Color Psychology and Powerpoint

I had no idea which forum to put this in, so mods please move it if you think it belongs elsewhere.

How much does it bug you when you have to sit through a PowerPoint presentation where the presenter obviously gave no thought to the color scheme or design of the slides? Has anyone looked into color psychology when deciding on a scheme for a presentation?

For example, I had to attend an ISO 14001 training session recently. The presenter chose a green and tan slide design, presumably because it’s “earthy” to go with the environmental training. The immediate ‘feeling’ I got the second he opened the title slide was “This is excruciatingly boring material that in no way relates to your job function but we have to present it to you to fulfill a requirement.”

Likewise, I have seen bad news delivered on the fireworks design slides. Nothing like announcing the company lost money last year on a slide that screams “look, this is fun, new and exciting!” I’ve also seen Immediate Action Needed type information presented on the cloud or ocean designs. It’s always good to give your people a sense of tranquility when you’re trying to get them off their butts.

Oh, and I once saw a TS 16949 training presentation all in pastels. How could you expect anyone to take that seriously? It looks like an ad for a birth control pill!

Does anyone use color psychology when planning their PowerPoint slides? Maybe Red to stir up competitiveness and drive, yellow to highlight an annoying problem, or blue when you’re trying to calm people’s fears?

Interesting thread. I often change my font type when using Powerpoint - for example, I tend to use the comic font for training. It seems more lighthearted and fun. Also, if I use a template for training, it's usually the notebook - gives the "student" impression. Never thought of it in this context, though - just tried to pick a theme (colour, template, font or otherwise) that matched the content.

I can tell you what does irritate me to no end, though - grammatical errors in presentations. Take the time to proofread, people - and if you're not presenting in your mother tongue, then find someone else who can proof it for you. Nothing discredits one's intelligence quite like a slide full of spelling errors and misused apostrophes.

It'll be interesting to see how this thread unfolds...

We have a standard template that gets used world wide - tens of thousands of employees. Every presentation looks like every other one pretty much - right down to the colors and fonts used.

I've tried moving away from Powerpoint for technical data. We present project status information periodically. Project managers spent lots of time adding graphics, colors, etc. when the audience really wanted to know are we on schedule/budget, risks, etc. Much data was cut and past from Excel, so I developed a template in Excel with each topic on a workbook tab. Not as fancy, but saved preparation time and presentation time. It also became an instant capture tool for action items. I'm now expanding this to begin using Microsoft Sharepoint as a better tool for brining together different types of files and "active" content for presentations.

Visibility

I don't think much about psychology when planning a PowerPoint presentation but I do think about visibility. I stand way back from the monitor when choosing colors and see if I can read the text without my glasses on. Face it, some colors just do NOT look good together! And if its hard to read on my monitor, how will it look projected onto the wall/screen/conference room etc???

I try to use the old elementary complementary colors whenever possible: yellow/purple, blue/orange, and red/green. I try to stay away from the "cute" ones already mentioned such as clouds, fireworks, etc.

One notable exception stands out in memory: I had to create a very technical presentation for an interal group and found out it was the presenter's birthday. I showed the entire presentation to the presenter and he approved it. Then I added a slide that had sounds and flashing lights and the letters spelling out "Happy Birthday Jim" were shot onto the screen -- as this was the very last slide, I believe quite a few people woke up before the lights were turned on!

I agree that we should think about the backgrounds and templates when delivering certain types of messages. I went to a powerpoint class one time, and the presenter did a nice job of reminding us to use the templates carefully, and to also be careful with all the fancy animations. Just because there are about 100 different animation options, from subtle to "wild", doesn't mean you have to use them all in the same presentation! It may wake people up, but it can also detract from the message........

AND PLEASE, to those of you in the world who present using ppt's, don't read your slides to me! Expand upon the slide, tell me a story, anything. I once sat through a lead auditor course for 9001 where the presenter read about 300 slides to us in 2 days. Even caffeine didn't keep me awake!

Personally, I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to power point. Black font on a clear (white) background. For those that have seen me give a presentation, they know that I run a little "over the top" emotionally (believe me, talking about statistics is a challenge), so keeping the slides toned down I think helps to get people to look at the speaker, not the slides.

I will, when there are important points, use color (such as red for negative things, green for positive things). I believe the sparing use of the color helps to make sure that when something does need to be emphasized, it is.

It could have been worse. Most of the PP presentations I have attended entailed the presenter reading the slide and the only handout's being a black-and-white printout of the slides.

Sometimes redundancy is a good thing. In those cases, it was almost insulting.

For those of you that have been around a while you will know that I have a LOT of Powerpoint presentations. I tend to have a standard format, that I have evolved over the years. I try not to use the MS templates as many of them are too LOUD or BUSY, or the animations are too repetative....this all detracts from the lesson being presented. I agree with qualitygoddess that if a slide is meant to be read then just print it out and let the students read it in their own time. I prefer to have dot points that need expanding, ask a question or lead into a storyline. I do ,however, have slide shows that can be reviewed by single operators in their own time and they usually have a set of student notes or handouts with them.
Colour is very important and most of mine are pastels that do not take away from the presentation or font. There is nothing worse than a LOUD COLOUR (that you cannot read) or a BUSY SLIDE ( Too crowded with animations,text or photos). They are an aid to teaching NOT the teacher.

Here is one I prepared earlier:

http://elsmar.com/Forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=2176

Greg B said:

For those of you that have been around a while you will know that I have a LOT of Powerpoint presentations.

Click to expand...

And let me tell you people: I consider Greg's presentations top notch stuff (not only concerning the colours used. They are good all over).

As for the original question: If powerpoint users in general slashed their use of flashy stuff and the number of slides with.... shall we say 75%? ...I for one would be a lot more inclined to watch them.

/Claes

Claes Gefvenberg said:

And let me tell you people: I consider Greg's presentations top notch stuff (not only concerning the colours used. They are good all over).

As for the original question: If powerpoint users in general slashed their use of flashy stuff and the number of slides with.... shall we say 75%? ...I for one would be a lot more inclined to watch them.

/Claes

Click to expand...

Claes,

Thanks for the pat on the back. I agree that the number of slides is another big point. Less is better. A 45 minute lesson needs only FIVE slides.