling. It’s an undeniable strategy for drawing your audience into your presentation. Even if your topic covers a lot of data, facts and statistics, your speech doesn’t have to be dry.

There are many different ways to incorporate stories into your presentation effectively.

A good story helps to create an immersive effect , bringing your audience in and making them feel like they’re a part of your presentation. It taps into their emotions, causing them to hang onto your words, making your presentation much more memorable in the long run.

Here's a great example of a presentation filled with data that still hooks the audience in with great storytelling.

11 Add an audio narrative.

You don’t have to speak the entire time. Much like videos, audio and sounds are helpful interactive tools for presentations.

In fact, sometimes, it can be nice to give yourself a break and pre-record some of your slides. This is also a great strategy to include for embedded presentations.

With Visme’s presentation maker , you are able to upload audio files that play in your slideshow. You can also record your own audio directly inside the Visme editor.

Some Visme users even create pre-recorded webinars using the software.

Adding audio into an embedded slideshow can be a great way to create an interactive presentation experience. You can add music or sound effects to slides to make them stand out. Or you can add an audio narrative that talks about your slide content in even more depth than your slide design allows.

12 Poll your audience.

Looking for other activities for presentations to keep your audience engaged?  Get your audience involved in your presentation by polling them. Give them multiple choice options to see which one is the most popular. Ask them to raise hands.

You can even use a polling software and have your audience input their answers via their smartphone and watch the results come in live on your screen.

Have fun with it. Ask your audience about their favorite football team, which ice cream flavor they’d choose between vanilla and chocolate and more. This is a great way to do icebreakers, as well as break up your presentation with some mindless fun.

Of course, you can also have polls relevant to your presentation topic . Consider all of the ways you can use a poll in your next interactive presentation.

13  Include discussion questions.

If you’re still searching for how to make a PowerPoint presentation interactive , consider adding discussion questions in. You can break your audience into small groups to discuss your questions or simply have them discuss it briefly with their neighbor.

Seminar presentations are the perfect setting for discussion questions, and this can also work well if you’re putting on a presentation to a group of people that are sitting at tables.

All you need to do is put a discussion question up on the board and ask your audience to go around their table with their answers. This creates an interactive environment with very little effort on your part.

14  Encourage movement in your audience.

Another way to create an interactive environment is by encouraging movement within your audience.

This can be as simple as taking an intermission during a longer presentation or giving your audience a few minutes to get up and stretch their legs.

Other methods include asking your audience yes or no questions and having them answer by raising their hands or standing up, having your audience move to different seats and introduce themselves to new neighbors, or calling people up on stage to participate.

15  Get your audience asking questions.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, having your audience take time at the beginning of your presentation to list out their questions on your topic is a great idea.

It’s a proven technique to make your PowerPoint presentation interactive.  

Several times throughout your presentation, take a pause to ask for audience questions. Allow your listeners to ask questions about the slides you’ve already covered and the ones that may be coming up.

Getting your audience to ask questions, and letting them know that there will be several opportunities to do so, is a great way to ensure they continue to pay attention, take notes and write down potential questions throughout. Make sure you set some time aside at the end of your presentation for the rest of their questions.

Worried that people won’t speak up? Have a few allies in your audience that start the question asking.

No, this is not sneaky or shady. Sometimes people need a bit of encouragement, and asking a friend that you know will be attending to start off the questions can help.

16  Let your audience decide the direction.

Again, your presentation doesn’t have to be linear. You can have a slide setup with your four (or however many you have) main points and ask your audience which one they want to hear first, second and so on.

This makes it fun for the audience because they actually get to participate in the order of your presentation.

While this means you need to be extra prepared for whatever route your presentation may take, it creates a fun, interactive setting that your audience will remember for years to come.

Try a unique presentation structure like this, or one of these seven that your audience is sure to love.

17  Share a hashtag for social interaction.

If you’re speaking at an event that already has a branded hashtag, encourage your audience to tweet about your presentation using that hashtag. If you’re hosting a standalone presentation, come up with your own hashtag for your audience to use.

Your viewers can then share tidbits from your presentation as well as use the hashtag to ask questions for you to monitor and answer throughout.

Not only does this help to get your audience engaged, but it even helps to get their audiences engaged, learning about who you are, and interested in your content and presentation.

18  Add music to your interactive presentation slides.

Create a different ambiance by adding background music to your slides. Or get your audience pumped for new and exciting information with a pop song transition.

With Visme, you can easily upload audio files, including music clips, so that you can create an interactive experience for your audience. Your entire presentation doesn’t have to be centered around the sound of your voice. Adding in a music clip is a great way to refocus your audience on your content.

Plus, it can be a nice added touch in an embedded presentation.

19  Play with transitions and animations.

There are so many different ways to animate your slides , each more exciting than the next. You can animate different elements in your slides, like in the animated slideshow below.

You can also create seamless transitions between your slides by having each one of your elements slide in on its own, like in the presentation example below. To see the effect in action, click on the arrow buttons to transition to the next slide.

You can even add animated graphs and charts to your presentation slides . Animation should be fun, and toying with different ideas can make for great interactivity.

This is actually a big mistake that most people make while creating a presentation. If you're using a software like PowerPoint, you might go overboard with all the different options you have. Use a tool like Visme so you can access handpicked, proven animation and transition styles, like in the examples shown above.

Just remember to be consistent with your animations and transitions. Keep the same look and feel throughout your entire presentation rather than a million different animation types.

20  Use data visualization in your interactive presentation.

Last, but certainly not least, use data visualization to showcase your information in an engaging and easy-to-understand format.

Whether you’re a data expert, business leader, or trainer, interactive data visualization is a staple. It’s one of the most interactive ways to present information, especially when detailing with figures and statistics.

Data visualization can be anything from a chart or graph that visually represent actual statistics and numbers to an icon or graphic that represents words.

Visualizing your points can be a great way to argue your point, and creating charts, graphs and other figures helps your audience digest your content that much quicker and more easily.

Plus, Visme offers tons of ways to visualize data within your presentation slides.

Choose from one of our many data visualization tools, such as animated charts , graphs and data widgets, to start visualizing your facts and figures in a more interactive format.

Once you’re satisfied with how your presentation looks, you can share it online using a live link or download it in multiple formats, such as PPTX, PDF, PNG, JPG, MP4 and more. Also you track the performance (views, unique visits, average time spent and completion) of your presentation using Visme analytics .

Interactive Presentation FAQs

Q. why is interactive content better.

Interactive content is more effective because it grabs attention and provides an engaging and immersive experience that keeps users hooked on your content. This attribute makes it a brilliant strategy for educating your audience, increasing audience participation, boosting engagement, and improving their overall learning experience.

According to a DemandGen report , up to 90% of marketers admit interactive is effective in educating buyers but other marketers use it for lead generation (58%), brand awareness (57%) and conversion (49%).

Q. What Is the Best Interactive Presentation Tool?

There are many interactive presentation tools out there. Visme is the best, primarily because it offers a user-friendly interface, a full suite of animation and interactive tools, multiple customization options, an extensive library of templates and much more.

You can access animated 2D and 3D graphics, icons, illustrations and special effects that level up your visual content, as well as, animated enter and exit effects for your text and other design elements.

In addition, you can create a clickable menu or interactive table of contents, ink slides, pages or content blocks to objects on your canvas, and create hover effects or clickable pop-ups that reveal information when users take action.

The best part? Visme offers a variety of interactive templates and ready-to-use graphics that help users save time and create high-quality presentations quickly.

Q. Which Type of Presentation Is the Most Interactive?

When it comes to interactive presentations, there are several types that can be quite effective.

However, one of the most interactive types of presentations is one that involves the audience directly in the discussion and allows for active participation.

This can be achieved by using interactive presentation examples and tools such as videos, live polls, quizzes, Q&A sessions, interactive games, and hands-on activities. By engaging with the audience in this way, presenters can create a memorable experience that not only educates but also entertains.

Q. How Do I Make My Presentation Stand Out?

There are a few things you can do to make your presentation more memorable.

First, make sure you have a clear and concise message you want to convey to your audience. This will help you stay focused and avoid getting sidetracked during your presentation.

Next, use visuals like images, graphs, and charts to help illustrate your points and break up the text on your slides. Don't be afraid to use humor or storytelling as well, as these can help engage your audience and make your presentation more entertaining.

You can also consider adding animations and interactive elements to your presentation to make it more engaging. Interactive elements, such as quizzes, polls, or games, can also help to engage your audience and keep them interested in what you're saying.

Animations can be used to bring your content to life and keep your audience's attention focused on the screen. For example, you can use animations to highlight key points or to add a bit of visual interest to your slides.

Finally, practice your delivery and try to be confident and enthusiastic when you present. This will help you connect with your audience and leave a lasting impression.

Q. Are Interactive Presentations More Effective?

Interactive presentations can be more effective than traditional, static presentations because they engage the audience and keep them interested throughout the presentation.

When the audience is hooked, they become active learners and are more likely to retain the information.

Interactive presentations can also be customized to meet the specific needs and interests of the audience, making them more relevant and impactful.

Overall, incorporating interactive elements into a presentation can help to create a more dynamic and memorable experience for the audience.

Q. Is an Interactive Presentation Different From Interactive Content?

Yes, an interactive presentation and interactive content are two different things.

An interactive presentation is a type of content that conveys engaging information using multimedia elements such as videos, animations, and interactive graphics.

Interactive content, on the other hand, refers to any type of content—such as quizzes, polls, and games— that requires your audience to participate actively rather than consume the information passively.

Visme: The Best Interactive Presentation Software

Before now, you were probably thinking of which option you would use for your presentation to engage your audience. Before now, you were probably thinking of which option you will use for your presentation to engage your audience or how to make presentations interactive.

So now you see? Your next presentation doesn’t have to be boring and predictable. By incorporating these interactive presentation ideas , your audience will be engaged and their phones will be put away.

Visme offers tons of interactivity features right within our presentation software . Sign up and create a free account today to start trying them out. And if you’re running out of time, you can use AI Presentation Maker to create your presentation in minutes.

Beyond presentations, Visme offers an all-in-one visual content platform. You can use our infinite online whiteboard to brainstorm and build projects collaboratively, create marketing material, schedule and share it on social media right from the editor and access tons of design elements and tools to create powerful content.

Try Visme today and make your presentations interactive, entertaining and successful.

Did you find this article helpful? Which interactive presentation feature is your favorite? Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comments below!

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About the Author

Chloe West is the content marketing manager at Visme. Her experience in digital marketing includes everything from social media, blogging, email marketing to graphic design, strategy creation and implementation, and more. During her spare time, she enjoys exploring her home city of Charleston with her son.

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Functions of Session Layer

The Session layer is the fifth layer of the OSI (Open System Interconnection) model. The session layer is responsible for maintaining, establishing, synchronizing, and terminating sessions between them. A connection is being established among the session entities by the session layer. The data received from the presentation layer is handled by the session layer. Various protocols such as PPTP , PAP , RTCP , ADSP, and SDP are used by the session layer. The below article covers the functions of the session layer in detail.

The session layer is responsible for various tasks that are mentioned below:

1. Session Establishment

The basic and most important function of the session layer is to establish a connection between the communicating parties known as sessions. This connection helps to transfer the data such as files, remote login, and communication over these sessions in a more ordered and reliable way. The session layer can establish connection-oriented as well as connectionless sessions. Whenever any session is released, the transport connection is also released. Sessions can be mapped onto transport connections in three ways. They are:

• One-to-one mapping: In one-to-one mapping, one transport connection is being used by one session.
• Many-to-one mapping: In many-to-one mapping, the same transport connection is being used by the consecutive sessions.
• One-to-many mapping: In one-to-many mapping, multiple transport connections are used by one session.

2. Communication Synchronization

The session layer provides proper connectivity among the systems, during this if any occurs, a recovery option known as the state is provided. For using the known state session layer adds synchronization bits in every state of the error and these bits are then used as checkpoints. For longer and complex communications the checkpoints are added to the data stream. It makes sure that data streams are received successfully and acknowledged up to the checkpoints. If any failure occurs then only the stream is retransmitted after the checkpoints. The functionality is being provided by the session layer because transport layer can mask only the communication errors, not the upper layer errors.

3. Activity Management

The session layer provides with the feature for users to differentiate among the activities that are performed during the session. The message stream can split into logical units and these logical units are known as an activities. Activity management is defined as a process of splitting of message stream into activities.

4. Dialog Management

Dialog management is defined as a process of keeping log data for the connections established for transmitting and receiving data. It is required for establishing, synchronization, preserving and ending of the conversation between the communicating parties namely sender and the receiver. For this a mechanism known as token mechanism is being used in which a user that is sharing the data is given a token if it is in half duplex mode and after the exchange it is transferred to the the another device. If the operation is in full duplex mode then no token is used for transmission of data. The efficiency of the connection is maintained if token mechanism is used.

5. Data Transfer

Data transfer is also one of the basic and important function of session layer. Session layer handles the exchange of data between the communicating systems. This exchange of data between the users can be in two modes of transmission. They are:

• Half-duplex mode: In half duplex mode of transmission of data only one user has right for initiating the data transfer.
• Full- duplex mode: In full duplex mode of transmission data can be transmitted in both the directions simultaneously.

6. Resynchronization

Resynchronisation is also known as backward synchronization. Resynchronisation is defined as a process in which the state of dialog is being restored to its previously defined state. After the resynchronization all the tokens are restored to the positions that were set during synchronization. There are various options of resynchronisation. They are:

• Set: Set option is being used for setting the synchronization point serial number to any value that is being chosen by the user.
• Abandon: Abandon option is being used for setting the synchronization point serial number to an unused value.
• Restart: Restart option is being used for setting the synchronization point serial number o any of the used value that is grater than the synchronization point serial number which identifies the last acknowledged major synchronization point.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q.1: which layer lies above the session layer of osi model.

Presentation layer lies above the session layer of OSI model. Presentation layer prepares the data for its upper layer. It states about how the devices should encode, encrypt and compress the data.

Q.2: Which layers of OSI model are known as software layers or upper layers?

The session layer, presentation layer and application layer are known as the software or upper layers of OSI model.

Q.3: What is meant by session termination?

Session termination is defined as a process of ending the session communication. This process of session termination is important because it releases the resources and makes sure that both the communicating devices know that session has been ended.

Q.4: Can applications interact directly with session layer?

No, applications cannot directly interact with the session layer. They interacts with other higher layers namely presentation layer and application layer.

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Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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Home Blog Education Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Getting the perfect presentation design is just a step toward a successful presentation. For the experienced user, building presentation skills is the answer to elevating the power of your message and showing expertise on any subject. Still, one can ask: is it the same set of skills, or are they dependable on the type of presentation?

In this article, we will introduce the different types of presentations accompanied by the skillset required to master them. The purpose, as always, is to retain the audience’s interest for a long-lasting and convincing message.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Presentation Skills

Persuasive presentations, instructional presentations, informative presentations, inspirational presentations, basic presentation skills, what are the main difficulties when giving a presentation, recommendations to improve your presentation skills, closing statement.

Effective communication is the answer to reaching business and academic goals. The scenarios in which we can be required to deliver a presentation are as diverse as one can imagine. Still, some core concepts apply to all presentations.

 We define presentation skills as a compendium of soft skills that directly affect your presentation performance and contribute to creating a great presentation. These are not qualities acquired by birth but skills you ought to train and master to delve into professional environments.

You may ask: is it really that evident when a presenter is not prepared? Here are some common signs people can experience during presentations:

• Evasive body language: Not making eye contact with the audience, arms closed tightly to the body, hands in pockets all the time.
• Lack of interest in the presenter’s voice: dull tone, not putting an effort to articulate the topics.
• Doubting when asked to answer a question
• Irksome mood

The list can go on about common presenter mistakes , and most certainly, it will affect the performance of any presented data if the lack of interest by the presenter is blatantly obvious.  Another element to consider is anxiety, and according to research by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73% of the population in the USA is affected by glossophobia , which is the fear of public speaking, judgment, or negative evaluation by other people.

Therefore, presentation skills training is essential for any business professional who wants to achieve effective communication . It will remove the anxiety from presentation performance and help users effectively deliver their message and connect with the audience.

Archetypes of presentations

Persuasive presentations aim to convince the audience – often in short periods – to acquire a product or service, adhere to a cause, or invest in a company. For business entrepreneurs or politicians, persuasive presentations are their tool for the trade.

Unless you aim to be perceived as an imposter, a proper persuasive presentation has the elements of facts, empathy, and logic, balanced under a well-crafted narrative. The central pillar of these presentations is to identify the single factor that gathered your audience: it could be a market need, a social cause, or a revolutionary concept for today’s society. It has to be something with enough power to gather critiques – both good and bad.

That single factor has to be backed up by facts. Research that builds your hypothesis on how to solve that problem. A deep understanding of the target audience’s needs , concerns, and social position regarding the solution your means can offer. When those elements are in place, building a pitch becomes an easy task. 

Graphics can help you introduce information in a compelling format, lowering the need for lengthy presentations. Good presentation skills for persuasive presentations go by the hand of filtering relevant data and creating the visual cues that resonate with what your audience demands.

One powerful example of a persuasive presentation is the technique known as the elevator pitch . You must introduce your idea or product convincingly to the audience in a timeframe between 30 seconds and less than 2 minutes. You have to expose:

• What do you do 
• What’s the problem to solve
• Why is your solution different from others 
• Why should the audience care about your expertise

For that very purpose, using engaging graphics with contrasting colors elevates the potential power of your message. It speaks professionalism, care for details, and out-of-the-box thinking. Knowing how to end a presentation is also critical, as your CTAs should be placed with care.

Therefore, let’s resume the requirements of persuasive presentations in terms of good presentation skills:

• Identifying problems and needs
• Elaborating “the hook” (the element that grabs the audience’s attention)
• Knowing how to “tie” your audience (introducing a piece of information related to the hook that causes an emotional impact)
• Broad knowledge of body language and hand gestures to quickly convey your message
• Being prepared to argue a defense of your point of view
• Handling rejection
• Having a proactive attitude to convert opportunities into new projects
• Using humor, surprise, or personal anecdotes as elements to sympathize with the audience
• Having confidence
• Be able to summarize facts and information in visually appealing ways

You can learn more about persuasive presentation techniques by clicking here .

In the case of instructional presentations, we ought to differentiate two distinctive types:

• Lecture Presentations : Presentations being held at universities or any other educative institution. Those presentations cover, topic by topic, and the contents of a syllabus and are created by the team of teachers in charge of the course.
• Training Presentations : These presentations take place during in-company training sessions and usually comprise a good amount of content that is resumed into easy-to-take solutions. They are aimed to coach employees over certain topics relevant to their work performance. The 70-20-10 Model is frequently used to address these training situations.

Lecture presentations appeal to the gradual introduction of complex concepts, following a structure set in the course’s syllabus. These presentations often have a similar aesthetic as a group of professors or researchers created to share their knowledge about a topic. Personal experience does tell that course presentations often rely on factual data, adequately documented, and on the theoretical side.

An example of a presentation that lies under this concept is a Syllabus Presentation, used by the teaching team to introduce the subject to new students, evaluation methods, concepts to be learned, and expectations to pass the course.

On the other hand, training presentations are slide decks designed to meet an organization’s specific needs in the formal education of their personnel. Commonly known as “continuous education,” plenty of companies invest resources in coaching their employees to achieve higher performance results. These presentations have the trademark of being concise since their idea is to introduce the concepts that shall be applied in practice sessions. 

Ideally, the training presentations are introduced with little text and easy-to-recognize visual cues. Since the idea is to summarize as much as possible, these are visually appealing for the audience. They must be dynamic enough to allow the presenter to convey the message.

Those key takeaways remind employees when they revisit their learning resources and allow them to ruminate on questions that fellow workers raise. 

To sum up this point, building presentation skills for instructional presentations requires:

• Ability to put complex concepts into simpler words
• Patience and a constant learning mindset
• Voice training to deliver lengthy speeches without being too dense
• Ability to summarize points and note the key takeaways
• Empathizing with the audience to understand their challenges in the learning process

The informative presentations take place in business situations, such as when to present project reports from different departments to the management. Another potential usage of these presentations is in SCRUM or other Agile methodologies, when a sprint is completed, to discuss the advance of the project with the Product Owner.

As they are presentations heavily dependent on data insights, it’s common to see the usage of infographics and charts to express usually dense data in simpler terms and easy to remember. 

Informative presentations don’t just fall into the business category. Ph.D. Dissertation and Thesis presentations are topics that belong to the informative presentations category as they condense countless research hours into manageable reports for the academic jury. 

Since these informational presentations can be perceived as lengthy and data-filled, it is important to learn the following professional presentation skills:

• Attention to detail
• Be able to explain complex information in simpler terms
• Creative thinking
• Powerful diction
• Working on pauses and transitions
• Pacing the presentation, so not too much information is divulged per slide

The leading inspirational platform, TEDx, comes to mind when talking about inspirational presentations. This presentation format has the peculiarity of maximizing the engagement with the audience to divulge a message, and due to that, it has specific requirements any presenter must meet.

This presentation format usually involves a speaker on a stage, either sitting or better standing, in which the presenter engages with the audience with a storytelling format about a life experience, a job done that provided a remarkable improvement for society, etc.

Empathizing with the audience is the key ingredient for these inspirational presentations. Still, creativity is what shapes the outcome of your performance as people are constantly looking for different experiences – not the same recipe rephrased with personal touches. The human factor is what matters here, way above data and research. What has your experience to offer to others? How can it motivate another human being to pursue a similar path or discover their true calling?

To achieve success in terms of communication skills presentation, these inspirational presentations have the following requirements:

• Focus on the audience (engage, consider their interests, and make them a part of your story)
• Putting ego aside
• Creative communication skills
• Storytelling skills
• Body language knowledge to apply the correct gestures to accompany your story
• Voice training
• Using powerful words

After discussing the different kinds of presentations we can come across at any stage of our lives, a group of presentation skills is standard in any type of presentation. See below what makes a good presentation and which skills you must count on to succeed as a presenter.

Punctuality

Punctuality is a crucial aspect of giving an effective presentation. Nothing says more about respect for your audience and the organization you represent than delivering the presentation on time . Arriving last minute puts pressure on the tech team behind audiovisuals, as they don’t have enough preparation to test microphones, stage lights, and projector settings, which can lead to a less powerful presentation Even when discussing presentations hosted in small rooms for a reduced audience, testing the equipment becomes essential for an effective presentation.

A solution for this is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. Ideally, one hour is a sweet spot since the AV crew has time to check the gear and requirements for your presentation. Another benefit of this, for example, in inspirational presentations, is measuring the previous presenter’s impact on the audience. This gives insights about how to resonate with the public, and their interest, and how to accommodate your presentation for maximum impact.

Body Language

Our bodies can make emotions transparent for others, even when we are unaware of such a fact. Proper training for body language skills reduces performance anxiety, giving the audience a sense of expertise about the presented topic. 

Give your presentation and the audience the respect they deserve by watching over these potential mistakes:

• Turning your back to the audience for extended periods : It’s okay to do so when introducing an important piece of information or explaining a graph, but it is considered rude to give your back to the audience constantly.
• Fidgeting : We are all nervous in the presence of strangers, even more, if we are the center of attention for that moment. Instead of playing with your hair or making weird hand gestures, take a deep breath to center yourself before the presentation and remember that everything you could do to prepare is already done. Trust your instincts and give your best.
• Intense eye contact : Have you watched a video where the presenter stared at the camera the entire time? That’s the feeling you transmit to spectators through intense eye contact. It’s a practice often used by politicians to persuade.
• Swearing : This is a no-brainer. Even when you see influencers swearing on camera or in podcasts or live presentations, it is considered an informal and lousy practice for business and academic situations. If you have a habit to break when it comes to this point, find the humor in these situations and replace your swear words with funny alternatives (if the presentation allows for it). 

Voice Tone plays a crucial role in delivering effective presentations and knowing how to give a good presentation. Your voice is a powerful tool for exposing your ideas and feelings . Your voice can articulate the message you are telling, briefing the audience if you feel excited about what you are sharing or, in contrast, if you feel the presentation is a burden you ought to complete.

Remember, passion is a primary ingredient in convincing people. Therefore, transmitting such passion with a vibrant voice may help gather potential business partners’ interest.  

But what if you feel sick prior to the presentation? If, by chance, your throat is sore minutes before setting foot on the stage, try this: when introducing yourself, mention that you are feeling a bit under the weather. This resonates with the audience to pay more attention to your efforts. In case you don’t feel comfortable about that, ask the organizers for a cup of tea, as it will settle your throat and relax your nerves.

Tech Skills

Believe it or not, people still feel challenged by technology these days. Maybe that’s the reason why presentation giants like Tony Robbins opt not to use PowerPoint presentations . The reality is that there are plenty of elements involved in a presentation that can go wrong from the tech side:

• A PDF not opening
• Saving your presentation in a too-recent PowerPoint version
• A computer not booting up
• Mac laptops and their never-ending compatibility nightmare
• Not knowing how to change between slides
• Not knowing how to use a laser pointer
• Internet not working
• Audio not working

We can come up with a pretty long list of potential tech pitfalls, and yet more than half of them fall in presenters not being knowledgeable about technology.

If computers aren’t your thing, let the organization know about this beforehand. There is always a crew member available to help presenters switch between slides or configure the presentation for streaming. This takes the pressure off your shoulders, allowing you to concentrate on the content to present. Remember, even Bill Gates can get a BSOD during a presentation .

Presentations, while valuable for conveying information and ideas, can be daunting for many individuals. Here are some common difficulties people encounter when giving presentations:

Public Speaking Anxiety

Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, affects a significant portion of the population. This anxiety can lead to nervousness, trembling, and forgetfulness during a presentation.

Lack of Confidence

Many presenters struggle with self-doubt, fearing that they may not be knowledgeable or skilled enough to engage their audience effectively.

Content Organization

Organizing information in a coherent and engaging manner can be challenging. Presenters often grapple with how to structure their content to make it easily digestible for the audience. Artificial Intelligence can help us significantly reduce the content arrangement time when you work with tools like our AI Presentation Maker (made for presenters by experts in presentation design). 

Audience Engagement

Keeping the audience’s attention and interest throughout the presentation can be difficult. Distractions, disengaged attendees, or lack of interaction can pose challenges.

Technical Issues

Technology glitches, such as malfunctioning equipment, incompatible file formats, or poor internet connectivity, can disrupt presentations and increase stress.

Time Management

Striking the right balance between providing enough information and staying within time limits is a common challenge. Going over or under the allotted time can affect the effectiveness of the presentation.

Handling Questions and Challenges

Responding to unexpected questions, criticism, or challenges from the audience can be difficult, especially when presenters are unprepared or lack confidence in their subject matter.

Visual Aids and Technology

Creating and effectively using visual aids like slides or multimedia can be a struggle for some presenters. Technical competence is essential in this aspect.

Language and Articulation

Poor language skills or unclear articulation can hinder effective communication. Presenters may worry about stumbling over words or failing to convey their message clearly.

Maintaining appropriate and confident body language can be challenging. Avoiding nervous habits, maintaining eye contact, and using gestures effectively requires practice.

Overcoming Impersonal Delivery

In virtual presentations, maintaining a personal connection with the audience can be difficult. The absence of face-to-face interaction can make it challenging to engage and read the audience.

Cultural and Diversity Awareness

Presenting to diverse audiences requires sensitivity to cultural differences and varying levels of familiarity with the topic.

In this section, we gathered some tips on how to improve presentation skills that can certainly make an impact if applied to your presentation skills. We believe these skills can be cultivated to transform into habits for your work routine.

Tip #1: Build a narrative

One memorable way to guarantee presentation success is by writing a story of all the points you desire to cover. This statement is based on the logic behind storytelling and its power to connect with people .

Don’t waste time memorizing slides or reading your presentation to the audience. It feels unnatural, and any question that diverts from the topic in discussion certainly puts you in jeopardy or, worse, exposes you as a fraud in the eyes of the audience. And before you ask, it is really evident when a presenter has a memorized speech. 

Build and rehearse the presentation as if telling a story to a group of interested people. Lower the language barrier by avoiding complex terms that maybe even you aren’t fully aware of their meaning. Consider the ramifications of that story, what it could lead to, and which are the opportunities to explore. Then, visualize yourself giving the presentation in a natural way.

Applying this technique makes the presentation feel like second nature to you. It broadens the spectrum in which you can show expertise over a topic or even build the basis for new interesting points of view about the project.

Tip #2: Don’t talk for more than 3 minutes per slide

It is a common practice of presenters to bombard the audience with facts and information whilst retaining the same slide on the screen. Why can this happen? It could be because the presenter condensed the talk into very few slides and preferred to talk. The reality is that your spectators won’t retain the information you are giving unless you give visual cues to help that process. 

Opt to prepare more slides and pace your speech to match the topics shown on each slide. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide unless you have to introduce a complex piece of data. Use visual cues to direct the spectators about what you talk about, and summarize the principal concepts discussed at the end of each section.

Tip #3: Practice meditation daily

Anxiety is the number one enemy of professional presenters. It slowly builds without you being aware of your doubts and can hinder your performance in multiple ways: making you feel paralyzed, fidgeting, making you forget language skills or concepts, affecting your health, etc.

Meditation is an ancient practice taken from Buddhist teachings that train your mind to be here in the present. We often see the concepts of meditation and mindfulness as synonyms, whereas you should be aware that meditation is a practice that sets the blocks to reach a state of mindfulness. For presenters, being in the here and now is essential to retain focus, but meditation techniques also teach us to control our breathing and be in touch with our body signals when stress builds up. 

The customary practice of meditation has an impact on imagination and creativity but also helps to build patience – a skill much needed for connecting with your audience in instructional presentations.

Having the proper set of presentation skills can be quite subjective. It goes beyond presentation tips and deepens into how flexible we can be in our ability to communicate ideas.

Different presentations and different audiences shape the outcome of our efforts. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to connect, raise awareness, and empathize with people can be key ingredients for your career as a presenter. A word of advice: success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and patience to build communication skills . Don’t condition your work to believe you will be ready “someday”; it’s best to practice and experience failure as part of the learning process.

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