Presentation Tips: Ways to Avoid Overwhelming Your Audience

Great speakers take the time to guide their audience through their thoughts. It’s an art to deliver new information to an audience without overwhelming them. However, there are subtle things speakers do that can sometimes inhibit information from being easily processed. 

These include:
​
1. Too many images or text at the start

When a new visual appears, an audience needs to have a moment to register it. During that opening moment, your audience might miss the first part of your sentence or message. You don’t want to begin with a visual that’s too distracting. You want to bring ideas up as you talk about them. Otherwise, the audience can look ahead of you and won’t hear your explanation of each point. That’s why I recommend animating your visuals as you go. When your audio matches your visuals, it helps people feel connected to you and your message.

2. Talking over slide changes

Many speakers start an idea and then continue to speak as they advance to a new slide. While the intention may be to keep up the momentum in a talk, it’s not always a useful tactic. That’s because an audience needs a moment to absorb a new visual, and if the speaker talks over that moment, the listener falls behind. Instead, it’s better to pause between slides. That way you give your audience a moment to connect with a new image, the speaker has a moment to slow down, and everyone can start the next slide on the same page.

3. Phrases that highlight the lack of time
​
Time is talked about in most meetings and presentations. And although saying, “I know we don’t have a lot of time but…” might seem like a useful phrase, it actually makes it harder for your audience to pay attention. When people feel rushed, they don’t process information as well. That’s why I recommend avoiding mentioning “time” in a presentation. Instead, it’s better to highlight the main point and then move on to your next one.

Having your audio match your visuals, pausing between slides, and avoiding phrases that discuss time will help your audience stay focused on you and your message. 

Author: Bri McWhorter, MFA 
© Activate to Captivate, LLC