The 5 PowerPoint features I pretend don’t even exist (because they don’t actually help with slide design)
This is the blog post version of my YouTube video.
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In this video/blog post I want to talk about 5 PowerPoint features that I pretend don't even exist because they don't actually help you with your slide design.
The academics, scientists, evaluators, and researchers I work with ask me about different PowerPoint features all the time, especially new ones, and if they should use them. Unsurprisingly, the answer is sometimes yes. It’s sometimes “it depends.”
…and then sometimes it’s a flat out “NO, you should not be using this thing."
There are some things in PowerPoint that are so unhelpful that when I’m working on my slides, I pretend they don’t even exist.
Why? Because they don't help you design effective and engaging lectures, conference presentations, research talks, or any other type of presentation you probably do.
Just as a reminder, effective presenting is communicating your information in ways that increases the likelihood your audience will pay attention, understand, remember, and use the information that you share.
So let’s get to it: These are the five features that I ignore because either they just don't help you or because they actually get in the way of effective presenting.
The first thing you should pretend doesn’t even exist is SmartArt.
Okay, so I know a lot of people are probably shocked and devastated to hear that. I have a whole blog post about it where I show you why you should not be using SmartArt… EVER… for anything. And I give you two alternatives for what you can do instead. So read that blog post if you're surprised by this one.
The number two thing I ignore is built-in PowerPoint templates.
Now, if you've been with me for a while you already know that these templates do not do you any favors. You should not be using them, so don't even look at them. Just start with a blank presentation instead and apply your own design (it’s way easier than you think, and it’s exactly what I teach you in my online courses and workshops).
Oh, and the solution is NOT to buy templates online. Any off-the-shelf template will fail you and encourage you to create #DeathByPowerpoint presentations. Custom templates can sometimes work, as long as you are going to someone who is trained in effective communication. 100% of the time I’ve seen custom templates made by graphic designers without this experience, the template still violates many core principles of effective presentation design (e.g., wrong font sizes, alignments, too much clutter).
The best thing to remember is that off-the-shelf templates will NEVER help you create an effective presentation. In fact, you pretty much can't have a truly effective and engaging presentation if you actually use a template like the built in PowerPoint templates.
The third thing I ignore is Design Ideas.
I'm getting a lot of questions about Design Ideas because it's kind of new. It’s so new that you might not even know what this is, but when you do something like add an image to a slide, a panel on the side will pop up with “design ideas”.
I ignore all of them and do not use them. They're basically templates for your pictures. And just like slide templates, they're not doing you any favors. None of the suggestions follow best practices for using images and make you do weird things to them (that reduce their impact and make it less likely people will resonate with your photo).
So, just pretend they don't exist and, again, it’s better to just learn how to use visuals through training rather than try to rely on templates.
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The fourth feature that I ignore is “Online Pictures.” Not, pictures found online. Specifically, there’s a feature in PowerPoint called “Online Pictures.”
Now, I didn't even know about this until a few months ago, so it kind of worked to have accidentally ignored it for years, find out about it, realize it's not that great, and then just continue to ignore it.
But just in case you're like me and you don't even know what that is, when you're in the insert tab there's this thing called Online Pictures and when you click on it, you get this grid of beautiful images.
At first, I was like, “Hey, this is actually really cool! All these images that I can add to PowerPoint directly? Wonderful!”
But then I would click on them and they're these clipart-like terrible looking photos. It’s like these pictures are from the 1990s or something. Definitely not the type of high-quality images you want to use in your lectures, conference presentations, job talks, keynotes, or other professional presentations.
If you’re struggling to find images for your slides, then check out my post where I show you how to create a visual database of free visuals. Don't use Online Pictures. Read this post instead to learn what to do and how to find better pictures.
Finally, the last thing to ignore are those center circle thingies.
I don't know what they're called (handles?). I don't know, but when you click on a photo notice that there are circles (or maybe it's a square on Macs) on the image.
Well, the ones in the center are the center circle thingies that I'm telling you to pretend don't even exist. As in, don't ever touch them again because that's how you get distorted visuals and you should never, ever, ever, ever have distorted images in your presentations!
There are NO exceptions to this.
No, not even a little bit of distortion. Not even just a little bit is okay. And when you use those center circle thingies you're going to get a distorted photo, which is why you should pretend they aren’t even there.
Okay, just to recap the five PowerPoint features that I ignore:
SmartArt
Built-in PowerPoint templates
Those center circle thingies (that create distorted images)
Design Ideas
Online Pictures
Now, I know that the next question you have is: What do I do instead?
Well, the answer is not that surprising. There are no “hacks” or “tricks” — the answer is professional development on how to design engaging and effective presentations (regardless of what software you're using).
Just learn the basics on how to make good presentations.
I'm probably not telling you anything new by saying grad schools don't really include this kind of training, even though they should be. It’s a collective and systemic failure that we don't really get training on how to use slides to communicate effectively. That’s why you need training to know what to do instead of those above. Don't bother using tools that make you waste your time or make your slides look worse.
Too many academics, scientists, evaluators, and researchers think effective presentation design is about surface level “tips and tricks” — that it can be taught in a 1 hour lecture. Likewise, too many people equate PowerPoint training with presentation training. Not true, and it’s why I teach effective presenting using a framework.
Effective presentations apply ALL layers of the framework (at least on some level). The content needs to be well organized and structured. The entire presentation must be uncluttered. You need to know how to use graphic design and information design to communicate data and educational information. Data visualization is, of course, there too as a unique layer because it involves special best practices. And finally, you need to know how to use animations properly.
This may sound overwhelming at first, but (again) that’s where professional development helps. Being taught this in a logical order will end up helping you apply all the different lessons you learn about presentation design faster and more efficiently compared to just having all these different ideas floating around your head.
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with joy,
Echo Rivera, PhD