Presentation how many seconds per slide

Each presentation is different based on your relationship with your audience. Is the audience people you know or people you are getting to know? Ask yourself, what is in it for you, and what is in it for your audience?

Is your presentation goal to inspire, inform, educate, persuade or something else? Click here for a PDF checklist of 20 discovery questions you can use to define your audience and goals. Aiming for one slide per seconds in your presentation allows you to be informative and professional without sharing too little or too much. The goal is to keep Goldilocks attention, focus on your message and the shared outcomes.

An additional idea which supports seconds per slide is to present one idea per slide. One idea per slide allows you to focus on the essential information, establish your domain expertise and transfer awareness and understanding to your audience.

However, the guideline of one slide every seconds is not set in stone. Some slides might be fast and some slow. A third discovery question to ask yourself is what flow and rhythm do you want to create for the audience?

Think of your favourite songs; they have loud and quiet parts, fast and slow, they take you on an emotional journey. A presentation needs to do the same. Be intentional with your performance. They can provide a guideline, provide additional visual information or simply relax the presentation a bit. As already mentioned, text should not play too much of a role on your slides. Always question the purpose of material, such as pictures or graphics, and how useful they are for your presentation.

Ger rid of anything that seems superfluous or unnecessary or that can be communicated verbally. What is useful and what can be cut is of course up to you to decide! Although a cartoon or caricature might not be relevant to your topic, it could be a fun way to loosen things up. Also keep in mind that the number and detail of your slides will affect hoe flexible you can be during the presentation. You are locked into your slides and their content, and the more of them you have, the less chance you have to diverge from them.

This can help if you are feeling a little shaky or nervous. A great way to see if a presentation works is to run through it at least once in advance — kind of like a dress rehearsal. Doing this in front of friends or family can provide you with valuable feedback.

But even alone in front of a mirror or with an imaginary audience can work. If you find that your presentation is finished faster than planned, you can add additional information and slides.

Naturally, the pace at which you speak plays a big role. Those who speak quickly can cover lots of slides in a short time. If you speak slowly, you will of course achieve less. Ideally, you should speak at a pace that is comfortable for the listeners and allows them to follow the presentation. Again, this takes practice! No matter how quickly or slowly you speak, you should be able to present your slides comfortably. This is an option but not really recommended.

On the other hand, there are also presenters who opt for a minimalist approach to their slides to allow for flexibility or to simplify their presentation.

There should be neither too many nor too few slides. Obviously, this is easier said than done. What is important and what is unimportant, what is helpful and what impedes your presentation is ultimately your decision. Trust your instincts and rely on your expertise. Another reason why there is no patent solution for the perfect presentation is that there are so many variables that can affect a presentation. Factors such as topic, audience and location should always be taken into consideration when it comes to the scope and structure of slide presentations.

The room. This can be frustrating for both you and your audience. On the other hand, a room that offers excellent technical equipment can be a major asset, allowing you to add more audio-visual material, such as background music, to your presentation. This point summarizes something fundamental; opinions are everywhere.

Even something as seemingly innocuous as the optimal number of slides for a presentation is open for debate. Typically technical speakers should spend 1. But, if it takes longer than say 3. You could do it as a build or maybe you just break it up into two separate ideas. So, I have a different heuristic for that. The result will tell you how much time you have to present each main idea within the body of your talk.

Calculate Time Per Sub Point With longer talks, the next step is to determine how many sub points you have to present per main idea and divide that into the time you have available for each main idea. Flash slides take about 30 seconds to deliver, fast slides take about a minute, and descriptive slides about 3 minutes. Then, using these rough estimates, I can calculate how long it should take to make the presentation.

That means practice with a timer. I call this the n-factor that is the impact of your nervous energy on the delivery of the presentation. Always take into consideration the impact of your personal n-factor by either adding or subtracting time.

For example in a minute talk you should know exactly what needs to have been covered at ten minutes into the talk, at 15, and 25 minutes into the talk.

Do you need the graphics as a starting point from which you will explain results, trends, predictions or specific outcomes? These and other relevant questions should guide your decision-making process when settling on the right number of slides for your presentation. Go through your entire presentation and ask yourself if you really need a given slide.

If the answer is no, or if you find you can deliver the info verbally instead, eliminate it. Method 2. Practice your presentation in front of a mirror or a small audience of friends and family before you do it for real.

Solicit advice from family and friends during your practice presentation. If they feel there are too many or too few slides, or if they feel certain sections of the presentation felt rushed or slow, adjust your presentation to correct these deficiencies. Think about the speed at which you speak.

If you speak quite quickly, you will be able to get through a great number of slides. Use your rate of speech to determine how many slides your presentation can accommodate. Do not use too many slides. If you have ten minutes to present, you might need upwards of 60 slides.

On the other hand, you might also need just ten slides. Whatever number you settle on, do not include more slides than you can get through in your allotted presentation time.

Do not use too few slides. Method 3. Everyone seems to have their own idea of how many slides is enough. In fact, each presentation is different, and needs to be approached on its own merits.

This rule dictates that you should use about ten slides for a twenty minute presentation, and each slide should utilize thirty point font. In other words, each slide should be about two minutes in length. Others argue that an average slide should be onscreen for no more than two minutes, and can be onscreen for as little as 15 seconds. Other topics require many slides with only minimal explanation.

For example, if your presentation is on a particular product or a single beautiful landscape, then many slides containing photographs may be more effective than a few slides featuring text. Think about how you can combine a number of text-based slides into a few image-based slides with some accompanying text, and vice versa. Tailor your slideshow to your audience. It is my first time using PowerPoint.