by Wai Heng Kelvin Lee

Created on: March 03, 2009

Many presenters find that they have trouble maintaining their audience's attention. There are many reasons for this, and this may include the use of bad contrast.

You must realize that it is important to apply the correct contrast to your PowerPoint presentations, because using the wrong contrast will make it difficult for you to engage your audience.

But first, we will have to know the common problems that come about due to the use of poor contrast. Steer clear of the following:

1. Colour of background too close to colour of text

Slides with a dark blue background containing black text, or a white background containing yellow or light blue text is undesirable. Having to strain their eyes to see the text is certain to cause irritation to the audience.

2. Colours of background and text are too jarring

This happens when presenters boldly use strong colours of the same intensity for the background and text of the slides. Colour combinations such as these cause eye discomfort due to the jarring effect of the colours.

3. Using a gradient background

Using PowerPoint's fill effects in your slide causes the colour along the slide to run from a darker to lighter shade. This may look good on the surface, but it actually causes the text in the slide to blend into the background at some point. This is because the text would be of the same degree of brightness or darkness as the background, regardless of the text colour.

To correct poor colour contrast

Let me now introduce a technique that will make sure the audience can view the slides clearly, no matter how dark or light the presentation room may be.

Having Opposing Intensity For Your Background and Text

You can decide if your slide background is dark-coloured (like Red Wine) or light-coloured (White Wine). Stay away from mid-tones when deciding your background colours.

Following that, the text colour of the slide has to be a colour that directly contrasts the background, i.e. light-coloured text for a dark-coloured background, and dark-coloured text for a light-coloured background.

You may think this technique is a straightforward one, but I have witnessed countless presentations that have used poor colour contrast, even from billion-dollar companies! This happens even though all that is needed to improve the presentation drastically is this simple technique.

So do what is required start using audience-friendly colour combinations in your presentations! They will appreciate not having to strain their eyes throughout your presentation.

In conclusion, you can read the comments by the CEO of a hospital on a blog that I have stumbled upon and get a better idea of the extent of the problem:

"...The slides are filled with text. The speaker tries to put up too much information, instead of using a few words on the slide to create emphasis. ...The slides are filled with Excel spreadsheets with tiny cells. How often have you heard the presenter saying this: "I know you can't read this from your seat"? Well, why put it up on a screen if people can't read it?" To read more, visit http://runningahospital.blogspot.com/2008/04/throw-o ff-crutches-of-ppt.html

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