The 5 Questions to Ask About Every PowerPoint You Make

PowerPoint has been around since the late 1980s, so it's no surprise that nearly everyone who presents as part of their job has an opinion about it. Some swear off PowerPoint completely, while others cling to it without updating their dreary circa 2002 slides. Many presenters prefer vibrant visuals with few or no words, while others consider titles, bullets and text elements.

But we can all agree that the concept of visual aids predates PowerPoint—by roughly 180 years, if not more—for a simple reason: Projected images and words can effectively reinforce a presenter's points.

As a primarily visual learner, I know this is true based on a lifetime of personal experience: Tell me something, and I may forget it. Show me something, and I'm likely to retain it. Do both, and I'm there with you all the way.

I'm a proponent of slides with titles, bullets, purposeful graphics and text because those elements serve the goal of reinforcing points versus merely hinting at, introducing, or decorating them.

And whether you're a fan of PowerPoint, Prezi, Google Slides, Visme, Canva or another presentation program, always consider these five yes/no questions to ensure each of your slides effectively supports you and you effectively leverage each slide:

1. Does each slide contribute to my point?
2. Are my words on the slide doing their job?
3. Am I communicating the relevance of each slide?
4. Are my slide titles meaningful?
5. Are my slides supporting me, or am I supporting my slides?

Let's explore each one:

1. Does Each Slide Contribute to My Point?

Each of your content slides should contain a combination of the following to help prove your point:

• Examples
• Data
• Stories
• Logic
• Personal experiences
• Research

You can get creative, too—even a strategic cartoon or joke can illustrate an important idea.

If a content slide doesn't contribute to your point, you should redesign or cut it. As a presenter, you're there to enlighten and activate your audience—not entertain or simply intrigue them—and your slides share that responsibility.

2. Are My Words on the Slide Doing Their Job?

Avoid complete sentences and compound sentences on your slides. An abundance of words and complicated phrasing impedes your audience or team's ability to process the content quickly and efficiently. Ultimately, you don't want them reading your slides at all, so much as scanning them and extracting key information.

Bullets help separate and emphasize ideas and examples. But just like with words, use the fewest bullets you need to convey your point. When you use words, bullets and slides efficiently, your audience will spend more time listening to you and less time reading the screen.

Efficiently structured slides can also improve the presenter's ability to stay on track. After only a quick glance at a slide, the speaker should be able to turn toward the audience and know exactly what to say—and sell—next.

3. Am I Communicating the Relevance of Each Slide?

Your slides don't sell themselves—no matter how valuable the information is. Selling the point of each slide is your job as the presenter. Convey it clearly in your remarks with lines like:

• "The findings demonstrate why..."
• "These tactics will enable us to..."
• "Our partnerships are critical to our..."
• "This information led us to...."

These phrases don't merely share the slide's content ("Here are some approaches"); they express the purpose and impact of that content (e.g. "These tactics will enable us to reach the right audience.")

4. Are My Slide Titles Meaningful?

No area of slide real estate is more critical to reinforce points than the title field. It's the content your audience will read first and the only element they'll look to for clues about what to expect.

And yet this area is often wasted with pointless titles like "Background," "History," "Data," "Trends" and "Examples" that don't reinforce the point so much as categorize it. Even clever titles like "By the Numbers" and "Why This Matters" squander the opportunity because they convey little to no point. It's like writing a compelling novel but titling it "Book."

By contrast, putting each slide's point into the title space vastly improves the chances that your audience will realize and remember that point.

Consider these slide title evolutions from category to point:

• "History" becomes "What We've Learned"
• "Data" becomes "Increasing Our Market Share in Q3"
• "Examples" becomes "Case Studies Demonstrating Impact"

5. Are My Slides Supporting Me, or Am I Supporting My Slides?

Often, I'll see speakers on the far side of the room or in their seats, reading from their slides as they click through them. Or speakers presenting in darkness so that their PowerPoints can be illuminated. Or Zoom presenters who keep a constant gaze on the shared screen, never looking into the camera or anywhere near it.

In each of these scenarios, the speakers surrender their crucial roles as point conveyers—and all the authority and credibility attached to that role—to a piece of technology. (No offense, PowerPoint.)

If this sounds like you, that transference of ownership should be offensive. Your PowerPoint deck didn't get a college degree, never worked a day in its life and is nowhere near as educated, qualified and credible as you are, so why are you taking the back seat?

Good presenters don't let their tech toys make points on their behalf. They stand in the center of the speaking area (or look directly into the camera), conveying their points as the primary source and having those points supported by the slides behind them in the room or next to them on the screen.

Remember: Your job is to deliver your points. PowerPoint's job is to support that delivery. Put another way, you are Batman; the slides are Robin. If PowerPoint is doing its job for you and you're doing your job with it, you've established a dynamic duo indeed, and your points will land with a pow!

About the Author

Joel Schwartzberg is the senior director of strategic and executive communications for a major American nonprofit and has conducted presentation workshops for clients including American Express, Blue Cross Blue Shield, State Farm Insurance, the Brennan Center for Justice and Comedy Central. The author of The Language of Leadership: How to Engage and Inspire Your Team and Get to the Point! Sharpen Your Message and Make Your Words Matter, he also contributes frequently to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Toastmaster magazine and Inc.com.