Too Much Animation? How to Keep Your Audience Focused

10 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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A short instructional video transcript (speaker: TJ Walker) advising presenters to avoid unnecessary PowerPoint animation that distracts from content. The speaker recommends that presenters first ask why they are using animation—if the only reason is that it’s possible or entertaining for the presenter, they should not use it and instead rehearse their presentation.

Chapters

How do you avoid the problem of excessive animation cluttering up your presentation and perhaps distracting your audience? The first thing you've got to do is ask yourself, why am I using this animation in my PowerPoint presentation for this audience? Now you may have a good answer. If you're a full time animator or Walt Disney Corporation or Pixar, showing animation may be 100% relevant to you. But if that's not your job, quite often the answer is, well, I'm using animation because I can, because the technology allows me, and because I can sit here and fiddle with cool buttons and use that as an excuse not to actually rehearse my presentation. If that's the answer for you, then don't use animation.