Interactive presentations: types and how to get the most out of them

All over the world, workplaces, schools, and organizations have shifted gears over the past few years, moving towards remote work and learning models. More and more people now face the challenge of communicating through screens, and this leaves plenty of room for miscommunication.

This is why we need to be clearer and more effective communicators than ever before, and as presentations are the most commonly used format, let’s look at how we can improve them to help you meet your objectives.

The success of your next class, talk, or meeting depends to a large extent on your ability to organize and present the information well. Knowing the presentation options available to you and how to get the most out of each one will be massively helpful.

In this post, we’ll look at the power of interactive presentations and the main presentation types used in training, businesses, and education. We’ll also give you ideas on how to bring your creations to life through practical examples.

 Sound good? Let’s do this!

Interactive Presentations

We live in a society with a strong propensity for consuming visual and interactive content. Our brains are designed for it. We’ve become accustomed to interacting by simply clicking a button to show our reactions, explore content, and obtain information. When we click on interactive content, things happen, which stimulates our curiosity and our desire to participate.

Major companies like Apple have been focusing efforts on interactivity for effective communication for over a decade, and other companies and individuals are starting to follow suit.

The good news is that you too can fill your content with participation opportunities to increase audience engagement with the help of interactivity.

With an interactive presentation you can capture the audience’s attention and maintain it, because you give them the opportunity to explore and discover all the information and ideas you’re offering. 

This is a complete departure from the usual static presentations we’re all too familiar with: those interminable series of slides with a title, text, and photo. That’s no way to stand out!

Interactive presentations include clickable elements that allow people to feel like protagonists through participation. With an interactive presentation you don’t just convey information, you provide an experience. 

Want to know how to make an interactive presentation super easily?

Avoid predictability in your classes, meetings, and talks. With interactivity, there is always something hidden and waiting to be discovered.

6 tips for making incredible interactive presentations:

1.  Place your information (text, images, videos, etc.) in different layers.
2. Hide secondary information in windows or tooltips that open when you click on a chosen element in your presentation.
   •  If you’re sending the presentation to a client or student, they’ll be able to explore your creation at their own pace and seek out additional information.
   • If you’re presenting in person, you’ll have greater control over the pacing of the secondary information and can give your audience time to come up with their own ideas before offering yours.
3.  Have your key points visible on the page (i.e. not buried in layers) to highlight your main message.
4.  Add a dynamic activity that allows your audience to dive deeper into the material. Activities in which you ask participants to predict outcomes before you share real data or sort concepts into categories can help get your audience truly involved.
5. Insert content from other platforms in your presentation. Never underestimate the element of surprise, which you’ll achieve when you show your audience content from their favorite platforms such as YouTube, Maps, or your social media, all within your creation.

Any content embedded in a genially works the same as in the original platform. You can insert elements such as your Twitter timeline or your Instagram profile, and they’ll always display the latest updates.

6. Going to send or share your presentation? Add audio to complete the experience, such as a recording of your voice or background music.

Discover what type of interactive presentation is right for you

Depending on the objectives you want to achieve with your presentation, you can choose from several types of creations:

Want to showcase new products and projects? Do you need visual support at your booth or stand?  

The best thing to do here is to create a video presentation, as video is always an audience favorite. Later in the post you’ll find out how to turn your creation into a video in just a couple of clicks.

• Want to explain in depth how your project, product, or organization works, presenting the different stages, teams, and other elements?

You need a dossier, which is the ideal type of presentation for handling in-depth information.

• Want to display results, data, or information in relation to periods of time?

In this case, the format you need is a report. Interactivity and animation will be extremely helpful in making the information easier to digest.

• Do you work in education or corporate training?

The educational presentations are designed to suit the needs of any level, from elementary school through college and graduate school.

Let’s take a closer look at these types of interactive presentations.

1. Video Presentation

In Genially, you can turn your presentation into a video or slideshow in just a couple of clicks.  There are two ways to do this: you can create a slideshow, which is a presentation in video navigation mode, or download your creation as an MP4 video. 

Choosing Video navigation mode allows you to build cool carousels or sliders that you can use as a company or freelancer to showcase new products, announce news, or highlight your projects. 

Try inserting a video presentation in the header of your website and watch as audience engagement with your content increases.

Dossier

A dossier is a document that is created to present organized and in-depth information about a company, project, or product.

Unlike presentations, dossiers are strictly informative presentations that are usually more extensive. Their function is to show what a business does and represents.Usually, you’d need to invest a lot of time and budget to create a company dossier. Genially to the rescue! With Genially’s templates you can save a lot of time and effort in the creation of your dossier, which you can then invest in your presentation instead.

Report

Reports are the culmination of the hard work that’s been put into a project and should show the fruits of your labor, but too often, reports fail to make an impact. Why? Unfortunately, the vast majority of reports are poorly structured, have too much or too little content, or fail to communicate data in a way that makes an impression on the audience.

Tips to create an awesome report

With a Genially template and these tips, you’ll find it much easier to make an impact with your next report: 

•  Outline a structure and have it checked by someone you trust.

Start with an index and use that as a guide when building your report. If possible, show it to a coworker to make sure what you’re planning to present is relevant and well organized. Having another person’s perspective will help you be sure that you’re getting the message across.

• Ask them to answer these three questions. What’s their biggest takeaway? Do they feel like any important points aren’t being covered? Would they cut anything out? You can decide what to do with their feedback. 

•  A well-used graph can drive a point home and can show your boss or client that you achieve real, measurable results. Choose only the most important statistics when creating graphs. Make sure your audience doesn’t get lost in a sea of less important graphs.
• Keep your slides clean. Make them visually appealing. Just as too many graphs can hide your big successes, too much text or too many visual elements can distract from what matters. 
•  Keep your main points concise and clear on each slide. If you need to add secondary information or notes, feel free to do so, but consider inserting it in interactive buttons. Your audience can discover the information with a simple click.

Presentations for training and education professionals

In Genially you can also find tons of inspirational templates and examples created for use in the corporate training and education sectors. Want to see a few?

Presentations for corporate training

No, corporate training does not have to be boring. You can debunk that myth and, at the same time,  create training content much more quickly if you use Genially. 

Just use this template and half the work is done for you! You’ll be able to show off amazing training materials that look like they were created by a design team.  

Your dossiers, onboarding presentations, and other training content will never be the same again. Everyone will be asking you how you managed it.

Educational presentations

An educational presentation is the format used to present academic content to students and classes. 

With Genially, you can create brilliant interactive and animated educational presentations. You’ll find templates for any topic or subject.

As well as text and images, you can add audio, videos, GIFs, etc, and turn your presentation into a multimedia experience with powerful educational potential. One thing is for sure: they won’t be bored.

Are you working with younger students or looking to surprise your audience? We’ve got you covered there too.

When learning is online or hybrid, you’ll most likely need to supplement your materials with other interactive resources. This way, your students will be able to expand the information and view it in different ways: mind maps, concept maps, infographics, interactive images, etc.

You can create all these resources in several geniallys, each with its own link. But if you want to keep everything within the same creation so nothing gets lost, it’s easy: insert them in your presentation or learning unit. This way you can share them all at once in a single link.

Presentations for Elementary Education

Do you work with younger students? Do you want to surprise your class with fun presentations? In Genially, you’ll find plenty of examples and templates to suit you.

Here are some tips for making your presentations even more original and memorable:

• Use Paint mode to turn your presentations into digital whiteboards, where you and your students can circle key points, draw on images, and more.
• Insert slides with games. They can be as simple as word and picture matching activities or as exciting as a dragon’s dungeon breakout or a digital escape room.
• Add your own audios to a video presentation to narrate it. 
• Try using a gamified presentation as a basis for your next exam. You can insert external tools such as Google Suite options and games. Guide your students through the exam content in a way that keeps them engaged and guessing what comes next.

Presentations for a Final Project or Thesis

Whether you’re creating your dissertation or thesis on your own, or with the help of a tutor to guide you, a good final presentation will be the key to getting that grade you deserve. And what is a good presentation? One that manages to clearly demonstrate your research process and your findings.

Keep in mind that the professors present at your defense have seen hundreds before, and a bit of novelty can go a long way.

Consider a layered approach to revealing information. You can hide additional points inside windows using interactivity and animation effects. The addition of tasteful animation effects can also keep your audience more engaged.

Now it’s your turn!

We hope you’ve come away from this post with a clearer understanding of presentation types and how to best use each one, and most importantly, we hope you leave inspired to impress with your next presentation.

If you’d like to make presentations as awesome as the ones you’ve seen, unleash your creativity here. What are you waiting for? We’re rooting for you. 

Oh, and in case you didn’t already know: we love reading your comments and thoughts. Send us yours on social media or leave a comment on this post.