Animation and transition, when are they appropriate?

[Guest]

Custom animation and transition effects-- When are they appropiate? When is
it better not to use them?

 

[Sonia]

It's a matter of judgment and taste and there are no hard and fast rules. If
they enhance and strengthen the message, I would use them. If they distract
from communicating the message, leave them out.
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your answer. I knew that you would use either of them to
enhance and strengthen your message, but I was unsure of the reasons to leave
them out.

 

[Echo S]

I agree with Sonia.

Reasons to leave animations out are pretty subjective, too. I would say
leave out animations on all bullet slides unless you have a really crowded
one. In that case, I'd use the animation to help the audience distinguish
one bullet from the next. I'd also use animation if there were something I
really wanted to hit point-by-point. Otherwise, yeah, I'd leave it out.

Another rule of thumb is, if the animation makes you go OMG or laugh or roll
your eyes or say WTF?, then you're better off without the animation. If you
see an animation and think, "What was the point of *that*?" then leave it
out.

If you have something like a line chart showing an upward trend over time,
don't animate it with a wipe from the bottom of the slide. Instead, wipe
from left--in the direction of the growth. Column chart? Don't have the
columns fly in from the left, have them "grow" (wipe or peek in) from the
bottom-up.

Does that help at all?

 

[Glen Millar]

Hi,

My preference is to decide that at the story board when you are building the
outline. If it needs animating to support your story, then do so. But don't
over-do-so ;-) If it doesn't help you tell your story, leave them out.

--

--
Regards,

Glen Millar
Microsoft PPT MVP
www.powerpointworkbench.com

Australia

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[Bill Foley]

My normal rule is minimize the use of animations. When I need to animate
bulleted text lines on a slide I use the "Dissolve" or "Appear" animation
instead of obtrusive ones like "Fly", "Bounce", etc. You can do simple
things that maintain the focus of the crowd without having to overdo it.
For example, many times I change the text color to a lighter shade of its
original color when the next line comes in. This provides enough change
that the audience really notices the one coming in as well as the one fading
in.

What I have seen in sessions of PowerPoint use other than meeting-type
sessions is that the instructor or presenter will overuse the features of
PowerPoint just to show you what it is capable of, but NOT tell you to
minimize these uses. The audience runs off thinking that more is better and
makes PowerPoint presentations that detract from the training or message
they are trying to convey!

Of course, being the wild one of the bunch, I do like to throw in a "silly"
every now and then just to make sure everyone is alive and kicking!