First of all, clear objectives.
In business activities, PPT usually pursues concise and clear expression effect, thus effectively assisting communication. But PPT also has limitations. Without understanding these limitations, writing a long written report and drawing complicated tables in PPT-this "super powerful" PPT is not only very painful to make, but the final result is usually "I don't understand it at all!"
So what are the advantages and limitations of PPT? I have noticed that English "Presentation" is often used to replace this vague "PPT" in the speeches of employees in foreign companies. I looked it up and found that the explanation of "presentation" in Wikipedia dictionary only states its use, ability, specialty and limitation.
You can only face one kind of audience, the content of a topic can be demonstrated, and only the key points can be expressed to leave a deep impression.
With these points, when we do PPT, we will naturally "converge" and it is easy to determine a more reasonable goal. In this way, there will be no more sixty or seventy pages, trying to discuss several complicated issues in one document.
Second, the form is reasonable.
Microsoft gave PPT a Chinese name: presentation document. As the name implies, you know its usage.
But in fact, PPT files have two main purposes. One is to assist the demonstration of the live speech, and the other is to send it directly to the audience for reading. In order to ensure the ideal effect, we must choose a reasonable form for different purposes. When speaking or reading directly, consider the feelings of the audience and make corresponding details.
The PPT used at the speech site should fully serve the speech. Use more charts and icons instead of words. So that the audience can listen to you while watching. Speech and demonstration complement each other and have the best effect. In this case, the proper use of special effects, animation and other functions can help you control the rhythm of the speech, and also make the demonstration effect colorful, which is beneficial to enliven the speech atmosphere.
If you send the PPT directly to others, you must add words that are as concise as possible but clearly described instead of your speech to guide readers to understand your ideas. The whole PPT and every slide in it should have a clear reading order and high logical requirements. This will ensure that the audience can "follow you" and understand your meaning when watching PPT alone.
And the use of special effects and animations in this PPT must be very cautious. Because these special effects may make readers' fingers sour when they click the mouse, it is more likely that PPT files will become larger and difficult to send through the network.
Third, the logic is clear.
As mentioned above, "simplicity" is the reason why PPT can be widely popular in the business activities of "time is money". But in the process of pursuing conciseness, it is easy for us to unconsciously delete some points, and the audience will "not understand".
If you want to ensure the completeness of the points, you must establish clear and rigorous logic. There are two methods that are very effective.
One is to follow the structural logic of slides. Usually, a PPT file contains 10 ~ 30 slides, including not only the cover page, the tail page and the content page, but also the table of contents page immediately after the cover page to show the content structure of the whole PPT. There must be a chapter page (the cover of each chapter), which separates the contents of different stages and echoes the catalogue to ensure the overall coherence. Before the end of the page, there should be a summary page to lead the audience to review the main points and leave a deep impression. Each content page must also strictly abide by the hierarchical structure of title, subtitle, text, comments and other content. And there should not be too many structural levels, and the relationship is either parallel or progressive. Otherwise, not only the reader will get dizzy, but you will probably get dizzy when you speak.
The second is to use common analysis charts. This method is very practical when we really have some unavoidable complex problems to lead the audience to analyze together. SWOT analysis chart and matrix analysis chart, which are common in business situations, can help us eliminate emotional interference, clear our minds, analyze interests and find solutions. Using this kind of chart is like taking out a calculator when calculating accounts. The speaker's expression is more convenient and the listener is easy to understand and believe.
Fourth, it is beautiful and generous.
The presentation should be "beautiful". This is what many friends think when they do PPT. But I think this request may be a bit too much.
There are always a few people who are good at dressing up in daily life. Similarly, few people have enough aesthetic qualities to make PPT "beautiful". Everyone pursues "beauty", but the result is often that painting a tiger is not a dog, and it is not worth the candle.
In fact, there is no need to pursue beauty, as long as it is beautiful and generous. We can start from two aspects: color and layout.
There are "standard colors" in the palette of office software, which is actually the most easily accepted group of colors by the public. Like a suit and tie. It may not be dazzling, but it is absolutely beautiful and generous. When choosing matching colors, you can refer to the "color scheme" of Office. The same "color matching", different colors are suitable for marking different contents. Similar colors are used to distinguish similar content (for example, the title is black and the subtitle is gray).
If you feel that your "aesthetic fatigue" is serious, it is also a very quick way to refer to PPT, printed matter, advertisements and web pages with similar themes according to the theme of the PPT content you want to do. But remember: most excellent layouts and color schemes are complete schemes, either imitating the complete layout of a page or drawing lessons from the overall color scheme. Taking a little from the east and throwing a little from the west can easily lead to neither fish nor fowl, which is counterproductive.
If you feel that you have no "artistic cells" at all, don't waste your time in this area. Find out your company's stationery, which is usually the most concise and elegant template!
Personally, I think PPT can basically meet the needs of commercial occasions by grasping the above four elements.