Thursday, April 11, 2013

PowerPoint Presentation Pet Peeves

Yes, PowerPoint presentation pet peeves. Straight from Scooby Doo almost. That's a whole lot of alliteration! I'm not sure if this is supposed to be about pet peeves while making MY presentation or pet peeves about watching other presentations so I'll just go with the "others".
The worst possible thing I've ever seen in presentations and I mean the WORST are animations that people think make their presentation "unique". If the animation demonstrates a principle or pertains to the presentation in some useful manner, that's fine.
The other thing I hate in presentations are the transitions. There are a host of different "fun" transitions you can use from one slide to another. What's the deal with that? Why can't you just go from one slide to another. Once many years ago, I watched the motorcycle movie Easy Rider. You know, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, and the absolute COOLEST chopper of all time. Anyway, in that movie the scenes change by flashing back and forth between the scenes. I always think of that when I see" fancy" slide changes during presentations.
Me personally, I would much rather watch a plain black and white presentation with a presenter who was engaging and knew what they were talking about than a fancy presentation. In the animated movie, Robots Ratchet gives a multimedia presentation about the future of Bigweld Industries. While the song Eye of the Tiger plays, the footage rolls, and Ratchet speaks, the eyes of those watching the presentation dilate and they appear to be zombies. That's how I feel during a fancy presentation.
So, no animations, no transitions, and we will have a great time and I may even learn something!

"unique"
"fun"
"cute"
"fancy"

Definitely not me!

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