Why do use powerpoint

This is not a matter of whether the tool is used correctly; the flaw lies in PowerPoint itself. The premise behind PowerPoint and its clones is that audiences supposedly better understand and retain information when they see words on a screen while a presenter is speaking. While that seems to be intuitively true, all the evidence is to the contrary. Similarly, a study published in the journal Teaching and Learning in Medicine found "no differences in short- or long-term retention of material," regardless of whether presented using static overheads or animated PowerPoint slides.

In other words, all the time and effort you spend creating a fancy PowerPoint is at best wasted and at worst counterproductive. PowerPoint, in short, doesn't do what it's supposed to do. The reason? Well, it turns out that when the brain tries to simultaneously process multiple versions of the same message, it creates confusion a. Ironically, the PowerPoint behavior that audiences hate the most--reading from the slides--is actually more likely to increase retention than if the speaker provides a commentary.

The cognitive overload is even worse when PowerPoint is used to display diagrams that have been created in PowerPoint. Such diagrams are essentially multiple slides crammed into a single slide--a mosaic of bullet lists inside shapes connected with arrows and lines.

These spaghetti diagrams confuse more than they enlighten, as anyone who's sat through a PowerPoint presentation knows too well. As General Stanley McChrystal sarcastically quipped when confronted with one of these monstrosities: "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war. Now, it's true that PowerPoint can also display technical diagrams, like schematics, and multimedia content, like video clips. From the slides to the animations, everything is fully customisable in the program to suit your needs.

Depending on the approach or content, you may want an image-heavy or text-heavy presentation or a mixture of both. The text-heavy reports are best when giving lectures and require your audience to take notes. With image-heavy reports, you are supposed to explain and guide your audience through the presentation.

Combining both approaches helps to give your listeners the advantages of both notes and visual aids. PowerPoint presentations not only allow your listeners or audience to view your presentation, but it also enables them to control various settings through interactive clicking.

Users can control the play speed and also website links along with numerous other settings. They can even move back to a previous slide to confirm a point that they might not have understood. Finally, one of the main reasons for using PowerPoint rather than Excel for business reporting is the fact that it is very easy to create presentations with PowerPoint. Even with basic knowledge, you can create a compelling presentation with interesting slides and animations.

Combining the calculations of Excel to create a PowerPoint presentation of your business report is the best way for users to get the most out of these two essential applications. All the raw numbers and data along with the calculating strength of Excel can be harnessed to complement the multimedia and presenting features of PowerPoint.

Make sure you use PowerPoint rather than Excel when creating your next business reports. This blog is written by our partner, Kurt Dupont from PresentationPoint , making business applications for screens and displays, specializing in data-driven presentations, dynamic PowerPoint, and digital signage software.

Your email address will not be published. Menu Skip to content. Stay Connected Search. February 11, Benefits of Business Reports Provides you a better insight — Business reports either through PowerPoint or Excel plays a crucial role in the active management of a company. It helps in tracking progress, controlling expenditure and increasing revenue. Through analysing these reports, you can get a better insight into current trends and then take the necessary measures to improve profits.

Reports aligned with key performance indicators — The KPIs of the business should be aligned with any report you produce. Accurate reports help in providing decision support, especially in creating business strategies and also helping a company meet its objectives. Highlights specific problems — A report can be commissioned to research and address specific problems in business. For instance, when an organisation wants to downsize, a report can be used to research the impact of that move and the best strategies to use to achieve that goal.

Enables managers to use the best marketing strategy — Business reports play a very important role when it comes to setting up marketing strategies. By commissioning a report about consumer behaviour and current trends in that specific market, the business will be able to create a more effective marketing strategy.

Improves decision making — Besides providing a clearer picture of your organisation, a report can considerably improve decision making. Managers will clearly identify any obstacles to increasing profits and devise the right strategies of eliminating them. Here are a few reasons why: 1. PowerPoint is Designed for Report Presentation If you look at the way that these two programs are set up, you can clearly see a big difference. PowerPoint is Easier to Navigate PowerPoint uses a simple slide show design to allow users to seamlessly navigate the presentation.

Arranging the Business Presentation One of the main reasons why using PowerPoint instead of Excel is recommended for business reporting is when it comes to arranging your presentation.

Better Multimedia Capabilities A business report or presentation should not only be clear and concise, but it should also be engaging in order to achieve a lasting effect on the audience, whether management or stakeholders. Cohesive Presentation Theme A nice presentation theme not only makes the presentation easy to look at, but it gives your report more consistency. Better Chart Options Even though Excel does do a good job on the standard chart options like pie, bar and line charts, PowerPoint enables users to work with a broader variety of charts.

Tachometer — One of the best examples of how PowerPoint charts are better is the Tachometer or Speedometer charts. Even though there are a few tachometer charts available for Excel, PowerPoint has many more tachometer templates. The result is better chart options for users, along with a much richer layout in the presentation.

Instead, you will see all the new opportunities that become available to you with other presentation solutions, taking whatever you used to do with PowerPoint, and making it flat-out better. Speach is a video platform that makes it easy to create and share clear, visual and step by step explanations in just a few clicks.

This short format, divided in chapters, combines video, slides, documents and text. As a presentation tool, PowerPoint could be considered a classic. In companies around the world, PowerPoint is used by professionals on all levels to communicate important information through a simple slide presentation. In fact, there are over million PowerPoint users, and 30 million PowerPoint presentations created each day around the world.

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