Creating effects and animation techniques for effective presentation Part 2

The professional use of animations and effects can enrich your presentation. It is important that the application is really thought through. Since mistakes are quickly made here, you should seek the advice of a good PowerPoint agency. In those places that are supposed to be emotional and where the clear goal is to increase the interest of the audience, there are many interesting possibilities to apply animation techniques. In the second part, we will look at different types of animation and the rules for their proper use when creating PowerPoint slides.

If you are planning your next presentation, you should consider using animations to increase the quality of your PowerPoint slides. Depending on the occasion, effects and animations can increase the attention of your audience, arouse curiosity and create emotions. It is important to know what types of animations are available and how to use them correctly. If you want to have a professional PowerPoint presentation created, you should make sure that you entrust it to an agency that has a lot of experience with the correct use of this technique.

Different animation types in PowerPoint

Das Programm PowerPoint bietet verschiedene Animationsarten, die sich in die folgenden drei Kategorien aufteilen:

1. 2D animations. Two variants belong to this category: Simple animations (standard animations) and combined animations (several animations running in parallel).
2. Path animations. Single or multiple slide elements are animated along a path. This allows, for example, the movement of a vehicle or a flying object to be represented.
3. Transitions. The design of flowing transitions between two slides can be designed accordingly. Slide transitions (see Transitions tab) should allow the slides to change smoothly and without abrupt interruptions.

The individual animation types can, of course, also be connected and combined with each other.

Unfortunately, the PowerPoint program does not include 3D animations. They can be created with professional 3D programs and then integrated into the PowerPoint presentation.
A PowerPoint agency can create such animations for you.

Four rules for the use of animations

There are four main rules that must be observed when using animations:

1. The use and number of animations always depends on the content of the presentation. If you insert animations in PowerPoint, you must check whether the main topic is suitable for them. For example, if you create a presentation on personnel development in which you report on the reduction of employees, animations are inappropriate. For example, if an internal presentation is about the business success of the company, an animation, such as a launching rocket, would be a good way to reinforce positive emotions.
2. In our western world, the reading direction runs from top left to bottom right. You should take reading habits into account. If you are giving presentations to an international audience with participants from the Arab or Asian region, you can use animations to set the reading direction for all participants.
3. You can also use animations when presenting processes. If the sequence of events is in a more factual context, effects such as fading, appearance or wiping can be used. If the context is emotional, surprising, attention-grabbing and more dynamic effects can also be used.
4. A rule of thumb for the design of slides is that the audience should have grasped and understood the contents of the slide shown within 20 seconds. The shorter this period can be kept, the better. The use of animation can help to limit the amount of information. For example, slides representing a series of bullet points can make it easier to capture the information. In this case, the individual points are not shown at once, but are shown one after the other.

More comprehensive information on effects and information, as well as many other tips for creating better presentations, can also be found in the book PowerPoint – The Guide to Better Presentations. You can order the book via Amazon.

If you have not yet read our first part, you can find it here.

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