What is a reasonable amount of time to spend discussing each slide in a Power Point presentation?

Question

I have an hour to talk and an additional 30 minutes available for additional questions and book signing.

Two minutes per slide seems adequate. I have 40 slides so far with open-ended content.

Answer 1

There is a whole school of thought that is ANTI Power Point presentations, saying they lead to boredom. If you can get your hands on it, there is an article/essay by Edward Tufte on this subject. He is an expert in conveying information ("The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" and other publications).

I am an architect and have made many PP presentations to win projects or present our design. There is no time formula. Rather design your presentation from the standoint of the message you want to convey, and then use the PP pres. as illustration, not the other way around.

Also, you will want to go very quickly in some areas and linger over other slides, because varying the pace also leads to more interest.

Think of the whole thing as a theatrical show. (A three-act play?) This approach has served me well, and I have taught my students of architecture to try this also.

One last thing, you may have an hour to talk, but remember that about 45 minutes is anyone's actual maximum normal attention span. So I think if you break it up, you will not be interrupted by people shifting their weight, snoring, or getting up to leave (no matter how interesting your subject matter)!

Answer 2

It depends entire upon the topic and purpose of the presentation. If this is a technical presentation, I will usually use ONE slide as an overview, and have several handouts that the slide references. In such cases, you might spend 30-45 minutes on only one slide. For a sales presentation, it's more like 2-4 minutes per slide.