Animations - a waste of your and the audience's time

I don’t like them. Bouncing transitions between slides. Flying bullet points zapping in like a space ship. It annoys the audience and does not help get your message across. More over, they are impossible to edit. There are exceptions:

Complicated technical diagrams that require a build-up to explain (still, putting them in as a sequence of slides will make your life easier
Perpetual motions such as slowly turning wheels or a high-way of moving arrows to support a concept of a never-ending force

2 comments

Lenteja2008-10-09 08:53:00

I found your blog about profesional presentations whilst I was in the middle of preparing a presentation on my paper (scientific audience). I had just finished what I thought it was a really cool animated slide and then I read your post!
My slide presents a long process flow chart, first minimized, so it fits in screen, and then it dissolves into a big readable thing (that doesn't fit in screen), that with motion animations I make slide to the left (following the flow) in two intervals (as I explain each section) and then when I'm finished explaining it dissolves back into the small format.
What other way would you advise??
Kind regards.

Jan Schultink2008-10-09 14:33:00

It sounds like your animations actually serve a purpose, as opposed to being "empty" graphics effects. This is a great use of animations. (To navigate a canvas, or to introduce more detail gradually)

Two other things you can look at:

1) A tool the Microsoft recently introduced to zoom inside PowerPoint: I have not used it myself yet, if you use it, let me know your feedback.

2) One other interesting feature might be the "push transition" between slides, giving the audience the impression that they travel on a big canvas. Download a Guy Kawasaki slide make over by Duarte to see (a very simple) example (the PPT is here:

More of my posts on animations here: especially the PowerPoint 2007 selection pane could prove helpful to you