15 Facts About Presentations That You Should Know

Not to mention, presentations themselves are interesting in the way they have managed to capture the world of communication and the reasons why they dominate in the sphere of textual-audio-visual communication.

Here are 20 interesting and unique facts about presentations that you may not have heard of before!

Picture 1 of 15 Facts About Presentations That You Should Know

1. Microsoft PowerPoint was originally called 'Presenter'.

Created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin, it was the product of a company called Forethought, Inc. The name throughout development was 'Presenter' but due to competing trademark registration, it was changed to PowerPoint shortly before its release. Microsoft later acquired PowerPoint for $14 million.

2. Microsoft PowerPoint was originally created for the Macintosh in 1987.

It took developers Robert Gaskin, Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin 3 years to create PowerPoint, starting their development in 1984. Apple Strategic Investment Group chose PowerPoint as its first significant investment and the first PowerPoint 1.0 for Macintosh was shipped on April 20th, 1987.

3. Microsoft PowerPoint currently has a 95% market share of presentation software worldwide.

PowerPoint's initial sales were not as promising as expected, especially with the narrower reach of the Macintosh. However, with Windows outselling Macintosh, and Microsoft's acquisition of PowerPoint, it saw a steady increase in sales, from 200,000 units of sale in 1990 to over 4 million units in 1997.

4. About 35 million PowerPoint presentations are given each day.

500 worldwide users every day engage in the practice of giving presentations. By the late 90s, PowerPoint had become the staple tool for corporate communication, as stated by Rich Gold, a scholar of corporate presentations, in 1999, 'Within today's corporation, if you want to communicate an idea ... you use PowerPoint."

5. 47% of presenters take up to 8 hours to prepare their presentations.

65.7% of presenters prefer to make their own presentation slides. This adds to the total time taken in order to make presentations that are both creative and visually engaging. Moreover, there is no definitive formula for a good presentation, making some presenters take a lot of time in finalising elements for the PPT. They also use visually engaging PowerPoint templates to save on time and build impactful presentations.

6. 32% of business professionals see a presentation every day.

And almost 78% of business professionals see 2 or more presentations in a week. That is a lot of presentations to sit through, and it explains why attention tends to wane as more presentations are shown to an individual.

7. The average PowerPoint slide contains 40 words.

A PowerPoint presentation is an audiovisual communication device, and the visual aspects cannot rely solely on text-based information. Nothing puts an audience off more than large blocks of text within a presentation.

8. Serif and sans serif fonts have different roles within effective presentations.

According to Rajat Thawani, Arjun Ravishankar and Rohan Shad in their paper 'Prepare and deliver an effective presentation', serif fonts work best in smaller texts, as they improve readability for large chunks of text ordinarily associated with smaller font size. In contrast to that, for larger text and headings, sans serif fonts are better and more aesthetically pleasing.

9. Most people tune out of a presentation within 10 minutes.

10 minutes is the magic number for audience attention during a presentation or slideshow, after which attention starts waning. At this point, it is a good idea to include audience interactions, such as polls, discussions, questions etc, to retain the audience's attention and keep them focused.

10. Reading of the slides by a presenter is voted as the most annoying aspect of presentations.

An international study found the reading of presentation slides as the most annoying habit of presenters. The second was using a tiny font size not appropriate for the scale of the presentation. The third was having full sentences as text on a slide.

11. The best presentations follow the 10-20-30 rule.

Created by Guy Kawasaki, the 10-20-30 rule states that presentations should have 10 slides, last less than 20 minutes and have no font-size be smaller than 30 points. This ratio works in optimizing the time taken for a presentation versus retaining audience attention and focus on the contents of the slides.

12. The 5-5-5 rule works best for structuring slides in a presentation.

Each slide should not have more than 5 lines. Each of those lines should not have more than 5 words. And there should not be 5 text-heavy slides presented one after the other in a single presentation.

13. Visuals are processed by the brain 60,000x faster than text.

The reason why presentations work best with ample visual elements such as graphics, charts, icons and images, is because our brains simply process visuals better than text, and visually engaging presentations can help people understand concepts and complex statistics easier and faster.

14. 55% of individuals state that a great story holds their attention the longest during presentations.

Incorporating elements of storytelling in presentations is key to having great communication and effective presentations. Learn more about storytelling in presentations here.

15. 91% of presenters feel confident in presenting when they have a well-designed presentation.

A survey of over 200 people showed that having a well-designed and engaging presentation makes them feel more confident in all aspects of presenting, including public speaking, interactions and reactions. Having well-designed presentations is a way of showing professionalism and creativity to the audience, making a great first impression and getting the audience's trust from the get-go.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it! Presentations have a fascinating history and even more interesting reasons why it has remained the absolute best method for business communications for the past few decades. Keeping these facts in mind, it might also be worth checking out SlideUpLift's blog on how presentation structuring and optimization work in terms of its design.

Kareem Winters

Update 04 July 2021