Avoid ‘death by Zoom’

Less is more when presenting information online

By Jodi Craiglow | Presbyterians Today

If the printing press drove the Reformation, teleconferencing platforms will be responsible for ushering in our next big shift. As church leaders in the “Zoom Age,” we’re duty-bound to steward teleconferencing well, especially when it comes to sharing graphs and charts and bulleted information online. Here are some tips:

• Don’t overload information onto one slide. What shows up full-size on computer screens is automatically reduced to fit within a Zoom window.
• Keep one idea to one slide.
• Use no more than two to three sentences per slide.
• Give a roadmap of where you’re going at the beginning of a presentation.
• Title every slide. This will help orient folks to where you are in your presentation and will focus them on your main idea.
• Bold the words you want to emphasize. People skim slides; they don’t read them.
• Pictures are worth a thousand words — even more so on a Zoom meeting.
• Make sure highlighted words have enough contrast with the background so they’re still readable.
• Put all links into the chat.
• Pause periodically for feedback and questions.

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