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Blog Marketing 15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

15 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Elevate Engagement

Written by: Krystle Wong Aug 04, 2023

As attention spans continue to shrink, the challenge of engaging audiences in a short timeframe has never been more significant. Let’s face it — grabbing and keeping your audience’s attention can be quite the challenge, especially when time is ticking away. But fear not, I’ve got the perfect solution: interactive presentations!

Believe it or not, creating an interactive presentation is easier than you might think. In this guide, I’ll show you how to effortlessly turn ordinary slides into captivating experiences with 15 interactive presentation ideas that will leave your audience begging for more. From quirky polls and fun games to storytelling adventures and multimedia magic, these ideas will take your presentation game to the next level.

Venngage is a game-changer when it comes to empowering interactive presentations. With just a few clicks, users can customize their favorite presentation templates , add multimedia content and create immersive experiences that leave a lasting impact. Whether you’re a seasoned presenter or a newcomer, get started with Venngage to elevate your presentation game to new heights of engagement and creativity.

Click to jump ahead:

What is an interactive presentation?

15 ways to make a presentation interactive, 7 best interactive presentation software, what are some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive presentations, interactive presentation faqs, how to create an interactive presentation with venngage.

An interactive presentation is a dynamic and engaging communication format that involves active participation and collaboration between the presenter and the audience. Unlike traditional presentations where information is delivered in a one-way manner, interactive presentations invite the audience to interact, respond and contribute throughout the session.

Think of it as a two-way street where you and your audience have a friendly chat. It’s like playing a fun game where you ask questions, get live feedback and encourage people to share their thoughts. 

To make a good presentation , you can utilize various tools and techniques such as clickable buttons, polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements to transform your slides into an interactive presentation. Whether you’re presenting in-person or giving a virtual presentation — when people are actively participating, they’re more likely to remember the stuff you’re talking about.

Interactive presentations leave a lasting impression on the audience. By encouraging active participation and feedback, interactive presentations facilitate better understanding and knowledge retention. Here are 15 innovative 5-minute interactive presentation ideas to captivate your audience from start to finish:

1. Ice-breaker questions

Start your presentation with intriguing and thought-provoking questions or a fun icebreaker game. These questions should be designed to pique the audience’s curiosity and encourage them to think about the topic you’ll be covering. By doing so, you create an immediate connection with your audience and set the stage for a more engaged and attentive audience.

For example, if you’re giving a business presentation about management and leadership training, you could ask audience questions such as “What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received, and how has it impacted your career?”

2. Live polling

Incorporate live polls during your presentation using audience response systems or polling apps . This allows you to collect real-time feedback, opinions and insights from active participants. Live polling encourages active participation and involvement, making your presentation feel like a collaborative and interactive experience.

3. Q&A sessions

Encourage the audience to ask questions throughout your presentation, especially for pitch deck presentations . Address these questions in real-time, which fosters a more interactive and dynamic atmosphere. This approach shows that you value the audience’s input and promotes a two-way communication flow.

4. Clickable buttons

Add clickable buttons to your slides, allowing the audience to navigate to specific sections or external resources at their own pace. For example, you could include links to your social media accounts or extra reading materials in your education presentation to give further information about the topic and get your students engaged.

By providing this autonomy, you empower the audience to explore areas of particular interest, creating a more personalized and engaging experience through your interactive slideshow.

5. Storytelling

Incorporate anecdotes or personal stories related to your topic. Storytelling is a powerful way to emotionally connect with your audience, making your presentation more relatable and memorable. A little storytelling along with a set of creative slides draws the audience in and keeps them engaged as they follow the narrative.

6. Interactive charts and graphs

Use interactive charts and graphs that respond to user input to make your presentation interactive. For instance, allow the audience to click on data points to view more detailed information or to change the displayed data series. Creating charts with interactive visuals help the audience interact with the data, fostering better understanding and engagement.

7. Animated infographics

Add animations to your infographics, making them visually dynamic and progressive. Animated infographics reveal information gradually, keeping the audience curious and attentive. This transforms complex data into an easily digestible and engaging format.

Venngage’s extensive library of infographic templates is a powerful tool to visualize data and elevate the interactivity of your presentations. Personalizing the visuals ensures a cohesive and professional look throughout your interactive presentation. The templates are highly customizable, allowing you to adjust colors, fonts, and styles to match your presentation’s theme and branding. 

8. Gamification

Introduce an interactive quiz, puzzles, or challenges related to your presentation content. Gamification adds an element of fun and competition, motivating the audience to participate actively and boosting their learning experience. Here are some gaming presentation templates you could use. 

9. Virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR)

If applicable, leverage VR or AR technologies to provide immersive experiences. These interactive presentation tools transport the audience into a virtual or augmented environment, making your presentation more captivating and memorable.

10. Collaborative whiteboarding

Get your audience involved in your presentation by utilizing digital whiteboards or collaborative tools to brainstorm ideas collectively. This fosters teamwork and creativity, enabling the audience to actively contribute and feel a sense of involvement in the presentation.

11. Hyperlinked text

Keep the information in your slides minimal with a simple presentation and incorporate hyperlinks to direct viewers to relevant websites or blogs , resources, or additional information. This encourages self-exploration and gives the audience the opportunity to delve deeper into topics of interest.

12. Role-playing

Engage the audience in role-playing scenarios to explore different perspectives. Role-playing promotes active learning and helps the audience relate the content to real-life situations, enhancing their understanding and retention.

13. Embedded videos

Include video clips in your slides to provide visual explanations, demonstrations, or interviews. Videos add a dynamic element to your presentation, enriching the content and keeping the audience engaged. You can create these visual clips on a budget using a free screen recorder .

14. Audience-generated content

Encourage the audience to contribute ideas, stories or examples related to your professional presentation . Audience-generated content fosters a sense of ownership and involvement, making the presentation more interactive and personalized.

15. Slide transitions

Use slide transitions to create smooth animations between slides. Well-planned transitions maintain the audience’s interest and keep the presentation slides flowing seamlessly.

Interactive elements aside, enhance your presentation with these guides on how to summarize information for a captivating presentation and how to make a persuasive presentation to captivate your audience. 

If you’re looking to create engaging and interactive presentation slides that captivate your audience, these presentation software options are sure to elevate your game:

Prezi is renowned for its dynamic and non-linear presentation style, enabling users to craft visually stunning and interactive presentations. With an array of templates and animation effects, Prezi enhances audience engagement, making your presentations more captivating and memorable.

2. Mentimeter

Mentimeter serves as an audience response system, empowering real-time interaction during presentations. Users can create interactive polls, quizzes, word clouds and more, allowing the audience to respond using their smartphones or other devices. This fosters active participation and provides valuable feedback instantly.

3. Google Slides

Google Slides is a free cloud-based presentation software that not only offers collaboration features but also enables real-time interactions. It includes add-ons and third-party integrations to further enhance interactivity, making it an excellent choice for collaborative and engaging presentations.

4. Microsoft PowerPoint

PowerPoint, a classic presentation software, has evolved to incorporate more interactive features like live captions, real-time collaboration and interactive elements such as quizzes and forms. With its familiar interface and versatile functionalities, PowerPoint remains a reliable choice for interactive presentations.

5. Prezentor

Prezentor caters to sales-oriented presentations focusing on interactive storytelling and data-driven content. It offers analytics to track audience engagement and behavior during presentations, allowing you to fine-tune your approach and keep your audience hooked.

6. Opinion Stage

Opinion Stage is a visual and interactive data collection tool designed to engage and excite audiences whether sitting in a lecture hall, participating in a live Zoom, or watching an on-demand webinar. The Opinion Stage tools are simple and intuitive, making it easy to create attention-grabbing quizzes, surveys, and polls in minutes. A great way to spice up any presentation, encourage audience participation, and collect authentic feedback.

7 . Venngage

Venngage stands out as a versatile design tool that facilitates the creation of interactive infographics, data visualizations and presentations with ease. Offering various interactive elements and animations, Venngage empowers you to craft visually appealing and engaging presentations effortlessly.

With these interactive presentation software options at your disposal, you can unleash your creativity and deliver presentations that leave a lasting impact on your audience. So, go ahead and make your presentations interactive, captivating and memorable!

For more presentation software options, check out this blog on the 12 best presentation software for 2023.

Creating interactive presentations can be a game-changer for engaging your audience and enhancing your presentation skills, but steering clear of common pitfalls is essential. Here are some key mistakes to avoid when crafting your interactive presentations:

1. Overloading with interactivity

While interactivity is fantastic, bombarding your audience with too many interactive elements can backfire. Strive for a balanced approach that enhances engagement without overwhelming your listeners.

2. Ignoring audience relevance

Failing to tailor interactive elements to your audience’s interests and preferences can lead to disconnection. Make sure your interactions resonate with your specific audience for a more meaningful experience.

3. Not testing interactive elements

Skipping thorough testing of interactive features before showtime can spell disaster. Avoid technical glitches by diligently testing all interactive components in advance.

4. Poor timing and pace

Timing is everything, especially with interactive activities. Ensure seamless integration by planning your key points and the timing of your interactive elements carefully.

5. Lack of clear purpose

Every interactive element should serve a purpose and contribute to your presentation’s objectives. Don’t add interactions just for the sake of it — ensure they add value and align with your message.

6. Failing to engage beyond interactivity

While interactive elements are powerful tools, remember that content is king. Combine your interactive features with compelling storytelling and valuable insights to create an immersive and impactful presentation.

Incorporating animated slides into your interactive presentations enhances the overall appeal and interaction, turning an ordinary presentation into an engaging experience. Try it out with one of our animated presentation templates to get started. 

How do you start an interactive presentation?

Begin by grabbing the audience’s attention with an intriguing question or a surprising fact, setting the tone for a dynamic and engaging session.

Which type of presentation is the most interactive?

Workshops and seminars are often the most interactive types of presentations as they encourage active participation, discussions and hands-on activities.

How can interactive presentations enhance audience engagement?

Interactive presentations foster a two-way communication flow, involving the audience through polls, quizzes, discussions and multimedia elements, leading to increased interest, attentiveness and better retention of information.

What are some common interactive elements to include in a presentation?

Common interactive elements include clickable buttons, hyperlinked text, polls, quizzes, interactive charts, multimedia content and audience participation activities.

Can interactive presentations be used for educational purposes?

Absolutely! Interactive presentations are highly effective for educational purposes as they promote active learning, encourage critical thinking, and provide real-time feedback and knowledge exchange opportunities.

Need inspiration on how to give an engaging presentation ? Here are 120+ presentation ideas you could use. 

Venngage makes it easy for anyone to infuse interactivity into their presentations. From clickable buttons and hyperlinked text to interactive infographics and dynamic charts, Venngage offers a diverse range of interactive elements to captivate and engage the audience. Here’s how you can make your presentation more fun and interesting with Venngage:

• Sign up or log in to Venngage to access the platform.
• Choose a presentation template or start with a blank canvas to begin designing your interactive presentation.
• Add and edit slides in the Venngage editor to structure your presentation content effectively.
• Customize the design by selecting themes, fonts, colors and backgrounds to match your style and branding.
• Use interactive elements like buttons, links, pop-ups and hover effects to engage the audience during the presentation.
• Enhance engagement by incorporating interactive media such as videos and audio clips.
• Preview and test your entire presentation to ensure everything works smoothly before presenting it to your audience.
• Save your interactive presentation on Venngage and share it online or download it in various formats for presenting purposes.

Well, I hope these 15 5-minute interactive presentation examples can help unlock a new level of audience engagement for your next presentation. From fun quizzes and interactive storytelling to multimedia magic and gamified challenges, the possibilities are endless. So, don’t be afraid to experiment, tailor the ideas to suit your audience members and let your creativity shine.  

That said, remember to strike a balance and keep the interactivity purposeful and relevant. Some common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive slides include overloading the presentation with too many interactive elements and failing to align the interactive elements with the overall presentation goals and content. 

Got it? Great. Now let’s turn that boring presentation around!

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• Mastering Event Presentation
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Creating Interactive Presentations That Engage and Inspire

Aayush Jain

Principles of interactive presentation design.

Engaging the Modern Audience with Interactive Design Principles

In the realm of presentations, engagement is king. Interactive presentation design represents a paradigm shift from the traditional, often passive, audience experience to a dynamic, participatory form of communication. This approach not only captivates attention but fosters a deeper understanding and retention of presented content. At its core, interactive design principles advocate for the inclusion of elements that invite audience members to become an active part of the narrative. These principles are anchored in understanding the audience's needs, leveraging multimedia and storytelling, and creating a two-way communication channel.

The Foundation of Interaction

Interactive presentation design is rooted in the cognitive and emotional aspects of learning and communication. It employs strategies that cater to diverse learning styles—visual, auditory, and kinesthetic—ensuring that all audience members are engaged and absorbed. The historical background of interactive design reveals a journey from straightforward lectures to the incorporation of interactive elements like Q&A sessions, live polls, and real-time feedback. This evolution mirrors the broader trends in technology and audience expectations, where engagement and interactivity have become paramount.

Real-World Applications and Impact

The practical application of interactive design principles can be seen in the increasing use of interactive presentation tools such as live polls, Q&A platforms, and collaborative whiteboards. These tools transform passive listeners into active participants engaging presentations, encouraging them to contribute their thoughts and questions in real time. For instance, companies like Slido and Mentimeter enable presenters to create live polls and word clouds, enhancing audience interaction. Similarly, educational institutions leverage platforms like Kahoot! for gamifying learning, thus making educational presentations more engaging and interactive.

Evidence of Efficacy

The effectiveness of interactive presentation design is supported by numerous studies and real-world examples. For instance, a report by the Event Technology Engagement Barometer highlighted that events utilizing interactive technologies saw a 33% increase in audience engagement. Furthermore, a survey conducted by Microsoft Teams revealed that presentations incorporating interactive elements were more likely to hold the audience's attention, thereby improving retention and satisfaction rates. These findings underscore the importance of adopting interactive design principles to create engaging and memorable presentations.

Tools and Technologies for Creating Interactive Elements

Empowering Presentations with Cutting-Edge Tools

In the digital age, the powerful tools and technologies at our disposal have transformed how we create, deliver, and experience presentations. The cornerstone of any engaging presentation is its ability to interact with the audience in real-time, and this is made possible through an array of innovative interactive presentation tools. From advanced software that integrates live polls and surveys to platforms that facilitate immersive storytelling, these technologies are designed to break the fourth wall of presentations, inviting audience members to step into the narrative and actively participate.

A Historical Perspective on Interactive Technologies

The evolution of interactive presentation tools mirrors the technological advancements of our times. From the early days of slide projectors and overhead transparencies to the sophisticated digital platforms of today, the journey has been marked by a constant endeavor to make presentations more engaging and informative. Modern tools like PowerPoint, Google Slides, and Prezi have incorporated interactive features such as clickable links, embedded videos, and dynamic animations. Moreover, the advent of cloud-based collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams and Google Drive has revolutionized the way presentations are created and shared, enabling real-time collaboration and feedback.

Showcasing Success Through Technology

Real-world examples of these technologies in action are a testament to their impact on audience engagement. For instance, during a global sales conference, a leading tech company leveraged an interactive conference solution to conduct live polls, gaining instant feedback on product preferences and market trends. This immediate interaction not only kept the audience engaged but also provided valuable insights for the company. Another example is an educational workshop where the presenter used gamification tools to create a quiz competition, making the learning process fun and memorable for participants.

Strategies for Real-Time Audience Participation

Crafting Interactive Experiences for Immediate Engagement

Real-time audience participation is the heartbeat of interactive presentations, turning passive observation into active involvement. Developing effective strategies for this participation is crucial for presenters aiming to foster engagement and maintain the audience’s attention. These strategies range from leveraging technology to facilitate instant interaction to creating content that demands audience input. The goal is to design a presentation where audience members feel compelled to contribute, whether through questions, opinions, or responses to live polls.

The Evolution of Audience Participation

The concept of audience participation has evolved significantly, thanks in large part to technological advancements. Historically, participation was limited to verbal questions at the end of a presentation or hand-raising during a session. Today, digital tools have broadened the scope of interaction, allowing for a variety of participation forms. Live presentation software now supports real-time feedback, live Q&A sessions, live subtitles, and the ability to tailor content on the fly based on audience responses. This shift not only enhances engagement but also democratizes the presentation process, giving every audience member a voice.

Implementing Participation in the Digital Age

Effective real-time audience participation is evidenced in a range of scenarios, from academic lectures to other presentations interactive corporate webinars . For instance, a university professor may use live polls during a lecture to gauge students’ understanding of the material, adjusting the pace and focus of the lecture based on the results. Similarly, a marketing webinar might employ live Q&A sessions, allowing the presenter to address audience queries and concerns immediately, thereby increasing the relevance and impact of the presentation. These examples highlight the potential of real-time participation strategies to transform the presentation experience.

The effectiveness of these participation strategies is underscored by data and research. A study in the Journal of Education and Work found that presentations incorporating strategies for real-time audience participation significantly increased student engagement and learning outcomes compared to traditional lecture methods. Additionally, a survey by an interactive conference solution provider revealed that events facilitating real-time audience interaction reported a 50% higher satisfaction rate among participants. This data reinforces the importance of integrating audience participation strategies to create more engaging and effective presentations.

Designing Interactive Polls and Surveys

Unlocking Audience Insights Through Interactive Tools

Interactive polls and surveys serve as a bridge between presenters and their audience, facilitating a two-way exchange of information that can significantly enhance the engagement and effectiveness of a presentation. By carefully designing these interactive elements, presenters can gather real-time feedback, gauge audience understanding, and tailor their messages to meet the audience's needs and interests. This section delves into the principles of creating compelling polls and surveys that captivate and engage your audience as members and encourage their participation.

Foundations of Effective Poll and Survey Design

The effectiveness of polls and surveys in a presentation hinges on their design and implementation. A well-crafted poll should be concise, relevant, and thought-provoking, prompting immediate reflection and response from the audience. Similarly, surveys should be streamlined and purposeful, designed to gather actionable insights without overburdening participants. Historical perspectives on audience feedback highlight the shift from paper-based surveys and hand-counted votes to sophisticated digital platforms that offer instant analysis and visualization of responses. This evolution underscores the importance of integrating these tools thoughtfully into presentations to maximize engagement and feedback.

Real-World Applications and Success Stories

Incorporating interactive polls and surveys into presentations has proven successful across various settings. For instance, a corporate trainer conducting a workshop on communication skills used real-time polling to assess participants' understanding of key concepts, adjusting the focus of the session based on the results. Another example comes from a national conference on sustainable development, where organizers used surveys to gather attendees' opinions on priority topics, shaping the agenda and discussions of future events. These cases illustrate how interactive elements can be leveraged to make presentations more responsive and audience-centric.

Evidence of Impact and Best Practices

Research supports the positive impact of interactive polls and surveys on audience engagement. A study published in the Interactive Learning Environments journal found that presentations incorporating real-time polling significantly improved participants' attention and retention of information. Additionally, best practices for designing these tools emphasize clarity, relevance, and timing to ensure they enhance rather than interrupt the presentation flow. For instance, deploying a poll at the beginning of a presentation can pique interest, while a concluding survey can gather feedback and measure the presentation's effectiveness.

Incorporating Gamification into Presentations

Elevating Engagement through Play

Gamification, the integration of game-design elements in non-game contexts, has emerged as a powerful tool to increase audience engagement and participation in presentations. By incorporating elements such as competition, rewards, and interactivity, presenters can transform traditional presentations into dynamic, engaging experiences that captivate audience members. This approach not only makes learning more enjoyable but also enhances information retention and fosters a deeper connection between the presenter and the audience.

The Psychology Behind Gamification

The effectiveness of gamification in presentations is deeply rooted in psychology, particularly in how humans are motivated by achievement, competition, and the joy of learning in an interactive environment. Historical applications of gamification show its progression from simple educational games to sophisticated digital platforms that engage users in learning and development contexts. This evolution highlights the growing recognition of gamification as a potent tool for enhancing engagement and learning outcomes in various settings, including professional and academic presentations.

Success Stories Across Industries

The impact of gamification is evident across diverse fields. In the corporate world, companies have leveraged gamified presentations to train employees, resulting in improved knowledge retention and increased motivation. For example, a sales team might participate in a quiz competition that tests their product knowledge, with real-time scoring and rewards for top performers. In academic settings, educators have used gamification to make complex subjects more accessible and engaging for students, leading to higher participation rates and better learning outcomes. These real-world examples underscore the versatility and effectiveness of gamification in making presentations more interactive and enjoyable.

Validating Gamification's Effectiveness

Research supports the benefits of incorporating gamification into presentations. A study published in the Journal of Educational Technology & Society found that gamified learning environments significantly enhanced student engagement and academic performance compared to traditional teaching methods. Moreover, feedback from participants in gamified presentations often highlights increased attention, motivation, and enjoyment, further validating the approach. Best practices for implementing gamification include defining clear objectives, selecting appropriate game mechanics, and ensuring the gamified elements are relevant and aligned with the presentation's goals.

Case Studies: Successful Interactive Presentations

Exploring the Impact of Engagement

The value of interactive presentations is best illustrated through real-world examples that demonstrate their effectiveness in captivating and maintaining audience interest. This section delves into diverse case studies across sectors, showcasing how innovative presentation strategies can lead to meaningful engagement and transformative outcomes.

Theoretical Foundations and Methodological Approach

Begin by discussing the importance of case studies in understanding the practical application of interactive presentation principles. Highlight the criteria for selecting case studies, such as diversity in industry, audience size, and the types of presentation skills interactive elements used. This background sets the stage for a deeper exploration of each example, providing readers with a framework for analyzing the success factors of interactive presentations .

Real-World Examples and Lessons Learned

Detail several case studies, focusing on

The objectives of each presentation and the audience it targeted.

The specific interactive elements incorporated (e.g., live polls, gamification, real-time Q&A, interactive slides).

The challenges faced in designing and delivering these presentations and how they were overcome.

The outcomes of each presentation, supported by feedback, engagement metrics, or other measurable impacts.

For instance, you might describe a tech conference where live polls were used to tailor the presentation interactive content flow in real-time, or a university lecture series that incorporated gamification to enhance student participation and learning outcomes. Each case study should highlight how interactive strategies were tailored to the presentation's goals and audience needs, providing insights into the versatility and effectiveness of interactive elements.

Overcoming Challenges in Interactive Presentation Design

Navigating the Roadblocks to Engagement

Even the most meticulously planned interactive presentations can face challenges that hinder audience engagement and the overall success of the event. These obstacles range from technical difficulties to audience reluctance, and overcoming them requires a blend of preparation, flexibility, and creativity. This section explores common challenges encountered in interactive presentation design and offers strategies for mitigating these issues to ensure a smooth and effective delivery.

Understanding the Challenges

Begin by identifying the typical challenges presenters face when designing interactive presentations. These might include technological glitches, such as software failures or connectivity issues; designing content that resonates with a diverse audience; encouraging participation from reluctant or shy audience members; and ensuring the interactive elements do not distract from the core message of the presentation. Providing a background on these challenges sets the stage for discussing practical solutions.

Strategies for Success

Offer detailed strategies to overcome each challenge, drawing on expert advice and successful practices. For instance, to address technological issues, recommend thorough testing of all interactive elements and having a backup plan in case of failure. To encourage audience participation, suggest techniques such as anonymous polling or gamification, which can make involvement less intimidating. Highlight the importance of tailoring content to the audience's interests and knowledge level, ensuring that interactive elements enhance rather than detract from the presentation's message.

Real-World Solutions and Adaptations

Incorporate examples of how presenters have successfully navigated these challenges in live presentations in the past. These anecdotes can demonstrate the application of the strategies discussed and provide tangible evidence of their effectiveness. For example, share a case where a presenter turned a technical glitch into an opportunity for a spontaneous Q&A session, thereby maintaining audience engagement despite the setback.

Best Practices for Facilitating Audience Q&A Sessions

Mastering the Art of Interactive Dialogue

Audience Q&A sessions are a cornerstone of interactive presentations , offering a platform for direct communication, clarification, and deeper exploration of the presented topics. However, facilitating these sessions effectively requires more than just opening the floor for questions. It involves strategic planning, active listening, and adaptive communication techniques to ensure that this interactive component enriches the audience involved overall presentation experience. This section outlines best practices for managing Q&A sessions that engage and add value for both the presenter and the audience.

Foundational Strategies for Q&A Facilitation

Start by addressing the preparatory steps essential for a successful Q&A session. Emphasize the importance of setting clear guidelines for questions at the beginning of the presentation, such as the topics covered and the format for submitting questions (live, through microphones, or via digital platforms). Discuss the role of technology, like interactive conference solutions, in streamlining the Q&A process, allowing for real-time question submission and voting to prioritize audience interest.

Engaging Every Participant

Highlight techniques to encourage participation from all audience members, not just the most vocal ones. This could involve soliciting questions from different parts of the room or using digital tools to allow anonymous submissions, thereby lowering the barrier for participation. Share tips for maintaining a respectful and inclusive atmosphere, ensuring that all questions are valued and addressed appropriately.

Handling Difficult Questions and Situations

Offer insights into navigating challenging aspects of Q&A sessions, such as dealing with off-topic, controversial, or complex questions. Provide strategies for staying composed under pressure, redirecting questions to stay on track, and acknowledging when an answer isn't immediately available. Illustrate how these situations can be turned into opportunities for further engagement, such as promising to follow up after the presentation or inviting the audience to explore the topic through additional resources.

Measuring Engagement in Interactive Presentations

Quantifying the Impact of Participation

In the landscape of interactive presentations, measuring engagement is crucial for understanding the effectiveness of your approach and the extent to which your audience connects with the content. Engagement metrics provide tangible feedback on what resonates with the audience, allowing presenters to refine their strategies for future presentations. This section explores the methodologies and tools available for assessing audience engagement, offering insights into how data-driven decisions can enhance the interactive presentation experience.

The Pillars of Engagement Measurement

Begin by outlining the key metrics and indicators that signify engagement during a presentation. These can include quantitative data such as poll participation rates, number of questions asked during Q&A sessions, and interaction rates with live quizzes or surveys. Also, consider qualitative indicators, like the depth and relevance of audience questions or feedback collected through post-presentation surveys. Discuss the importance of setting clear objectives for what you wish to measure, ensuring that the engagement metrics chosen are aligned with the goals of the presentation.

Tools and Technologies for Gathering Data

Highlight the role of interactive presentation tools in facilitating engagement measurement. Many platforms come equipped with analytics features that track participation in real-time, offering insights into audience behavior and interaction patterns. For example, digital platforms can provide detailed reports on audience participation in polls, time spent on different presentation slides, and engagement levels throughout the presentation. Explain how integrating these tools into your presentation strategy can offer a comprehensive view of audience engagement.

Analyzing and Interpreting Data

Offer guidance on analyzing the collected data to draw meaningful conclusions about audience engagement. Discuss the importance of comparing metrics against benchmarks or previous presentations to identify trends and areas for improvement. Share examples of how data analysis can reveal insights into audience preferences, enabling presenters to tailor content more effectively to their audience's interests and engagement patterns.

Future Trends in Interactive Presentation Technology

Anticipating the Next Wave of Engagement

As we navigate through an era marked by rapid technological advancements, the domain of interactive presentations is poised for transformative changes. Emerging trends in presentation technology not only promise to enhance the ways we interact with our audience but also to redefine the very nature of engagement and participation. This section explores the cutting-edge developments forecasted to shape the future of interactive presentations, offering a glimpse into how presenters and audiences might connect in the years to come.

Immersive Technologies and Virtual Realities

Begin by discussing the integration of immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) into presentation platforms. These technologies offer the potential to create fully immersive presentation environments where audience members can experience content in a highly interactive and engaging manner. Illustrate potential applications, such as virtual walkthroughs for architectural designs or interactive 3D models for educational purposes, highlighting the possibilities for deeper engagement and understanding.

Artificial Intelligence and Personalization

Highlight the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in personalizing presentation content in real-time based on audience feedback and participation. Discuss how AI algorithms could analyze live audience reactions to tailor the flow of the presentation, adjust the level of detail, or even generate new content on the fly to address audience interests and queries. This trend points towards more dynamic and responsive presentations that actively adapt to the needs of the audience.

Enhanced Collaboration Platforms

Focus on the evolution of collaboration platforms that facilitate more interactive and participatory presentations, especially in remote and hybrid environments. Describe advancements in tools that enable better audience interaction, such as shared digital workspaces, real-time co-creation of content, and more effective ways to simulate the energy and engagement of in-person events online. These platforms are expected to break down geographical barriers, making interactive presentations more accessible and inclusive.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an engaging presentation.

An engaging presentation captivates the audience's attention through interactive elements, storytelling, and relevant content. It encourages active participation, making the audience feel involved and invested in the topic being discussed.

How can I be more engaging when presenting?

To be more engaging, focus on connecting with your audience through eye contact, storytelling, and questions that invite participation. Utilize interactive tools like polls and Q&A sessions to foster real-time interaction and keep your presentation dynamic.

What is the 2 4 8 rule in PowerPoint?

The 2 4 8 rule suggests limiting each PowerPoint slide to no more than 2 minutes of speaking time, 4 bullet points, and 8 words per bullet point. This guideline helps in creating clear, concise slides that support rather than detract from key points of your presentation.

What is a live presentation?

A live presentation involves delivering content in real-time, allowing for direct interaction with the audience. This format can be in-person or via a digital platform, and it often features interactive elements like polls, Q&A sessions, live reactions, and live feedback.

How do you make a presentation alive?

Make a presentation alive by incorporating interactive elements, storytelling, visual aids, and personal anecdotes. Engage the audience with questions, live polls, live captions and opportunities for them to contribute their thoughts and experiences.

How do you make a live presentation on PowerPoint?

To make a live presentation on PowerPoint, utilize its features like Presenter View for seamless delivery, and integrate interactive elements from previous slides such as hyperlinks, embedded videos, and animations. Consider using live polling software that integrates with PowerPoint to add real-time audience interaction.

How do I share a live presentation?

Share a live presentation by using platforms mobile devices that support live streaming or web conferencing tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet. These platforms allow you to present your screen or specific application windows to a remote audience in real-time.

How do you make a conference interactive?

Make a conference an interactive experience by incorporating workshops, breakout sessions, live polls, and Q&A segments. Utilize digital tools to facilitate engagement and ensure there are opportunities for attendees to interact both with speakers and with one another.

What is interactive conference?

An interactive conference is an event designed to foster engagement and participation among attendees. It goes beyond traditional lectures by incorporating elements such as workshops, panel discussions, and technology-enabled interactive sessions.

What is the best virtual meeting platform?

The best virtual meeting platform depends on your specific needs, but popular options include Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. These platforms offer a range of features designed to facilitate communication, collaboration, and interaction in a virtual environment.

How do you engage people in a conference?

Engage people in a conference by offering diverse formats of presentation, including interactive panels, workshops, and networking sessions. Use technology to enable real-time interaction, such as live polls, Q&A apps, and social media channels for ongoing discussion.

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How to make a presentation interactive and exciting

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What makes a presentation interactive?

Main benefits of interactive presentation, 9 ways to make your presentation interactive, types of interactive presentations, take your presentations to the next level.

An impactful speech or lecture requires more than being an articulate speaker . If you want the information to stick, your audience should engage with you and the material you’re presenting.

And that audience is changing. Among people with teleworkable jobs, 76% worked remotely some, most, or all of the time . Presentations are tricky when you’re catering to a virtual audience and don’t have the benefit of a physical space. And they’re even trickier when the people you’re speaking to are a mix of in-office and remote workers.

Creating a good presentation that incorporates the needs of both in-person and online audiences can feel like a tall order. But there’s a way to transform your spectators from passive listeners to active participants, giving them a memorable experience no matter the platform. And that solution is interaction.

Learning how to make a presentation interactive can grab and keep your audience's attention so they remember your session and its key takeaways. Here’s how to use interactive elements like Q&As, live demonstrations, and fun quizzes to make your presentations more exciting.

An interactive presentation has elements that involve the audience. The presenter engages with the group in real-time, asking and answering questions or encouraging participants to voice their opinions. Interactive presentations can also include online polls, quizzes, and face-to-face activities between audience members.

You’ve probably experienced a standard presentation where the speaker stands at the front of a projected PowerPoint slideshow, talking at you. Your only chance to engage comes when they open the floor to audience questions, and that’s only if there’s enough time. 

The presenter will still get the point across, but this approach can get boring, and it might be hard to pay attention if you’re not engaged. Around 90% of people admit to daydreaming during meetings and presentations , which can impact comprehension. An interactive presenter transforms the audience from viewers into active contributors and collaborators, making it easier to pay attention and gain from the meeting. 

A captivating presentation does more than just get the audience involved. It improves comprehension, helps you connect, and personalizes the experience. Here are more benefits to including interactive elements in presentations: 

• Connection: Human connection benefits everyone involved . An interactive presentation offers more back-and-forth between yourself and your audience, creating a sense of familiarity and an outlet for connection.
• Comprehension: Studies show that during conversations, the speaker’s brain activity and the listener’s brain activity mimic each other, which improves understanding . Interactivity helps the audience better absorb the information you’re presenting. 
• Engagement: Employee engagement leads to a happier workforce and improved company culture . Making the audience part of every meeting can contribute to their experience at work overall, and it’ll hold their interest in the moment. 
• Cooperation: Soliciting contributions or setting up participation activities means you won’t be talking for the whole presentation, which can help you feel less tired. You’re letting the audience do some of the work for you.
• Personalization: When you draw on your audience’s input, you’re creating a customized experience that is more meaningful and memorable. And interactivity means you’ll never give the same presentation twice, so your material will stay fresh.

Choose one (or a few) interactive elements to add interest to your presentation and improve comprehension. Experiment with different options and find the activities that stick. If you aren’t sure how it went, ask for presentation feedback to learn what the group enjoyed most and what you could improve. 

Here are a few interactive methods to try:

1. Icebreaker questions

Using a fun icebreaker to kick off your presentation creates a connection between yourself and members of the audience. You can keep it simple by asking a straightforward question or separating participants into small groups for an activity like charades. Whatever method you choose, you’ll help everyone relax, set the tone, and encourage participation for what’s to come. 

2. Storytelling

Listening to a good story makes your brain more engaged and helps you relate to the storyteller . Introduce your talk with a personal anecdote and use it to create a framework for your presentation. Try using music clips, video clips, or sound effects to add an extra level of interest.

As your speech progresses, you can refer back to your narrative and connect your ideas, creating a clearer line of thought. Telling a good story can also create a rapport with your audience, helping them relate to you through empathy or shared experience.  

Using interactive polls for presentations demonstrates that you care about your audience’s opinion. You can use a poll to gauge interest in a specific topic, learn how the group is feeling in the moment, or segue into a new section of the presentation. A live poll will also provide immediate feedback, helping you gauge whether your content has the effect you want it to.

Adding an interactive quiz for a presentation can help you read the room and assess your audience’s comprehension. Giving a quick quiz at the end of every section also lets you know if you need to follow up and explain your point further or open the floor to questions. Apps like Kahoot work well because everyone can pull out their smartphones and join in. The friendly competition of a quiz can also be a good motivator.

5. Question and answer

If you hold a Q&A session at the end of your presentation, the group might be too tired or rushed to find it meaningful. Instead, invite participants to ask their questions at key points throughout your talk. The information will be fresher in their minds, and a moment of conversation breaks up the lecture.

6. Demonstrations

If your presentation is about a product or concept, try showing it instead of telling it. Talking about the new app you’re launching isn’t as exciting as showing how it works. Demonstrating a concept, product, or service offers hands-on interaction and can make a more significant impact than words alone could.

7. Movement

Spending the whole presentation at the front of the room might bore both you and your audience. And it can be hard to create a personal connection when there’s a separation between you.

When you’re speaking, close the gap by moving through the venue space, pacing around, or speaking directly to different sections of the audience. Proximity and body language can help reinforce the connection you’ve built throughout your presentation.

Using props might sound gimmicky, but they can be powerful tools to help audiences engage with your material. Allowing your audience to interact with an item related to your speech can help break the third wall and add an element of fun.

Find an object that represents what you’re talking about, either literally or symbolically. For example, in Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED talk about her stroke, she shows the audience a real human brain to explain what happened .

You may have many methods for gauging your presentation’s success. Did the audience laugh at the jokes? Did you receive thank-you emails after ? This kind of indirect feedback can be telling, but it doesn’t provide you with actionable data.

Instead, incorporating a post-event survey gives your audience one last chance to share their thoughts and opinions with you. It gives the group a moment for self-reflection on what they’ve learned, and the feedback can help you improve your presentation skills before your next talk.

To apply interactive techniques that work the way you want them to, you need to be clear on the type of presentation you’re giving. Presenting the past quarter’s sales numbers has vastly different requirements than a lecture inspiring high school students to start volunteering. Understanding your audience and having clear goals will inform the format of your presentation and what kind of interaction suits it best. You have some freedom to mix and match elements of one format into another as long as they're complimentary, like adding persuasive characteristics to an inspirational speech. Here are five types of interactive presentations, with examples.

1. Informative

The goal of an informative presentation is to educate your audience. The structure shares factual information in a direct, unadorned fashion. For this kind of presentation, quizzes and polls work best because they test the audience’s knowledge. You can also use props to help them better understand complex information.

EXAMPLE: You present a workshop about your company’s style guide to new members of the marketing team and use a quiz to gauge their understanding.

2. Persuasive

You use a persuasive format when making a sales pitch or convincing an audience to take specific actions. Props, movement, and Q&As all work well for this format because they keep your audience engaged and give them the chance to learn more about the topic.

EXAMPLE: You’re leading a public meeting to encourage citizens to begin recycling and composting, and you bring a full garbage bag to represent the amount of waste each person produces in a day.

3. Inspirational

If you’re familiar with TED talks, you’ve likely experienced an inspirational presentation format. These speeches use storytelling to boost morale or inspire audience members to change their behavior or perspective. Try moving around the space or asking the group an icebreaker question to get them involved with the story.

EXAMPLE: You give a speech about how you moved up the ladder at your company, and you move around the room to better connect with the audience and tell them they could do the same.

4. Outcome-related

This collaborative presentation structure generates the most interaction between yourself and the participants because its goal is to work together. Use it to brainstorm solutions to a problem or determine the process you need to reach a desired outcome. Polls, quizzes, and surveys all work well for outcome-related presentations. EXAMPLE: You hold a meeting to develop a social media strategy for a new client and give an anonymous survey where team members can submit ideas.

5. Instructive 

An instructive presentation takes a deep dive into a topic. By the end, audiences expect to better understand an idea, concept, or possibly a product. Using storytelling and props can help demonstrate difficult concepts and give an audience more ways to connect with the topic.

EXAMPLE: You give a lecture on the benefits of solar panels on domestic buildings, and you bring in a solar panel with a lightbulb to show how it works.

Speaking in front of a group can be a little intimidating. But learning how to make a presentation interactive can elevate the event and relieve some of the nervousness associated with public speaking .

Whether you’re reviewing the results of a marketing campaign or speaking about an issue near and dear to your heart, interactivity helps transform a one-sided lecture into a participatory event. Meaningful audience interactions help your audience remember what you’re talking about and connect with the story you’re telling.

So next time you develop a virtual team-building exercise or present last month’s sales report, you’ll have the interactive presentation ideas you need to create an engaging experience, no matter your audience.

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Elizabeth Perry, ACC

Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

How to give a good presentation that captivates any audience

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The Best 6 Interactive Presentation Tools

Giving a presentation is hard enough without worrying about getting crickets from your audience. Whether you're presenting an idea to your colleagues, speaking at a conference, or lecturing in a classroom, making your presentation interactive is a surefire way to increase audience engagement (and enjoyment).

With years of experience, we're experts in the field of interactive presentation software. We've put together a list of the top tools you can use to get your group interacting, engaging, and having a great time during your talk.

Without further ado, here's the list:

1. Slides With Friends

What is Slides With Friends?

Slides With Friends is an interactive presentation tool that offers slide decks similarly styled to PowerPoint —but this tool is different from PowerPoint because its slide decks have interactive features to engage your audience. Those features include live polls, ratings, live word clouds, videos, gifs, live photo sharing, live trivia, live quizzes, and more. 

How does Slides With Friends work? 

After creating an account, you'll have access to hundreds of presentation templates that fall into different categories, some of which are conferences, trivia, happy hour, team building, and education. Once you pick a slide deck template, you can customize it by changing the colors, fonts, images, and backgrounds. You can also add or remove interactive features based on your preferences.

When you're ready to start your presentation, all you have to do is share your screen. Then, your audience should scan the QR code to join the fun. Participants can submit responses to your presentation questions and engage in your activities and games from anywhere using their mobile devices!

‍ Pros of using Slides With Friends:

• Live features: With live polling, word clouds, photo sharing, charts, graphs, quizzes, and trivia, your audience will stay energized during your entire presentation! 
• Real-time insights: The many live features provide real-time updates to keep your audience engaged , intrigued, and in the know!
• Easy to use: You don't have to be tech-savvy to customize a slide deck or build an interactive presentation from scratch. Slides With Friends offers an easy and clean user experience. 
• Customizable: You can choose from a plethora of design options, like changing the background, updating font pairings, creating color palettes, and much more. 
• Mobile-first: Some interactive presentation software asks audience members to download an app to submit responses. With Slides With Friends, all people have to do is scan a QR code and submit responses using their mobile devices.  

Cons of using Slides With Friends:

• Need a paid plan for larger audiences: Ten people can engage with your presentation for free, so if you have a larger group, you'll need a paid plan. The good news is that those paid tiers are affordable, so you don't have to worry about breaking the bank.  

‍ Main Takeaway

The simplicity and fun, unique features that Slides With Friends offers makes it one of the top interactive presentation software, which is why everyone from teachers to speakers to managers use it. The slide decks are straightforward, and the templates are easy to customize—and when you're ready to start your presentation, participants can join without any hassle or downloads.

2. AhaSlides

What is AhaSlides?

AhaSlides is another interactive presentation tool that makes it easy for you to engage your audience. Similar to Slides With Friends, this tool has tons of customizable presentation templates, and they fall into many different categories like work, games, meetings, surveys, and holidays. Each template comes with interactive features to entertain your audience, including word clouds, a spinner wheel, polls, Q&A, sliding scales, and quizzes. 

How does AhaSlides work?

Getting started with AhaSlides is easy. After signing up, simply build your presentation from scratch or choose one of the many templates that AhaSlides offers. Once you're ready to present, make sure everyone can see your screen and ask your audience to join the fun by using the QR code or URL link. 

Pros of AhaSlides:

• User-friendly interface: AhaSlides has a similar setup and style to many other interactive presentation tools, so the learning curve is minimal. 
• On-slide editing: This software provides more options for on-slide designs and editing. 
• Cost-effective: All of AhaSlides' plans are affordable. Its most expensive one is under $20/month.
• Good for large groups: You can interact with up to 10k participants during your presentation, making this tool great for big conferences and large events.

Cons of AhaSlides: 

• Limitations: There aren't many different types of surveys and poll questions you can ask. 
• Customizing photos: All of your images on AhaSlides must be square.
• Can't undo: If you make a mistake while building your presentation on AhaSlides, you can't undo any changes. 

Main Takeaway

AhaSlides is a great interactive presentation tool that lets you achieve the same goals and add the same interactive features as other software. You may especially enjoy this tool if you want something that's budget-friendly— but beware that the low cost comes with some serious drawbacks, like the inability to undo mistakes and add different types of images. 

3. Mentimeter

What is Mentimeter?

‍ Mentimeter is an audience engagement platform that lets you build full presentations with interactive features and slides. This tool lets you add live polling , surveys, word clouds, Q&As, and quizzes, as well as Truth or Lie, Guess the Number, and This or That slides to engage your audience. It also offers many presentation templates for you to build on and customize. 

How does Mentimeter work?

Once you sign up, Mentimeter will ask a few questions to understand how you plan to use their service. Then, the software will analyze your responses to suggest specific templates based on your needs. If you don't like their recommendations, you can access all of Mentimeter's templates to find what you want. 

After you create your presentation and are ready to launch, your audience can respond to your questions, react to your content, and ask questions using any device. All of their responses are anonymous, too—and their feedback will appear on the screen immediately after they submit them. 

Pros of using Mentimeter:

• Feedback gathering: Mentimeter is great if you want to gather insights from your audience or gauge your audience's sentiments about a particular topic. 
• Customization capabilities: You can tailor every template to fit your needs. You can even include your own branding. 
• Integrations: Mentimeter is a corporate-friendly tool that integrates with Zoom, Hopin, Microsoft Teams, and PowerPoint. 

Cons of using Mentimeter:

• Restrictive free plan: The free version doesn't offer a lot of features and comes with many restrictions. 
• Expensive paid plans: If you want to access more features, you'll need a paid plan, but Mentimeter's paid tiers are significantly higher than other interactive presentation tools. 
• Steep learning curve: Mentimeter isn't intuitive—some features are complex, so first-time users may struggle.
• Inefficient customer support: Because of the company's location, the support team and support hours will be an obstacle for users in different time zones.
• Editing restrictions: On-slide editing is not possible . Instead of editing content on the actual slides, you'll have to edit text fields on the side. 

Mentimeter has many features you need to make your presentation interactive, but accessing those features comes at a hefty cost. Also, because Mentimeter isn't intuitive, implementing certain elements can be difficult and time-consuming. However, if you're tech-savvy, Mentimeter could be a powerful and useful presentation tool. ‍

What is Slido?

Slido is a Q&A and live polling platform that lets you interact with your audience during your presentation . With this tool, you can ask poll questions and receive audience feedback in real time. Your audience can also submit questions and vote for their favorite ones. Because of these features, Slido is an interactive presentation tool that's best for Q&A sessions, Ask Me Anything, curating and brainstorming ideas, quizzes, and feedback gathering. 

How does Slido work?

Slido integrates with other presentation and video conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams, Vimeo, PowerPoint, and Google Slides. After signing up, you can access the tool and add its polling and Q&A features to your presentation slides. Once you're ready to present, your audience can join the fun by using the event link or QR code to participate. People can submit their responses using their mobile devices or laptop.

Pros of Slido: 

• Integrations: Because it has so many integrations, you can use Slido on essentially any presentation builder. 
• Good for large groups: Slido lets you add up to 5K participants, so it's good for large grounds. 

Cons of Slido: 

• Learning curve: Many users believe Slido is hard to learn and comes with too many steps for presenters. Some needed multiple explanations from other users on how to utilize the tool. 
• Limited features: All you get with Slido are polling and Q&A options, so you won't have many ways to engage your audience. 
• Limited free option: The free plan has very basic features. With this plan, engaging your audience will be challenging.
• Expensive: Slido is one of the more expensive options, with the enterprise plan reaching $200/month. 
• Delays: Some users have experienced delays in displaying participants' responses on slides. 

Main Takeaway 

Slido is a good tool with great integrations. But its features are limited, and its plans are expensive. If you add the learning curve some users complain about, you may not find many benefits in using Slido—however, it's still worth considering if you care about integrations.  

What is Vevox?

Vevox is a live polling, quiz, and Q&A platform that helps you engage your audience . This interactive presentation software integrates with multiple tools, including Powerpoint, Blackboard, and Microsoft Teams. 

With Vevox, you can gather anonymous feedback to ensure everyone has a voice, gauge your audience's views on topics, and jumpstart a fun, competitive atmosphere with a quizzing experience. Vevox also lets you showcase participants' responses with unique visuals like word clouds.

How does Vevox work? 

After signing up for Vevox, you can use its integration feature to convert slides on your presentation into Vevox polling, Q&A, or quiz slides. During your actual presentation, participants can interact with you by scanning a QR code or entering an event ID, both of which will be present on your Vevox slides. Audience members can submit their questions and responses from anywhere and on any device. 

Pros of Vevox:

• Great free plans: Vevox has two free plans—one for businesses and one for educators. Both allow up to 100 participants to interact with your presentation, and each tier provides integrations with Microsoft Teams and Powerpoint. 
• Easy to run: Most users believe Vevox is easy to use and run. 
• Integrations: With Vevox's many integrations, you can use the presentation tools you prefer. 

Cons of Vevox:

• Expensive: Vevox is one of the most costly interactive presentation tools, with plans reaching $799/month. 
• Poor design for end-users: Some presenters have expressed issues with how answer options appear on end-users' mobile devices. 
• Best for Microsoft products: While Vevox integrates with many tools, it works seamlessly with Microsoft products like Teams, PowerPoint, and Windows. With other platforms, the integration is a bit more challenging. 
• Few interactive features: Many users believe Vevox doesn't offer enough features to engage audiences, especially when compared to similar options. Users also think Vevox doesn't provide enough dynamic ways to present participants' poll answers. 
• Data Gathering: Some users report issues getting data exported to another file. 

If you want an interactive presentation tool with basic engagement features, then Vevox is a good option. You can include a lot of participants with its free plans and use various integrations, which are bonuses if you typically speak to a large audience and have preferred presentation tools.

However, if you want interactive features that go beyond polling, quizzes, and Q&As to keep your audience glued in, then Vevox may not be the best solution. It's also quite expensive for lacking so many engagement features. 

6. Poll Everywhere

What is Poll Everywhere?

Poll Everywhere is a live polling tool that helps you gather feedback, gauge your audience's thoughts, and receive questions during your presentation. With Poll Everywhere, you can ask multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions and present participants' responses with word clouds. This interactive application also integrates with many presentation tools and meeting platforms, including PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. 

How does Poll Everywhere work?

You can access Poll Everywhere after creating an account. From there, you'll need to download Poll Everywhere on your device to enjoy the full, interactive experience. Once you download the application, you can use it when building your presentation by adding interactive poll questions to your slides. 

During your presentation, your audience can answer your poll questions using any device. Just share the activity link provided by Poll Everywhere. Then, participants can use that to see and respond to your questions. You can also dive deeper into participants' responses using the application's reporting capabilities—the tool lets you analyze audience insights using executive summaries, pivot tables, grade books, and participant response history. 

Pros of Poll Everywhere:

• Easy PowerPoint integrations: Users believe Poll Everywhere seamlessly integrates with PowerPoint. 
• Reporting capabilities: You can better understand your audience using one of the many report types that Poll Everywhere offers.
• Customer support: This application has a good tech support and customer service team. 
• Easy to use: Presenters and educators agree that Poll Everywhere is simple and straightforward.
• Consistently improving: Many users believe the company does a great job implementing feedback and enhancing features.

Cons of Poll Everywhere:

• Limited features: Like Vevox and Slido, Poll Everywhere doesn't have features beyond the basic interactive capabilities. 
• Learning Management System integration: Some users have trouble integrating Poll Everywhere with BlackBoard and other LMS platforms. 
• No enhancements: Other than word clouds, users think Poll Everywhere lacks the visual and audio enhancements that would make participants' responses fun to watch and hear. 
• Expensive: While Poll Everywhere isn't the most expensive interactive presentation tool, it's not the cheapest. To get a good amount of features, you need the "Engage" plan, which is a little less than $50/month. 

Poll Everywhere is a good live polling tool—and its reporting capabilities are especially great. However, it's like many other interactive presentation tools; it doesn't offer a lot of features, even though it's somewhat pricey. It also doesn't integrate well with platforms outside of Microsoft PowerPoint.

‍ Prevent the Glazed Eyes

With an interactive presentation tool, you'll increase your chances of building something that not only sticks but holds your audience's attention—and that's exactly what you need. In an age where people have trouble concentrating and regularly scrolling on social media is normal, you have about ten minutes to grab and keep your audience's attention. Failure to do so means you'll be another statistic people use when explaining the importance of having an interactive presentation. 

You've got 10 minutes. That's the span of time most people can stay mentally engaged with a presentation before they check out. So, unless you can create stimulating content and deliver it masterfully, you will find your audience scrolling through TikTok and checking their email. Studies have shown that 4 in 5 business professionals, regardless of age, shifted their focus away from the speaker in the most recent presentation they watched! - Jane Hanson, The 30-Point Rule, And Other Tips To Prepare A Killer Presentation That Will Keep Your Audience Off Their Phones

So, if you want to nail your presentation, don't go in with slides that only feature bulleted lists and a photo here and there. Liven things up by using a tool that'll enhance your presentation's interactivity. Then, you'll give a presentation so good that it'll prevent people from scrolling and potentially lead to a standing ovation instead. 

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The best interactive presentation ideas explained

Unlock engaging interactive presentation ideas and elevate your skills for memorable, dynamic audience engagement..

The art of delivering a presentation has evolved beyond static slides and monologues. Gone are the days of passive listening. Now, we’re in the era of interactive presentations—a dynamic, audience-engaging spectacle that's revolutionizing the way we communicate ideas.

In this blog, we guide you through the best interactive presentation ideas. Whether you're a professional striving to captivate your audience, an educator aiming to inject life into lessons, or a student eager to make an impact, this guide is your toolkit.

Explore the what, how, and why behind this game-changing approach, equipping you with the knowledge and tools to shine onstage or on screen!

Imagine a room where every individual feels heard and involved––that's the magic of interactivity!

Why interactive presentations are the future

Remember the old-school presentations, where the audience passively watched slides flip by? Well, they're quickly becoming relics of the past. The future is interactive, and boy, are we thankful for it. Interactive presentations mark a significant shift from traditional methods, inviting the audience to participate actively rather than observe.

The benefits of an interactive presentation

Increase audience engagement

Improve information retention

Encourage community and collaboration

For starters, an interactive presentation style boosts audience engagement. Imagine a room where every individual feels heard and involved––that's the magic of interactivity! It transforms passive listeners into active participants, ensuring your message doesn't go in one ear and out the other.

Next up is information retention. When your audience is involved, they're not just absorbing information, they're interacting with it. This interaction leads to better comprehension and retention.

Studies show that active participation significantly enhances memory recall. So, if you want your audience to remember your message, make them part of it. What’s more, interactive presentations foster a sense of community and collaboration. They break down the invisible wall between the presenter and the audience, creating a shared experience that's both memorable and impactful. In a world where digital connections often overshadow physical interactions, these styles of presentations bring back the human touch to communication.

What makes a presentation interactive

What exactly spins the ordinary presentation into an interactive adventure? It's all about transforming your audience from passive spectators to active participants. Interactive presentations break the fourth wall of digital communication, inviting the audience into the story you’re telling and bringing them on a journey with you.

Key elements of an interactive presentation

Audience participation: Whether it's through live polls, Q&A sessions, or real-time feedback, the goal is to involve your audience directly in the presentation.

Multimedia integration: Gone are the days of plain text slides. Your presentations should be a vibrant mix of videos, images, and animations that breathe life into your story.

Adaptive content: Interactive presentations are not set in stone. They evolve based on audience responses, making each experience unique.

Engaging design: An interactive presentation is as much about aesthetics as it is about content. Engaging designs and layouts keep the audience visually stimulated.

Collaborative tools: Utilizing tools that allow for audience collaboration, like digital whiteboards or shared documents, enhances the interactive experience.

The role of presentation slides

Presentation slides are your canvas, and making them interactive is an art. Here’s how to transform your slides from static to dynamic:

Integrate multimedia: Embed videos, animations, or interactive graphics to make your slides pop.

Design for interaction: Create slides that prompt audience responses, like fill-in-the-blanks or opinion polls.

Use hyperlinks: Turn your presentation into a journey. Let your audience choose the path by clicking on hyperlinks within your slides.

Feedback mechanisms: Include features for immediate feedback or audience questions, turning your presentation into a two-way conversation.

However, slides are not the be-all and end-all. An engaging and interactive presenter can overcome bland slides, but a bland presenter can ruin expertly crafted slides.

Top 10 interactive presentation ideas

Below are interactive presentation ideas that are key to unlocking an engaging, memorable, and impactful presentation experience. The best interactive presentations use a combination of these ideas and tools to ensure they captivate their audience, that their content is clear, and their message is retained.

1. Live Polls

Live polls are the heartbeat of an interactive presentation. They're simple yet powerful tools to gauge audience opinions in real time. Here's how to bring them to life:

Use digital tools: Employ tools like mmhmm.app or other polling software. It's easier than raising hands, and you can capture the data.

Timely questions: Insert polls at strategic points in your presentation to keep engagement high.

Instant results: Display results live to spark discussions or influence the direction of your talk.

Why they work: Live polls make the audience feel valued and heard, transforming your presentation into a dynamic conversation.

2. Q&A sessions

Q&A sessions are the classic interactive element, but when done right, they are gold. Here's how:

Encourage questions: Make it known that audience questions are welcome throughout or at specific segments.

Utilize digital platforms: Utilize platforms where attendees can post questions during the presentation. This empowers people who wouldn’t usually raise their hand to ask questions.

Benefits: Q&A sessions build a sense of community and open a two-way street of knowledge exchange. They make every presentation unique because it’s unlikely everyone will ask the same questions every time.

3. Interactive Quizzes

Quizzes add an element of play, fun, and competition to your presentations. It ranks highly on the list of interactive presentation ideas as it’s a great way to get your audience excited and engaged. Implement them by:

Varied formats: Use multiple-choice, true/false, or open-ended questions. Consider time constraints and the fact that no one came to your presentation to write an essay.

Rewards: Consider small incentives for correct answers to boost participation. Also, this will encourage participants to truly think about their answers, providing you with meaningful data.

Impact: An interactive quiz enhances attention and makes learning fun and memorable.

4. Real-time feedback

Incorporating real-time feedback into your interactive presentation allows you to adjust and adapt as you progress. Being able to easily see the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of your audience empowers you to tailor your style. Here’s how to make it work:

Interactive platforms: Use apps or platforms that enable instant reactions or comments from your audience.

On-the-fly adjustments: Be prepared to tweak your presentation based on the feedback received, keeping it relevant and engaging.

Why it’s effective: Real-time feedback keeps your audience engaged and gives you insights to tailor your presentation for maximum impact.

5. Gamification

Injecting gamification into your interactive presentation can transform it from mundane to mesmerizing. Gamification has been used for years to keep audiences engaged, so why not try it in your presentations? Here's how:

Game elements: Introduce elements like points, leaderboards, or challenges to spur competition and interest.

Engagement tools: Utilize platforms like mmhmm.app to seamlessly integrate these gaming elements.

Impact : Gamification brings an element of fun and competition, making your presentation interactive, challenging, and fun. As soon as there’s a competition at stake, even the disinterested attendees will be in the zone.

6. Storytelling

Storytelling is a powerful tool to make your interactive presentation resonate on a deeper level. It allows you to forge a bond with audience members and take them on a journey with you. Here’s how to weave your story:

Personal anecdotes: Share relatable experiences or stories to illustrate your points.

Visual storytelling: Use images, videos, and graphics to tell a story that complements your narrative.

Benefits : Storytelling makes complex concepts accessible and helps your audience connect with the material on an emotional level. Emotional buy-in is crucial for a successful presentation.

7. Collaborative whiteboards

Digital whiteboards are fantastic for fostering collaboration and participation. They give audience members the ability to quickly write down their thoughts or draw up little sketches. Here's how to use them effectively:

Interactive sessions: Invite your audience to contribute their ideas or solutions on a shared digital whiteboard.

Collective brainstorming: Use these tools for group brainstorming or problem-solving activities.

Why it works: Collaborative whiteboards encourage active participation and harness the collective intelligence of your audience. Giving them the freedom to write or draw doesn’t limit their creativity like typing can.

8. Virtual reality and augmented reality

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) transport your audience to a completely different place. It gives you, the presenter, the power to dictate the environment attendees consume your content. Instead of just talking about something, you can take your audience to the places you’re describing. Here's how to implement it:

Immersive content: Use VR for virtual tours, simulations, or to bring scenarios to life.

Tech integration : Ensure you have the right setup and support to deliver a smooth VR and AR experience.

Impact : VR offers an immersive and interactive experience that is both engaging and memorable, leaving a lasting impression on your audience.

9. Audience-led topics

Giving the audience control over the topics discussed can greatly increase engagement. Often, some presenters don’t address the key concerns of their audience, this way, you’re guaranteed to deliver exactly what they came to hear. Here's how to do it:

Audience polls: Use live polls to let the audience choose topics or the direction of the presentation.

Flexible content: Be prepared with a range of content to cover the topics chosen by the audience.

Benefits : This approach ensures the presentation is relevant and engaging, as the audience feels their interests are being addressed directly.

10. Breakout sessions

Breakout sessions are excellent for in-depth discussion and engagement. They diversify your presentation by enabling audience members to discuss and debate the topics you’ve raised. And, it’s a refreshing break from hearing one person speak. Here's how to facilitate them:

Group formation: Divide your audience into small groups for focused discussions or tasks.

Topic allocation : Assign different topics or questions to each group and reconvene to share insights.

Why it’s effective: Breakout sessions encourage participation from all attendees and foster a sense of community, leading to a richer and more diverse presentation experience.

Top interactive presentation tools

mmhmm.app: The all-in-one interactive presentations solution

mmhmm.app stands out as a versatile and comprehensive interactive presentation software for captivating presentations. Key features include:

Dynamic video presentations: Allows you to manipulate your appearance, background, and slides in real time.

Collaborative features: Supports real-time collaboration with team members, making it ideal for distributed teams.

Customizable rooms: Offers a range of virtual rooms for different presentation settings.

Integrations: Works seamlessly with popular video conferencing tools, enhancing your presentation capabilities during live meetings.

Venngage: for visually engaging infographics

Venngage specializes in transforming data into engaging visual content. Its notable features include:

Templates : A wide variety of templates that cater to different data presentation needs.

Customizable elements : Allows for extensive customization to fit your brand or presentation style.

Interactive infographics : Enables the creation of interactive infographics that can engage and inform your audience.

Social Tables: Interactive event planning

Social Tables is particularly useful for event planners, providing tools to create interactive presentations for event layouts and planning. Its features include:

Interactive floor plans: Create and share detailed floor plans for events.

Seating chart tool: Helps in planning seating arrangements and visualizing the event space.

Collaboration tools: Allows multiple users to collaborate on event planning in real-time.

Visme: Versatile tool for visual content

Visme is a comprehensive tool for creating a variety of visual content, including interactive presentations. Its features include:

Rich content library: Offers a vast library of templates, icons, and images.

Data visualization tools: Includes tools to create graphs, charts, and data widgets.

Interactivity options: Embed videos, control slide transitions, and include other interactive elements.

Mentimeter: Real-time audience engagement

Mentimeter excels in engaging audiences in real time through interactive elements. Its features include:

Live polls and quizzes: Conduct live polls, quizzes, and Q&A sessions.

Audience feedback: Collect real-time feedback and display results instantly.

Customizable templates: Offers various templates for different types of interactive questions.

AhaSlides: Interactive Slides Made Easy

AhaSlides is known for its ease of use in creating interactive slides for presentations. Key features include:

Variety of question types: Offers multiple types of interactive questions, including polls, quizzes, and opinion scales.

Real-time interaction: Engage your audience with real-time voting and results display.

Slide import options: Allows importing slides from other platforms and adding interactive elements.

Tips for designing interactive presentation slides

Creating interactive presentation slides is an art that involves blending visual appeal with functionality to engage your audience effectively. Here are some essential tips to design slides that encourage interaction and maintain audience interest.

Use visual elements

Visual elements are key in capturing and retaining the audience's attention. Opt for high-quality images that are relevant to your content, which can illustrate points or provide a visual break from text. Infographics and charts are especially useful for simplifying complex data, making it more digestible and visually engaging. Including short videos or animations can also be a powerful tool in explaining concepts that are difficult to convey with text or static images.

Text-to-Image ratio

Achieving the right balance between text and images is crucial for effective slide design. It's best to keep text concise, using bullet points or short phrases, and letting your spoken words complement what's on the slide. Choose fonts that are easy to read from a distance, avoiding overly decorative styles in favor of clear, simple ones. Ensure there is high contrast between text and background colors, using color strategically to highlight key points or differentiate topics.

Incorporate interactive elements

Interactive elements can greatly enhance audience engagement. This could include adding hyperlinks or clickable areas in your slides that lead to more information, different sections of the presentation, or external resources. Embedding questions directly into your slides can also prompt audience responses or discussions, making the presentation more engaging.

Engage with questions and polls

Incorporating questions and polls throughout your presentation can be an effective way to get the audience involved. Positioning questions at key points in your presentation stimulates thought and engagement. Utilizing tools for live polls, such as mmhmm.app allows for real-time audience interaction and feedback.

Keep design consistent

Maintaining a consistent theme throughout your presentation ensures a professional and cohesive look. Apply a consistent color scheme, font style, and layout throughout your presentation. Including branding elements, like logos or company colors, can also be beneficial to reinforce brand identity.

Make your slides flow

Crafting a narrative through your slides can captivate your audience effectively. Design your slides to tell a cohesive story, where each slide logically flows into the next, keeping the audience engaged with a clear narrative thread. Incorporating real-life scenarios or case studies in your slides can also foster interaction by encouraging the audience to participate in problem-solving or discussions related to the scenario.

Consider accessibility and inclusivity

Ensuring your slides are accessible to all audience members, including those with disabilities, is crucial. This includes using alt text for images, ensuring colorblind-friendly palettes, and providing subtitles for videos. For audiences that speak different languages, consider offering key slides in multiple languages or providing real-time translation options.

By carefully considering these aspects of slide design, you can create a presentation that conveys information effectively and turns your content into an engaging, dynamic experience for your audience.

Common mistakes to avoid when creating interactive presentations

When it comes to crafting interactive presentations, it's easy to stumble into a few common pitfalls. Avoiding these mistakes can make the difference between a presentation that pops and one that flops. Here's what you need to watch out for:

Overloading slides with too much information

Simplicity is key. Cramming too much information, whether it's text, data, or visuals, can overwhelm your audience. Instead, aim for a clean and concise layout that communicates your message clearly without sensory overload.

Ignoring audience engagement

Interactive presentations are all about audience participation. Failing to incorporate elements that engage your audience, such as polls, Q&A sessions, or interactive discussions, can result in a one-sided and less impactful presentation.

Neglecting the storyline

Every great presentation tells a story. Missing a coherent narrative or logical flow in your presentation can lead to disconnection and confusion. Ensure your presentation has a clear beginning, middle, and end that guides your audience through the content.

Inadequate rehearsal

Interactive elements can sometimes be unpredictable. Not rehearsing with the technology and interactive segments you plan to use can lead to technical difficulties or awkward transitions during the presentation.

Overusing gimmicks

While interactive features can enhance a presentation, overusing them or including them without a clear purpose can be distracting. Use interactive elements thoughtfully and only when they add real value to your presentation.

Remember, the best interactive presentations are those that are well-planned, audience-centric, and deliver a clear and engaging message. By avoiding these common mistakes, you can create a seamless and effective presentation that captivates and informs your audience.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

What are the key benefits of interactive presentations?

Interactive presentations stand out by actively engaging the audience, leading to increased attention and better retention of information. They transform the traditional, often passive experience of a presentation into an active dialogue, fostering a more memorable and effective exchange of ideas.

Can interactive presentations be effective in a virtual setting?

Absolutely! Interactive presentations are highly effective in virtual settings. Tools like mmhmm.app enhance virtual presentations by incorporating elements like live polls, Q&A sessions, and interactive visuals, making the digital experience as engaging as in-person events.

How can I make my slides more interactive without overwhelming my audience?

The key is balance. Use visuals and interactive elements strategically. For instance, integrate a poll or a short quiz rather than overloading your slides with too much content. Remember, each interactive element should have a clear purpose and contribute to your overall message.

Are interactive presentations suitable for all types of audiences?

Yes, interactive presentations can be tailored to suit any audience. Whether it's a classroom, a corporate boardroom, or a casual workshop, you can adjust the level of interactivity to match the audience's preferences and the presentation's context.

How much time does it take to create an interactive presentation?

The time investment depends on the complexity of the interactivity and your familiarity with the tools. Using user-friendly platforms like mmhmm.app can significantly streamline the process. Starting with a clear plan and a storyboard can also make the process more efficient.

Do I need advanced technical skills to create an interactive presentation?

Not necessarily. Many tools designed for creating interactive presentations are intuitive and user-friendly. Platforms like mmhmm.app are built with ease of use in mind, allowing even those with basic technical skills to create engaging, interactive presentations.

The best interactive presentation ideas summarized

You're now equipped with the knowledge and tools to transform a boring presentation into a dynamic and engaging experience. Think beyond blindly adding flashy elements. It’s time to create meaningful interactive presentations that resonate with your audience. As you step into your next interactive presentation, remember that you have the power to turn each slide into a conversation, each fact into a story, and each viewer into a participant.

Embrace interactive presentation ideas like live polls, storytelling, and collaborative whiteboards. Utilize mmhmm.app to elevate your visual and interactive elements, making your presentations informative and unforgettable. Remember, the changes you make to your presentation style can spark curiosity, foster learning, and inspire action.

Every presentation is an opportunity to connect, to share, and to impact. You can easily go beyond the conventional with interactive presentation software like mmhmm.app. And, you can try it for free!

Hybrid work

mmhmm is a video presentation app that makes you more engaging on video calls and recordings.

Blog > Effective Feedback for Presentations - digital with PowerPoint or with printable sheets

Effective Feedback for Presentations - digital with PowerPoint or with printable sheets

10.26.20   •  #powerpoint #feedback #presentation.

Do you know whether you are a good presenter or not? If you do, chances are it's because people have told you so - they've given you feedback. Getting other's opinions about your performance is something that's important for most aspects in life, especially professionally. However, today we're focusing on a specific aspect, which is (as you may have guessed from the title): presentations.

The importance of feedback

Take a minute to think about the first presentation you've given: what was it like? Was it perfect? Probably not. Practise makes perfect, and nobody does everything right in the beginning. Even if you're a natural at speaking and presenting, there is usually something to improve and to work on. And this is where feedback comes in - because how are you going to know what it is that you should improve? You can and should of course assess yourself after each and every presentation you give, as that is an important part of learning and improvement. The problem is that you yourself are not aware of all the things that you do well (or wrong) during your presentation. But your audience is! And that's why you should get audience feedback.

Qualities of good Feedback

Before we get into the different ways of how you can get feedback from your audience, let's briefly discuss what makes good feedback. P.S.: These do not just apply for presentations, but for any kind of feedback.

• Good feedback is constructive, not destructive. The person receiving feedback should feel empowered and inspired to work on their skills, not discouraged. You can of course criticize on an objective level, but mean and insulting comments have to be kept to yourself.
• Good feedback involves saying bot what has to be improved (if there is anything) and what is already good (there is almost always something!)
• After receiving good feedback, the recipient is aware of the steps he can and should take in order to improve.

Ways of receiving / giving Feedback after a Presentation

1. print a feedback form.

Let's start with a classic: the feedback / evaluation sheet. It contains several questions, these can be either open (aka "What did you like about the presentation?") or answered on a scale (e.g. from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree"). The second question format makes a lot of sense if you have a large audience, and it also makes it easy to get an overview of the results. That's why in our feedback forms (which you can download at the end of this post), you'll find mainly statements with scales. This has been a proven way for getting and giving valuable feedback efficiently for years. We do like the feedback form a lot, though you have to be aware that you'll need to invest some time to prepare, count up and analyse.

• ask specifically what you want to ask
• good overview of the results
• anonymous (people are likely to be more honest)
• easy to access: you can just download a feedback sheet online (ours, for example, which you'll find at the end of this blog post!)
• analysing the results can be time-consuming
• you have to print out the sheets, it takes preparation

2. Online: Get digital Feedback

In the year 2020, there's got to be a better way of giving feedback, right? There is, and you should definitely try it out! SlideLizard is a free PowerPoint extension that allows you to get your audience's feedback in the quickest and easiest way possible. You can of course customize the feedback question form to your specific needs and make sure you get exactly the kind of feedback you need. Click here to download SlideLizard right now, or scroll down to read some more about the tool.

• quick and easy to access
• easy and fast export, analysis and overview of feedback
• save feedback directly on your computer
• Participants need a working Internet connection (but that usually isn't a problem nowadays)

3. Verbal Feedback

"So, how did you like the presentation?", asks the lecturer. A few people in the audience nod friendly, one or two might even say something about how the slides were nice and the content interesting. Getting verbal feedback is hard, especially in big groups. If you really want to analyse and improve your presentation habits and skills, we recommend using one of the other methods. However, if you have no internet connection and forgot to bring your feedback sheets, asking for verbal feedback is still better than nothing.

• no prerequisites
• open format
• okay for small audiences
• not anonymous (people might not be honest)
• time consuming
• no detailed evaluation
• no way to save the feedback (except for your memory)
• not suitable for big audiences

Feedback to yourself - Self Assessment

I've mentioned before that it is incredibly important to not only let others tell you what went well and what didn't in your presentation. Your own impressions are of huge value, too. After each presentation you give, ask yourself the following questions (or better yet, write your answers down!):

• What went wrong (in my opinion)? What can I do in order to avoid this from happening next time?
• What went well? What was well received by the audience? What should I do more of?
• How was I feeling during this presentation? (Nervous? Confident? ...)

Tip: If you really want to actively work on your presentation skills, filming yourself while presenting and analysing the video after is a great way to go. You'll get a different view on the way you talk, move, and come across.

Digital Feedback with SlideLizard

Were you intrigued by the idea of easy Online-feedback? With SlideLizard your attendees can easily give you feedback directly with their Smartphone. After the presentation you can analyze the result in detail.

• type in your own feedback questions
• choose your rating scale: 1-5 points, 1-6 points, 1-5 stars or 1-6 stars;
• show your attendees an open text field and let them enter any text they want

Note: SlideLizard is amazing for giving and receiving feedback, but it's definitely not the only thing it's great for. Once you download the extension, you get access to the most amazing tools - most importantly, live polls and quizzes, live Q&A sessions, attendee note taking, content and slide sharing, and presentation analytics. And the best thing about all this? You can get it for free, and it is really easy to use, as it is directly integrated in PowerPoint! Click here to discover more about SlideLizard.

Free Download: Printable Feedback Sheets for Business or School Presentations

If you'd rather stick with the good old paper-and-pen method, that's okay, too. You can choose between one of our two feedback sheet templates: there is one tailored to business presentations and seminars, and one that is created specifically for teachers assessing their students. Both forms can be downloaded as a Word, Excel, or pdf file. A lot of thought has gone into both of the forms, so you can benefit as much as possible; however, if you feel like you need to change some questions in order to better suit your needs, feel free to do so!

Feedback form for business

Template as PDF, Word & Excel - perfect for seminars, trainings,...

Feedback form for teachers (school or university)

Template as PDF, Word & Excel - perfect for school or university,...

Where can I find a free feedback form for presentations?

There are many templates available online. We designed two exclusive, free-to-download feedback sheets, which you can get in our blog article

What's the best way to get feedback for presentations?

You can get feedback on your presentations by using feedback sheets, asking for feedback verbally, or, the easiest and fastest option: get digital feedback with an online tool

Related articles

About the author.

Pia Lehner-Mittermaier

Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

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A webinar is a seminar that takes place in a specific digital location at a specific time. It's a seminar that combines live and online formats.

B2B means Business to Business. B2B events are between at least two companys. They help to build interpersonal relationships, which are important for a successful company.

Process Questions

Process questions are similar to recall questions but they need some deeper thoughts and maybe also analysis.

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9 Interactive Presentation Ideas To Engage Your Audience

• By Judhajit Sen
• April 15, 2024

Key Takeaways

– Interactive Engagement: Transform traditional presentations into dynamic exchanges by encouraging active participation from presenters and audiences. Foster a lively atmosphere akin to friendly chats or engaging games where questions, feedback, and thoughts flow freely.

Diverse Interactive Tools: To enhance engagement and comprehension, utilize a variety of interactive features, such as clickable buttons, polls, quizzes, discussions, multimedia elements, animations, transitions, and role-playing scenarios.

– Enhanced Learning Experience: Engaging and interactive presentations increase engagement, personal connections, and hands-on learning. They foster analytical thinking, problem-solving skills, and agility, making them particularly effective for training and skill development.

– Memorable and Effective Communication: Engaging presentations go beyond information sharing; they give the audience memorable and compelling experiences. Presenters leave a lasting impression and enhance content retention by incorporating storytelling, gamification, and immersive role-playing scenarios.

An interactive PowerPoint presentation is an engaging communication format in which both the presenter and the audience actively participate. Unlike traditional slide formats that may sometimes lead to boring presentations, it’s a fun and interactive exchange in which questions, feedback, and thoughts flow freely.

Picture it as a friendly chat or a fun game involving everyone. You ask questions, gather live feedback, and get your audience to contribute. Utilizing clickable buttons, polls, quizzes, discussions, and multimedia elements, you transform static slides into an interactive experience.

Irrespective of whether you are making an in-person or online presentation, audience participation boosts retention. Interactive presentations foster increased engagement and personal connections. They employ charts, surveys, navigation, transitions, hyperlinks, and hotspots to enrich the experience.

A good presentation induces the audience to interact by incorporating quizzes and polls, ensuring engagement. It transcends traditional formats, leaving a lasting impression and enhancing content retention. An interactive presentation isn’t just about sharing information; it’s about creating a memorable and practical experience for both the presenter and audience alike.

The following are nine ideas to creating interactive presentations that will boost engagement.

Icebreakers

Kick off your presentation with engaging icebreakers to connect with your audience and set an interactive tone instantly. Start with thought-provoking questions or a fun game to ignite curiosity and encourage participation.

Encourage interaction among audience members to foster understanding and camaraderie. Icebreakers help break the ice, especially in larger groups where participants may be strangers. Use interactive activities like the Favorites Icebreaker or asking for one-word associations with the presentation topic.

Building rapport is critical. In small settings, have everyone share a bit about themselves. In larger audiences, encourage introductions among neighbors. Use fun icebreaker games or ask questions aloud to increase engagement.

Incorporate assessments like quizzes using third-party platforms to entertain and reinforce critical concepts. For instance, quiz the audience on online threats in a cybersecurity presentation. Strategically place these quizzes to maintain engagement.

To encourage participation, integrate fun games like Two Truths and a Lie or Speed Networking. These activities make participants comfortable and promote interaction, enhancing the entire presentation experience.

To make a presentation interactive, integrate live polls into your presentation using audience response systems or polling apps. This real-time feedback tool encourages active participation and creates an interactive atmosphere. Whether asking simple questions or seeking opinions, polls engage attendees and make presentations collaborative.

Audience interaction technology like live polling empowers speakers to gather insights and engage attendees. Prepare topics with questions, follow up with polling results, and adjust the presentation accordingly.

Engage your listeners further by incorporating polls relevant to the presentation topic. Use multiple-choice options or ask for raised hands. With polling software, attendees can input answers via smartphones, adding an element of fun and interactivity.

Encourage participation by including live polls and surveys in your presentation. Online platforms facilitate this interaction, allowing for feedback and transparent conversations. Displaying poll results sparks discussions and keeps the audience engaged.

Enhance audience engagement and test knowledge by adding quizzes and polls. From interactive scenario quizzes to open-ended polls, there are various options. Using online tools, embed quizzes and polls seamlessly into your presentation, making it easy to create interactive presentation content.

Encourage audience questions throughout your presentation to foster a dynamic and interactive atmosphere. Address inquiries in real time to show value for audience input and promote two-way communication.

Integrate audience questions throughout your entire presentation to gauge understanding and break up content. Prepare questions beforehand or allow spontaneity during the session.

Utilize the Ask Me Anything (AMA) format, popularized by forums like Reddit, to offer fluid interaction and align content with audience expectations. Moderation may filter questions or allow for spontaneity, enhancing engagement.

Incorporate audience questions into your presentation slides to prompt discussion and gather feedback. Use simple, non-intimidating questions to engage listeners without pressure.

Include discussion questions to encourage group interaction and create an engaging environment. For interactive seminars, break attendees into small groups or encourage neighborly discussion.

Encourage audience questions at multiple points during the presentation. Signal opportunities for questions and create a comfortable environment for participation.

Host an interactive Q&A session at the end of your presentation to invite audience input and clarify complex topics. Tailor discussions to audience interests and promote collaboration.

Real-time Q&A sessions foster engagement and provide immediate responses, creating a welcoming atmosphere for participants.

Q&A sessions, whether in-person or virtual, allow audiences to lead discussions and explore relevant topics. They also provide opportunities for spontaneous questions or pre-collected inquiries to enhance interaction and learning.

Storytelling

Share personal anecdotes or stories about your topic to engage your listeners emotionally. Storytelling makes your presentation relatable and memorable, drawing listeners into the narrative and keeping them engaged.

Start your presentation with a captivating anecdote to grab viewers’ attention and maintain interest throughout. Stories create suspense, evoke emotions, and bring topics to life.

Incorporating storytelling as a part of your presentation is an interactive way to convey information. Even data-heavy topics can benefit from storytelling, adding depth and humanity to your speech. By immersing your audience in a narrative, you make them feel involved and connected, enhancing their overall experience and retention of the material.

Craft a compelling narrative that your audience can relate to. This will strengthen your message and aid in information retention. Storytelling facilitates a deeper understanding and connection with your content, making your presentation more impactful and memorable in the long run.

Clickable Buttons

Enhance your slides with clickable buttons, allowing your audience to navigate your presentation or access external resources easily. These buttons can link to specific sections or outside materials, like your social media profiles or extra readings, making your education presentation more informative and engaging. By giving your audience the freedom to explore topics of interest, you create a personalized experience, increasing engagement with your interactive slideshow.

Navigate your audience smoothly through your presentation by incorporating interactive buttons for easy navigation, extra content, or calls to action. Instead of bombarding your audience with too much information, focus on key points and include clickable buttons to guide them to more detailed sections or external pages. This approach helps prevent audience fatigue while ensuring they have access to relevant information when they need it.

Data Visualization

Incorporate interactive charts and graphs into your presentation to boost engagement. Allow users to interact with the data by clicking on points for detailed information or to toggle between data series. These interactive visuals aid understanding and keep viewers engaged with your content.

Graphs and charts are vital in data-driven presentations. They simplify complex information into digestible visuals, help visualize key data, illustrate trends, and facilitate decision-making processes.

To prevent overwhelming your audience with data, utilize engaging infographics, charts, and dashboards that update in real time. Transforming complex information into visual formats enhances comprehension and retention.

Interactive data visualization is essential for effectively communicating information, whether you’re a data expert, business leader, or educator. It enables dynamic presentation of statistics and figures, making content more accessible and memorable.

Convert your data into visual representations to maximize its impact. Charts and graphs make it easier to process information and aid in faster comprehension and retention. Visualized data resonates with audiences and enhances overall presentation effectiveness.

Animations and Transitions

Elevate your presentation with animated infographics, adding a dynamic touch to your content. Animated elements reveal information gradually, capturing the audience’s attention and transforming complex data into easily digestible formats. Smooth slide transitions maintain flow and interest, ensuring a seamless transition between slides.

Animations and transitions enrich your multimedia presentation, enhancing engagement and emphasizing key points. Interactive text and pop-up elements keep audiences engaged, while progressive information revelation builds anticipation and understanding.

Animated icons and interactive elements contribute to effective storytelling, infusing personality into your brand and modernizing information delivery. These elements play a crucial role in organizing content innovatively and enhancing communication effectiveness.

Experiment with various animation styles to keep presentations lively and interactive. However, maintain consistency to avoid overwhelming your audience. Stick to a cohesive animation style throughout the presentation to prevent confusion and ensure a polished delivery.

Carefully select transitions to maintain audience engagement without going overboard. Find a style that complements your content and stick with it consistently. Avoid using too many different transitions to prevent distractions and maintain coherence in your presentation.

Gamification

Inject excitement into your presentations by incorporating interactive quizzes, puzzles, or challenges. Gamification adds an element of enjoyment and competition, encouraging active participation and enhancing learning.

If your presentations are for education or training, consider integrating gamification elements. This powerful tool not only entertains but also improves knowledge retention.

Depending on your presentation goals and software capabilities, you can utilize a variety of interactive games. From quizzes to puzzles, there are options to suit every audience and topic.

Audience engagement is vital for maintaining interest. With tools like live polling, speakers can involve attendees throughout the presentation, gathering insights and adjusting content accordingly. Gamification boosts productivity, challenges expectations, and taps into the human desire for competition.

Interactive presentation games transform passive listeners into active contributors, revitalizing meetings and promoting skill development. By fostering teamwork and quick thinking, these games enhance learning and problem-solving abilities among participants.

Role-playing

Involve your audience in role-playing scenarios to encourage active participation and deeper understanding. Role-playing enables individuals to step into different roles and explore diverse perspectives, connecting the content to real-world situations.

Scenario-based learning offers practical opportunities for audiences to apply newly acquired skills. Participants can engage in decision-making and problem-solving exercises tailored to their roles and responsibilities by simulating realistic challenges and workplace scenarios.

This hands-on approach fosters critical thinking and skill development, making it especially effective for training presentations. Whether teaching customer service techniques or conflict resolution strategies, role-play scenarios breathe life into the material and enhance learning.

Immersive role-play presentations serve as valuable tools for compliance training. By presenting employees with realistic scenarios, organizations can demonstrate how to navigate ethical dilemmas and handle sensitive situations while adhering to compliance protocols. These simulations provide a safe environment for learning and decision-making, preparing employees to apply their knowledge effectively in real-world situations.

Engage Your Audience: Interactive Presentation Ideas

Interactive presentations revolutionize traditional communication by fostering active engagement between presenters and audiences. Unlike passive formats, these sessions resemble lively conversations or engaging games where participation is encouraged and valued.

With various interactive tools, such as clickable buttons, data visualization, and animations, presentations become immersive experiences. Participants navigate content, explore data, and absorb information at their own pace, enhancing comprehension and retention.

Icebreakers set the tone, while polling and Q&A sessions maintain audience involvement. Incorporating storytelling and gamification adds depth and excitement, making presentations memorable and impactful.

Role-playing takes engagement to another level by immersing participants in realistic scenarios, fostering critical thinking and skill development.

Interactive presentations transcend mere information dissemination. They create dynamic exchanges, spark curiosity, and leave lasting impressions. By embracing interactive strategies , presenters empower audiences, turning passive spectators into active participants in the learning journey.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is an interactive presentation?

An interactive presentation is a dynamic form of communication in which both the presenter and audience actively participate. Unlike traditional presentations, it’s more like a lively conversation or engaging game in which questions, feedback, and thoughts flow freely.

2. How do interactive presentations engage the audience?

Interactive presentations engage the audience through tools like clickable buttons, data visualization, animations, and role-playing scenarios. These elements encourage participation, enhance comprehension, and make the learning experience more memorable.

3. What are some examples of interactive presentation tools?

Some examples of interactive presentation tools include clickable buttons for navigation, live polling for real-time feedback, animations for visual engagement, and role-playing scenarios for practical application of knowledge.

4. How can interactive presentations benefit different types of presentations?

Interactive presentations benefit various presentations, including educational, training, business, and informational sessions. They promote active learning, increase engagement, and improve information retention by creating a dynamic and immersive experience for both presenters and audiences.

Transform Your Presentations with Prezentium: Creating Engaging Interactive Experiences

Incorporate interactive elements like clickable buttons, dynamic data visualization, and captivating animations to revolutionize your presentations. Using Prezentium ‘s AI-powered presentation software, we will craft immersive experiences that captivate your audience and drive engagement.

1. Overnight Presentations: Email us your requirements by 5:30 pm PST, and wake up to a finished presentation by 9:30 am PST the following business day. Using our AI-driven best interactive presentation software, we will ensure that your content shines bright and keeps your audience hooked.

2. Presentation Specialist: Our team of specialists will transform your ideas and meeting notes into interactive presentations. We’ll refine your content and craft new designs and templates to elevate your message.

3. Zenith Learning: Dive into our interactive communication workshops and training programs that blend structured problem-solving with visual storytelling. From role-playing scenarios to immersive learning experiences, we’ll equip you with the skills to engage and inspire your audience.

Experience the power of stellar presentations developed using our AI-enabled interactive presentation software. Elevate your presentation game, engage your audience, and leave a lasting impression. Let’s create memorable experiences together.

Why wait? Avail a complimentary 1-on-1 session with our presentation expert. See how other enterprise leaders are creating impactful presentations with us.

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18 Ways to Make Your Presentation More Interactive

November 10, 2017 - Dom Barnard

It can be difficult to hold your audience’s attention for the entire presentation. According to a  Prezi study , half of the respondents said they did something other than listen during a co-worker’s presentation, including:

• Sending a text message (28%)
• Checking emails (27%)
• Falling asleep (17%)

An interactive presentation is much more likely to keep your audience’s attention and build rapport with them, and there are a few simple ways to achieve this, from live polling to asking questions throughout.

This article explores several different effective strategies for making the audience feel fully involved in your presentation and keeping your audience’s eyes away from their smartphones.

Why involve your audience?

Listening to a presentation for any length of time can be a difficult process. If you don’t involve the audience, they’ll start to play with their phones, talk to colleagues and generally lose track of what you are saying. Once this happens and you start seeing that the audience would rather be somewhere else, you’ll start feeling anxious and might try to speed up the presentation.

To engage a  large audience  fully, the presentation needs to be energetic, purposeful and staged, as if it is a direct conversation between both you and your audience. That way, they’ll absorb your ideas and insights and they’ll have learnt something in an enjoyable way.

1. Plan from the audience’s perspective

Before you start  writing your presentation , think about these points:

• What are the most interesting parts in my topic?
• How much will the audience know about my topic? What level do I target it at?
• Which members of the audience will most likely be disinterested?
• How can I help them learn and understand my topic?
• What is the size of the audience?

You can do this by researching the event or conference, investigating other speakers at the event and even contacting the organisers to find out more about the demographic.

By asking these questions about your audience and identifying answers, you are starting to think about your audience’s interests and needs. Remember, the aim is to give the impression that your presentation has been planned according to your audience’s specific interests.

2. Use an easy-to-follow structure

When building your presentation, focus on giving it a structure which people can easily follow. Start by introducing the core concepts and goals, then elaborate on the various points in a bit more detail, draw logical conclusions and leave your audience with a clear takeaway message. You want to flow naturally from one part to the next like you are telling a big story chapter by chapter.

3. Get the audience immediately involved

You audience will come to your presentation in a range of different moods. Try using a simple ice-breaker to re-energise them and get them focussed on your presentation.

For example, ask people to stand up and introduce themselves to their neighbours, or have them identify two or three questions they would like to hear addressed during your presentation. By starting with an ice-breaker, you show your audience that your talk will be interactive and require their participation.

4. Ask the audience questions during your presentation

The audience’s attention drops to zero after just 10-15 minutes of your presentation. To get their attention back, take a break from your presentation from time to time and interact with your audience. Ask for their questions and answer them during your presentation. This will help clear up any confusion the audience might have.

When planning your presentation, identify opportunities in your material for your audience to ask questions. If you’re not comfortable breaking the flow of your presentation, mention that you’ll be taking  questions at the end  so the audience can prepare some questions.

Asking rhetorical questions as you move through your presentation involves your audience by stimulating their own thought processes. This technique also helps move between sections of your presentation as it establishes a clear transition from one point to another.

If you’re comfortable with taking questions throughout your presentation, use a tools such as  Slido , which allows your audience to ask questions anonymously at any time, so even shy people can participate in the discussion.

Example of what can go wrong with audience interaction

Audience interaction:

Watch how the presenter tries but initially fails to get the audience to interact with the presentation. Notice how he encourages them to get involved and eventually they do join in.

5. Use storytelling to make it more memorable

Since our early ancestors, stories have always been a huge part of human culture and civilisation. Storytelling is the most universal way to captivate your audience’s attention, no matter where they are from or what they do for a living.

Stories are much more engaging and memorable than lists of facts and figures, but you wouldn’t think so looking at the majority of presentations (particularly academic ones).

People automatically tune in when you  start telling your story  because they want to know what happens next. A popular storytelling technique is when you present the status quo and then reveal an improved path to that end goal.

Think of your presentation as one arching narrative. As we mentioned earlier, give it the proper structure with a clear beginning, middle and end. Introduce conflict and provide a powerful resolution that reinforces your key messages.

6. Use non-linear presentation software

Instead of flipping through slide after slide, you can show the relationships between your ideas and give your audience the “big picture” view of your topic. Try letting your audience drive the presentation by laying out all of your main points, and then let them choose which topics they want to go to. Your audience will get a truly custom presentation based on their interests, which they will appreciate and more easily remember.

Prezi, shown above, is a popular non-linear presentation tool.

7. Add in a short video

Billions of hours of YouTube are consumed each month and advertisers have identified videos as having a high  retention rate  for users. However very few presentations ever use videos to engage with their audience.

Find a short video clip that reinforces your story or explains a concept better than words can. You can either embed the video directly into your presentation software or include a link to an external website. Just make sure you test your method on the day of the presentation and have a backup on a USB just in case you need it.

8. Invite people onto the stage

If you’re preparing a particularly long presentation, consider having other people to come on stage and talk for a bit. This will help you narrate the story and make the whole presentation more interactive.

Steve Jobs never pulled off the entire presentation by himself; he always invited several speakers, including designers, partners, and other executives, to help him introduce their latest product. Of course, this technique should always be arranged with your colleagues in advance.

9. Poll the audience

Polls are similar to quizzes in that they engage the audience during the presentation. Polls encourage participants to think not only about your questions but also about their answers. Moreover, live polls help create mental breaks, so your audience can regain attention and stay focused throughout your presentation.

By including everyone in answering the question, you also create a group experience that leaves the audience feeling like they all have been part your presentation.

10. Use (appropriate) humour

Some of the best speeches and presentations in the world feature plenty of humour. No matter the subject, a great speaker will use natural charisma, humour and language to convey their points and get the crowd excited about what they are saying.

A great example of building rapport with the audience through the use of humour is Barrack Obama talking about the government building Iron Man.

Another example is when  Morgan Spurlock  offers individuals the opportunity to buy the rights to name his TED talk—which he refers to again at the end, where he reveals the title. He peppers the entire presentation with humorous commentary that nonetheless supports his point.

Create relevant jokes or find a way to bring out the humour in your subject, and your audience will be much more engaged and more likely to remember your words.

11. Practice your delivery, again and again

Practicing is the most important part of delivering an interactive presentation. You’ll need to practice where to use live quizzes, when to accept questions, which points to emphasise with body language and many more. There are several options for practicing:

Practice Presentation Skills

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• In front of a mirror  – great for seeing and improving your body language, however it can be distracting to what you are saying.
• To friends or colleagues  – a useful way to get feedback on your presentation, try and action the feedback straight away to improve on it. You can also give the person some key areas to focus their feedback on if you believe you are weaker in those areas.
• Virtual reality  – practice in realistic  public speaking environments , whether it be in a virtual conference room or boardroom. Receive feedback on your speech with voice analysis technology.

With all three of these, you’ll want to work on your tone of voice, accent, pauses between sentences and facial expressions. The most important thing is to talk slowly and loudly enough to be heard and understood clearly.

A list of the best presentation skills courses you can practice with:

• Presentation Skills Training Courses

12. Try and relate to the audience

Make comparisons to events from everyday life that most people are more than familiar with. By making things look simple, not only will you help your audience get a better understanding of the subject by enabling them to visualize the information more clearly, you will also draw a connection between you.

After all, you are all just regular people with similar experience, you just happen to be performing different roles at the moment.

13. Strong body language (position, posture and gesture)

Non-verbal communication plays a large part in how we construct meaning, so it makes sense to consider how to use it in your presentation. You can make things more interesting for your audience by using  your body language  to enhance what you’re saying.

Body language goes beyond reinforcing your messaging – it’s useful from a biological standpoint. As discussed in her  body language TED talk , Amy Cuddy’s research found that using ‘assertive’ body language released testosterone and reduced cortisol in both men and women, thereby increasing confidence and decreasing stress.

An effective presenter pays close attention to the physical relationship with her/his audience. If you stand hidden behind an overhead projector or stand too far away from your audience, they will not develop a bond with you and this will limit the effectiveness of your presentation.

Your posture will also dictate levels of audience involvement. If you’re too relaxed and sit slumped in a chair to deliver your talk, the audience might drift away. Find a comfortable but purposeful position in relation to your audience and adopt an upright sitting or standing posture that allows for movement and gesture.

Audiences respond well to the physical energy and enthusiasm being conveyed by a presenter, and thus the use of clear and controlled gestures will greatly enhance your presentation. Gestures that are open and reach out to your audience serve to extend your presentation to them and thus help them feel more involved.

Examples of good body language:

• Use hand gestures when delivering key points
• Use calm, deliberate movements when highlighting certain information
• Keep arms and legs uncrossed

14. Maintain eye contact with all sections of the audience

Making eye contact is one of the most  powerful techniques  for involving your audience. If used well, eye contact can serve to make your address much more personal and thus more effective. If eye contact is avoided, the presenter can appear to be nervous and unconvincing.

It is important to share eye contact with all members of a small audience or all sections of a large audience. Avoid making eye contact with just the people you know, taking particular care not to deliver your entire presentation to the person who’s assessing your work. Remember that you will need to involve the whole audience if you are to make an effective presentation.

If you are nervous, eye contact can be very difficult to establish and maintain. Remember that some eye contact is better than none and that you should try to build your confidence over time.

15. Use live quizzes to better understand your audience

Live quizzes are a great way to understanding your audience better get them engaging with the material.

For example, if you’re giving a presentation on autonomous vehicles, you could ask questions such as:

• When do you think autonomous vehicles will become mainstream?
• Are you concerned by safety issues?
• If someone is injured or killed by the car, who is to blame?

These will surely create some interesting results which you, as the presenter, can talk about and discuss.

16. Use physical props if possible

You don’t need to be giving a product demo to use props during your presentation. Props are a great way to help the audience visually picture what you are talking about. While talking through your presentation, you can refer to the prop at certain points to highlight your point or make it clear to the audience.

Kenny Nguyen  does this will in his TEDx talk on ‘The Art of Saying No’. He refers to the “sword of yes” and “shield of no.” Naturally he picks up a sword and shield from the table to help demonstrate his points.

Another great example is when  Jill Bolte Taylor  brings a real human brain on stage during her TED talk to explain to what happened to her when she had a stroke. She touched the audience with this demonstration and left the audience in complete awe.

17. Extend your usual vocal range

Your tone of voice, your volume, and other vocal aspects affect how people listen and hear your message.

Julian Treasure’s  TED talk on ‘How to speak so that people want to listen’ is all about this, and at the end offers several tips ‘in our toolbox’ for how to master the use of voice, from changing your speaking pace to speaking in a different pitch.

Get feedback from a friend or colleague to see what works best for you.

18. Use language and literary techniques

Your use of language has a huge influence on the way you engage your audience. It’s important to use language your audience understands and is familiar with.

Avoid using language that is too formal or informal, too technical or too simplistic depending upon the nature of your talk and the knowledge base of your audience. Pitching your presentation at the right level can be a challenge but it is very effective for making the audience feel involved.

There are various  literary techniques  you can use, such as the Power or Three, to give greater impact to your message.

Involving your audience is essential to making an impact. Your presentation should pull them in, get their attention and stimulate their thoughts and understanding. This can be done in a number of ways.

The way that you plan your presentation will be critical in terms of using language and ideas that your audience will understand. You must also ensure that there is sufficient time for questions and discussion. The way that you deliver your presentation should create a bond with your audience.

Your use of eye contact, body language, spoken words and energy should  communicate effectively  and enthusiastically with all areas of the room, thus ensuring that the audience receives positive messages about you and your material.

Guide to interactive content

How to create interactive content: A practical guide

How to create awe-inspiring interactive documents, what is interactive content plus 6 examples, what is an interactive presentation and how is it different.

If you haven’t heard, interactive content is all the rage. It can provide context and clarity, cutting through the noise of the modern digital environment. It can also provide a repository of material for many departments across the enterprise: sales, marketing, HR, and creative.

How do you create interactive content? We’ll tell you.

Step 1: Decide what you want to say and how you want to say it.

Easy enough? Well… You see, interactive content requires you to think differently about the traditional content creation process. When pulling open that Word doc and typing away, you typically construct your thoughts linearly: one word after another.

However, interactive content forces us to think about two things: the multimedia we can use to develop our thoughts, and the ways in which users will, ahem, interact with that media. That is, a book reader will go from one line to the next, beginning at the top left and reading down to the bottom right, page after page. But if there’s a navigable table of contents, she may just skip right over that one amazing insight you had on page 4. You need to account for that behavior.

So, while this first step may seem simple enough, trust us, it just isn’t.

Here are a few more tangible ways to break down this ominous step.

Understand how users consume digital content.

Over the last several decades, the leading firm researching the digital user experience has been Nielsen Norman Group. The NN Group has developed many studies and experiments to test everything you can think of on the web and how people respond.

For example, in one of their most famous studies tracking eye movements, they were able to determine that people on the web read in F-shaped patterns . That is, they read the first headline and a paragraph, and then scan mostly headlines from there down. NN Group has many ( many ) articles like this gathered in categories like “ Writing for the Web .” For the uninitiated, this is a great place to start getting inside the minds of your viewers.

Create content dynamically, not linearly.

Along similar lines, users in a digital environment click around from page to page by what interests them (using what NN Group and others call “ information scent ”). This means you have to think about your content as a system and not as a linear, logical program. Of course, knowledge is stackable — you have to learn algebra before calculus — but not everything is built that way.

Take this piece of content as an example. You really don’t need to read the content in Step 1 to understand Step 2, nor even Step 1A before 1B. If you’re familiar with how users read on the web, skip right on over to the next thing.

More tactically, imagine if the user you’re trying to reach watched the video you placed on one slide before reading what you wrote. How would that change your content? What about if they watched it after? These are important questions to ask yourself before finalizing your content.

Guide the user with clear actions.

Our brains are like machines. They need fuel to function. Sometimes they get overwhelmed with too many operations or too many inputs. That’s why when you’re talking to someone while you’re driving, you usually turn down the music or stop talking while making a left-hand turn in a busy intersection. Your brain focuses its attention, diverting resources to ensure its survival.

A reader on the web is no different. Their brains get overwhelmed with big blocks of text or too many buttons. But clear, simple text and cues help alleviate this strain to focus on what you want them to. There’s even research to suggest that a certain line length or height can put readers at ease .

Let’s say you want the user to read this paragraph before watching the video or listening to the audio track. Why not say, “Read this first” in big, bold letters? Similarly, using animations, descriptive links, and clear calls-to-action (CTAs) can reduce the cognitive load of your users.

Step 2: Use the right media to help convey your ideas.

With linear, traditional content like a PDF or Word document, you have only words and pictures at your disposal. Yet with interactive content, you can use animated graphs, videos, audio clips, and more to further develop your arguments. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities, but also a whole new world of challenges with arranging your ideas.

Know the context of the content.

In the science of hermeneutics , you learn that you read an email differently than you read a poem. You expect certain things within an academic essay that you wouldn’t expect in a podcast. And so on. The context of the medium has a lot to do with the content itself. This is what Marshall McLuhan meant when he wrote, “ The medium is the message .” 

Consider what your readers will have seen first. Are they coming to your piece after they’ve seen some introductory video, or an email, or is it part of a larger series of blog posts or some other content? This informs how you want to build the content and how to use which medium.

For example, let’s think of how to use a video in your interactive content. A video can help illuminate a vivid point of your writing, or it can summarize a lot of written material in a short space. This is the best use of video within interactive content. Say you want to use a video as an aside, nestled beside a scroll function of 300 words of text. A two-minute video in this case is much better than a 15-minute video — the former can illuminate or summarize while the latter is long enough to be its own piece of content. Viewers may forget what you’re writing and focus only on the video content.

That’s why this is the first rule in choosing media: Know the context of where your content lives, which will determine how you express yourself.

Use multimedia like salt: sparingly.

To continue the point above, you’ll want to use multimedia that’s on the shorter side, depending on what you’re trying to get across. Longer media begin to take on a life of their own, which users can easily view in another format, like on YouTube or on Spotify as they drive to work.

Putting an even finer point on it, you’ll also want to use multimedia very sparingly, to expand on a topic that can’t be adequately covered with text alone. This could be a short video or audio clip, a gif, or an image. It should enhance the content, not distract the viewer from it. We’ve seen some interactive content authors throw in all the media they can find that’s relevant to their topic. But, as the saying goes, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Find multimedia assets with the right permissions.

Not all content can be used as you find it on the web. Much of it is copyrighted, while other content is in the wrong format. Copyright infringement is a big deal for content creators, and it’s critical that you respect and cite their work. After all, that’s how they earn a living. We’ve seen too many people simply Google the image they’re looking for and slap it into their content, but that can violate copyright laws.

However, you can Google an image you’re looking for as long as you filter for usage rights. After you search on Google and click on Images, click on Tools just below the search bar. Then you can filter using Creative Commons licenses. This allows you to use the media within the Creative Commons framework.

You can also Google “license-free stock photos or videos.” You’ll find results like Unsplash , Pixabay , and Storyblocks . The latter allows you to pay a subscription for licensed images, videos, and audio assets for your interactive content. There are plenty of other sources out there — just make sure you’re using content that you’re actually allowed to use!

Step 3: Design the content with your favorite design tool.

Once you know what you’re saying, how you’re saying it, with the right media to support it, now you have to bring it to life. Use Adobe, Sketch, or Figma to create your layouts and graphics for the piece. Sound intimidating? You can also use Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and Google Slides to create interactive experiences.

View guides, Resources, and the Tiled University to get started.

Creating interactive experiences can be really tough if you’re just starting. That’s why we publish resources to help you get started, from the big picture to the tiny details. So, before you get started on your next project, take a scroll through our Resources page to see webinars, tips, and other content that will help you take your content to the next level.

If that doesn’t have what you’re looking for, dive deeper into Tiled University to see courses, lessons, webinars, and more to build your own content.

Additionally, each design tool has its own resources for helpful hints if you get stuck:

From there, the only limit is your imagination.

Start with a template.

If you’re like most people, you’ve stared at a blank canvas or document for far too long wondering where to begin. We get it. Creating interactive content is hard. But the good news is that you can start with a template! You may not know what to say, but at least it’ll look nice.

Kidding aside, a good template does more than just look nice. It can also give you a structure for arranging your ideas. Many of the resource pages listed in the previous point have similar structures given your setting.

For example, most presentation templates start with a title slide, then an agenda, team members, and problem and solution slides. Whether you need a pitch deck, a quarterly update, newsletter, brand guide, or something else, starting with a template from the resources pages of each design tool is the best way to get started quickly.

And the best part? You can integrate your design files with Tiled’s interactive content editor.

Export, share, and revise.

Once you’ve viewed the resources, picked a template, and composed your piece, you’re ready to export and share your interactive document. There are a few ways to do this. You can either export the file as is to be read in your favorite design or presentation tool, you can send a shareable link to your team, you can broadcast the presentation with specific people, or you can embed the file into a web page.

After sharing your creation, you may need to edit it. It’s the worst feeling when you’ve completed a beautiful PDF document only to realize there’s a major typo on page 3. Oh well. What’s done is done. Similarly, a PowerPoint is editable, but if you’ve already emailed the file over to your boss, that’s the version they have, not the one you’re editing. You need a way to edit the master file that everyone sees. With interactive content platforms, you can do just that, and every edit you make will be live for the rest of the team to see in real time.

Finally, analytics and insights based on users’ behavior with the content can be even more important than your research before you started (see Step 1). You may think that theoretical users will behave one way, but your actual users may behave completely differently based on your actual content. It’s crucial for content creators to adapt to their audience, not the other way around. Editing in real time with shareable links gives you the ability to adapt your content to produce the most engagement over time.

Give your ideas the tools they’ve been waiting for.

The old ways of communicating limit your imagination with flat text and boring slides. Your storytelling craves a more innovative, engaging experience that amplifies the power of every medium at your fingertips. Your audience, whether for sales and marketing, creative directing, or employee empowering, demands something fresh. Reimagine what content can be with Tiled, an interactive content platform built for the new age of communication. Our no-code story builder lets teams create, share, and edit their content anywhere, anytime, with actionable analytics to scale their impact. Leave behind the static past and rewrite the future.

At Tiled, we help enterprises create engaging experiences easily.

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What is an interactive presentation and how is it different? ‍

In the world of work and education, presentations are a way of life. As the learning landscape continues to grow into one that leans into digital and touchscreen experiences, the need for more dynamic and engaging presentations is expanding with it. However, with these changes also come higher content expectations from audiences.

The days of sitting in a classroom or conference room and learning through a well-designed PowerPoint or PDF are long gone. Well, they’re long gone if you actually want to keep your audience engaged and actively learning from your content. Though there’s a difference between interactive presentations and interactive content, which we’ll explain more later, you’ll see that there is some overlap.

These days, if you want to really reach your audience, you have to go beyond a PowerPoint. Cognitive research shows that to be truly effective, you’ll need to take a multimedia approach . That is, tailor the content to your target audience, source high-quality imagery, develop a compelling story, and implement high-quality design . Traditionally, presentations have included a speaker moving around a whiteboard or slide deck, drawing on the board or using a pointer for the deck, keeping the audience’s attention. 

Yet the world has changed. Now presenters are talking heads on the other side of a screen, using static text and images to communicate to a dulled audience who’s been staring at a screen for hours already. 

Your audience expectations have elevated thanks to high-quality, immersive presentations and consumer content, the likes of which you’d find in a TED talk or Apple keynote. Thankfully, however, content and presentation tools have risen to the occasion. Enter the era of the interactive presentation.

What is an interactive presentation?

In the simplest terms, an interactive presentation is precisely what it sounds like: a presentation you can interact with, complete with multi-dimensional media. They often incorporate web-style functionalities like navigation, hyperlinks, and hotspots. For example, in an interactive presentation, you have the freedom to click on content and have an action occur, such as a video, animation, or popup box.

However, as simple as that may sound, it’s just the beginning of what an interactive presentation can do. Interaction fundamentally changes the way you can engage with your audience. It turns a passive experience into an authentic conversation that benefits everyone involved.

Is an interactive presentation different from interactive content?

Interactive content includes videos, image sliders, animations, polls, and more. An interactive presentation is the means used to combine and bundle multiple types of interactive content all in one place to present to an audience, often in real time. With an interactive presentation, you can combine interactive content with storytelling and questions to engage your audience.

Why do we need interactive presentations?

Preferences and expectations have changed: Today, viewers simply expect innovative companies to present information in a highly engaging, multimedia style no matter the device, location, or time. But there are other benefits to interactive presentations.

Interactive presentations increase engagement.

Interactive presentations allow you to go from talking to your audience to talking with them. Neuroscience research shows that by using interactive presentations, your audience immediately has the motivation to stay engaged and participate . That is, an interactive presentation allows you to navigate in a nonlinear fashion : You can ask the audience what they want to talk about, and the navigation options enable you to jump directly to the content that is most interesting to the audience without disrupting the natural flow of the presentation.

Additionally, asking audience members to participate helps them tune in and bring back those whose attention may have drifted off. Interactive presentations will allow you to include audio and video files. Through an interactive presentation, you can include deeper content within each section and create a greater understanding of what you want to convey.

Interactive presentations encourage team building.

Making a presentation interactive adds surprise, delight, and fun. Getting interactive also makes it easy for team members to break the ice, connect, and work together. Getting away from a traditional lecture is also a welcome break from the monotony of a regular workday. Interactive presentations can contain video, audio, polls, and even games. Using these types of interactive content makes the presentation fun, encourages team-building, and fosters innovation. Not only will your audience absorb and retain more of your information, but they’ll also enjoy doing it. It’s a win-win. 

Interactive presentations make learning easier. 

Distraction is common in presentations. Even the most compelling speaker can struggle to try to keep a large group engaged with just slides and images. It’s easier to remember the content of a presentation when you’re actively participating in the experience. Imagine the difference between reading about communication versus working through an exercise. You’re much more likely to feel comfortable with the tools and information you’ve learned after putting them into practice in a safe space.

Furthermore, better engagement leads to better information retention. No matter what kind of presentation you’re delivering, interactivity brings concepts off the screen and into real life.

Interactive presentations allow for personalized delivery. 

Adding interactive elements to a presentation makes it feel more thoughtful and personalized to your audience. Creating that personalized connection is vital to keeping audiences engaged and informed. You can also add interactive elements into an existing presentation for a customized feel. It also empowers your audience to ask questions, offer feedback, and actively participate.

Ways to use interactive presentations

Elevating your training programs through touchscreens, animations, games, and other interactive elements helps teams onboard or learn information and take action for sustained behavior change.

Conferences

Conferences are often filled with multiple days of boring PowerPoint, PDF, and Google Slides presentations. Can you imagine how refreshing it would be to walk into a conference session and have a chance to move, speak, and participate? As we’ve said before, not only will an interactive presentation make your content more engaging, your session attendees will retain what they’ve learned better as well. 

Website or microsite

Websites need interactivity to lead the user around the page and into the other pages. By providing interactive content throughout, you’ll more deeply engage your audience than with static texts and images.

Leave-behinds

This is a bit of a misnomer, but a “leave-behind” we’re thinking of is an interactive asset you can add to your follow-up email after a conversation with a prospect, customer, or new employee. Imagine the context and clarity you can create by using interactive content to keep the conversation going.

Internal communications

Employees are inundated with communications from every level of the organization. Interactive content can help internal leaders drive adoption for an initiative, take an action, or provide further information.

How can I make my presentation interactive?

With the rapid growth of interactive presentations comes a multitude of new technologies to help you create them. Today’s interactive presentation software offerings make it easy to create an interactive presentation yourself with no need for development skills.

How can interactive presentation software help make my presentations easier?

Much of the media you encounter today comprises various media types, like audio, video, gifs, and more. However, including these media in traditional presentation software is often clunky and unintuitive. Interactive presentation software, on the other hand, makes adding these to your presentations easy and effective.

Professional visual aids

According to a study by venngage.com , 65% of professionals at 2018 Marcom conferences designed their own presentations and relied heavily on imagery. Additionally, over 90% of a person’s daily processed information comes from visual receptors . Interactive presentation software makes it easier to get to a professional and well-designed visual experience that goes far beyond bullet points.

Editable templates

If you’ve ever used PowerPoint or Google Slides before, you know that they provide users with some limited themes and templates. However, today’s interactive presentation software often includes dozens of templates with customizable features built to make interaction easy without having to learn to code. And these aren’t just for PowerPoint users but also for Adobe XD, Sketch, and more, making designers’ lives easier than ever. That way you already have the right formats and media — all you need to add is your branding and company voice.

Intuitive tools

Learning new technology can feel like a daunting addition to your presentation planning. However, editing tools for interactive presentation software are intuitive and straightforward to use. Content creators have less of a learning curve because most of their time will remain in their design tool of choice, from Adobe XD, InDesign, and Photoshop, to Sketch, Figma, PowerPoint, Google Slides, and more. When you combine this with the extensive collection of templates available, you’ll end up with something personalized and professional, and feel ready to drive the results you’re looking for.

Interactive scrolling

Another great feature to add to your content experience is to scroll through other content within the page. Users don’t have to leave the experience. Instead, they can just continue to scroll and explore the content at their own pace. 

Interactive functionality also lends itself well to infographics and animation, and it’s definitely more engaging than a static image or PDF. An in-page scrolling feature also lets you build multi-dimensional components. Elements like scrolling make your presentation feel more like touchscreens and social media feeds that audiences already use and enjoy. 

Data and analytics

Data-driven insights have become a crucial part of how organizations innovate and optimize the work experience. Interactive presentation software is not only an excellent tool for creating engaging content quickly, but it’s also excellent at collecting data and helping you develop and evolve both your content and your presentation style.

While it’s impossible to measure how long a group of people listen in a conference room or open a PowerPoint or PDF attachment, interactive presentations let you collect data on this and more. You can measure clicks, scrolls, and other metrics that can help you continually craft better and more effective presentations. Depending on what software you use, you can even gather all of that information without leaving the platform. 

Now that you’ve seen all the advantages of an interactive presentation and how easily interactive presentation software can help you bring them to life (without any code!), the only limitation to your presentation is your imagination.

What is Interactive Content? Plus 6 Examples 

You have likely heard the phrase “content is king.” This sentiment still holds true. However, there have been a lot of advancements and innovations in the content space. As more and more brands look to engage with their customers through storytelling, “interactive content is king” feels like a more apt phrase to describe the state of content marketing in 2021.

Brands have continually raised the bar for quality content while customers simultaneously expect more and more from their branded interactions. This has led to a rapid increase in the creation of quality interactive content across the marketplace. At this point, just 5% of produced content creates 90% of engagement . That means all content is not equal: Supercharging your top 5% of assets can supercharge your engagement.

What is interactive content?

Interactive content is content that audiences actively engage with. Rather than just passively digesting a video, website, or white paper, interactive content elevates the content experience with personalized interactions. This dynamic content keeps audiences focused on your message while also becoming immersed in your brand.

What are some examples of interactive content?

There is a wide variety of interactive content types. A few examples of interactive content can include e-books, sales decks, onboarding materials, and more. Interactive elements like surveys, infographics, and more also improve the experience and provide meaningful context. There are many different options, so selecting the right one for your organization takes some thought. That’s why it’s important to think through your business needs and goals, and then choose the type of content that will work best to help you achieve those goals. Here’s a closer look at a few different kinds of interactive content:

E-books are publications specifically built for the web. It’s like an interactive PDF but has fewer limitations and usually operates more smoothly across browsers and platforms. An e-book can contain myriad impressive interactive elements like video links, case studies, or animation. On top of all that, e-book technology can improve reports, studies, and white papers by increasing engagement and allowing users to explore information as they choose. In short, why use an interactive e-book rather than a PDF? Because customers and prospects are evaluating lots of different solutions, and you want to have differentiated content that leaves a lasting impression.

See an example of a microapp e-book.

Video has long been the best way to get a viewer’s undivided attention on the internet. Even as new technologies emerge, video remains a tried-and-true way to create high-engagement media. The key is to craft a compelling story that viewers will want to follow until the end. Sparking that curiosity is a mix of finding the best hook, appropriate production, and a strong sense of your audience. Additionally, adding a video within an interactive document can provide context, summarize surrounding material, or simply engage the viewer with another medium.

See an example of using video in a microapp.

Quizzes and polls

Surveys and polls have been a key piece of audience engagement ever since the days of paper magazines. Quizzes and polls feel fun to users as they acquire useful or entertaining information in exchange for sharing data. That’s part of why quizzes are a tried-and-true method for engaging with audiences. This style of content works best as a way to facilitate feedback and capture new user data while keeping the audience engaged. It’s much easier (and more effective!) than methods like email surveys or follow-up calls. 

See an example of a microapp quiz.

Interactive infographics

Infographics combine illustrations, icons, and graphics to create compelling and thematic visualizations of facts and data. Infographics make complicated facts and figures more digestible by using animation, typography, and story to bring data to life. Currently, 60% of B2B companies are already using this format, and similar trends are visible in HR departments, education, non-profits, and more. Interactive infographics are usually single, long-scroll web pages commonly developed in HTML5. Interactive infographics take the clarity of a data visualization a step further. As a result, the reader can better understand the story behind your data and is much more likely to engage with any content.

See an example of data brought to life in this microapp.

Landing pages

Landing pages are a lead generation and conversion staple. However, you can increase their effectiveness by taking an interactive approach to the content on the page. From animation to video, the right content at the right time can trigger audiences to type their information into a form field to become a lead.

See an example of a landing page with a microapp here.

Why is interactive content important?

E-books, infographics, and blog posts are already valuable tools for educating and communicating with your audiences. Adding interactive components make these tools more attractive to your customers through the power of delight and entertainment. And that’s just the beginning. Here are a few reasons that leaning into interactive content is worth it.

Interactive content increases leads and fosters loyalty from customers.

Creating interactive content leads to an overall better customer experience and boosts feelings of brand loyalty across the board. From increasing trust around sharing information, to feeling truly educated, and even being entertained — interactive content just resonates better with consumers. 

Interactive content increases engagement.

Even basic interactive pieces tend to have high engagement levels, simply due to their dynamic nature. When done exceptionally well, research has shown that on average, interactive content receives double the engagement that static content does. While the content may dictate how the user interacts with it, the consumer has a sense of discovery and control that keeps them attentive and interested. Rather than your content acting as a billboard that displays information consumers may or may not see, interactive content acts more like a conversation between you and your audience. Once you give them something of value, they’ll be more likely to continue their customer journey with you. Which brings us to our next point.

Interactive content makes collecting data easier.

Personalized marketing campaigns are quickly becoming the status quo, but to create a robust and targeted plan, you need relevant data. Interactive content is a great tool that makes it easier to capture key information from customers, such as demographic and firmographic information through lead capture forms. Today’s consumers can also be nervous about handing over personal information like email addresses. But by offering a rich, interactive content experience, you’re providing something of value to the customer that makes submitting personal information feel worth it. It feels less risky to share your email address with a company that has created something truly engaging.

Interactive content sets you up for successful testing.

Metrics from passive content can reveal information around scroll depth or bounce rates, but it can’t tell you how much of the content the consumer is actually viewed. Interactive content, on the other hand, works by collecting data while the content is in use. This allows you to measure views, clicks, and interactions with individual elements of your interactive pieces. From there you can test, analyze, and optimize your content around the goals you’re trying to achieve.

Interactive content makes your content better.

As you gather data through your content, you’ll begin to learn about your audience’s content preferences. This makes it easier to refine your content strategy and lean into the tactics that work best for your consumers. This approach to highly targeted content marketing is fantastic at helping you establish trust and authority as well as expand your audience by serving up effective and informative content they’ll want to come back to time and time again. 

How can I start creating interactive content?

Although interactive content creation may seem daunting at first, platforms like this one can do the heavy lifting by offering simple, customizable tools that don’t require development skills. And it’s absolutely worth it. Having a partner or tool that can make your content look and function the way you want is invaluable. 

As you can see, interactive content holds so much potential. It pulls consumers directly into your story, offers them something valuable, and provides you with better insights. If you do it correctly, it can be a catalyst for your business or brand. After you’re done, just take a look at your data, get creative, and watch as your consumers start engaging more and building bonds with your brand.

Communication is tricky. How do you get your message across in a fun and engaging way to ensure readers, customers, clients, or whoever your target audience is retains it long after they hear or read it? It’s time to rethink those flat, two-dimensional resources, switch up your communication game, and look beyond the traditional PowerPoint and Microsoft Word document. How exactly? Two words, my friend: interactive documents. 

What Is an Interactive Document?

Traditional documents and marketing materials have limited space for information and engagement, but interactive documents take it to another level. Let’s start by talking about what makes a document interactive. An interactive document is chock-full of features like video, audio, buttons, page transitions, GIFs, and even podcasts, all neatly tucked inside like a Mary Poppins bag of wonders. It doesn’t stop there. You can even incorporate Google Docs and file sharing so users have a direct connection with the material at hand. The sky’s the limit when it comes to interactive pieces, and depending on which category below you want to address, there’s more than a few documents to consider:

• White papers
• Data sheets
• Research and analyst reports
• Infographics
• Case studies 
• Buyer’s guides
• ROI calculators
• Onboarding and training guides
• Pitch presentations
• Industry/professional best practice guides
• Competitive and cost comparisons
• Sales decks
• Finalist presentations

Employee Experience

• Training playbooks
• Onboarding materials
• Benefits/compensation resources
• Newsletters

You’re probably thinking, great — but how exactly do you make these interactive? Simply put, these six features are what make immersive, engaging content:

• Fillable forms: Especially useful in business, these make the reader an active participant, help collect user data, and contribute to future analytics.  
• Video files: Add life to content and engage readers right off the bat.
• Audio files: Great for samples and a refreshing change from text.
• Buttons: Help you navigate easily and allow users to go at their own pace when reading content like brochures or portfolios.
• Hyperlinks: Direct readers to another section of the document, another document altogether, or separate web address for additional information. ‍
• Photo galleries: Pick images that capture your audience, such as employees in action, relaxing or engaging pictures that evoke emotion, and images that help the reader identify with the content.

Which of these features appeals to you? Now think of your audience. How can you incorporate one or more of these to inspire and engage them? Next up, let’s explore the deeper benefits of interactive documents. 

Why Interactive Documents Are a Must for Your Success

Consider this: 88% of marketing professionals reportedly agree that interactive content separates them from their competitors. Furthermore, another 93% from this same Business2Community survey agree that interactive content is effective when it comes to educating buyers. So they give you a leg up on your competition, educate and engage your staff, and depending on your industry, bring the people to you. What’s not to like? If that’s not enough to convince you, consider these additional top 10 reasons why you need interactive documents, like, yesterday:

• They supercharge your marketing strategy: Take the guesswork out of learning your audience’s wants and needs, and then use interactive documents to generate more leads based on what you find.
• User friendly and more bang for your buck: There’s only so much content you can fit into a traditional PDF, but interactive documents allow you to take a deep dive into data and immerse readers in your content in an engaging and inspiring way.
• Create a lasting impression on readers long after they read it: In the words of the great Maya Angelou, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” What do you ultimately want people to remember and take away after reading?
• Convenience, convenience, convenience: Most attention spans are short. While some readers want all the information, some just want to quickly and easily jump to the information they need. Interactive documents allow you to do both. 
• Take a different approach to feedback: Interactive documents offer an alternative approach to gathering feedback with surveys or just by allowing you to understand where people click, spend the most time, what they ignore, and where they leave. You can then use this data to adapt your content to best meet the customer’s needs. 
• Set the tone for future interaction: Whether it’s a brochure, culture handbook, or quarterly review, when you set the precedent with interactive, engaging, fun content, you pull your audience in from the get-go and keep them coming back for more.
• Boost retention and conversion rates: You heard right. Happy, satisfied readers are not only more likely to keep coming back for more but also move through the sales process.
• Pique their interest and capture the attention of readers: Even the driest subject can be made interesting with the right format if you appeal to your audience and clearly show them what’s in it for them.  
• Increase interaction: Use fillable forms to your advantage and identify prospective client needs and preferences so you’re catering to them right from the start.
• Add an innovative approach to professional documents: Take otherwise dry content and make it engaging and memorable.

Now that you know what exactly interactive documents are and why you need them, let’s take a look at some examples to inspire you.

10 Interactive Document Examples to Bring Down the House

• This Seismic Media Kit captures you from the moment you start watching the intro video. It only gets better from there as users navigate through a series of slides, sure to engage and captivate even the toughest crowd.
• Do you have a culture book? Could it use some updates? Paycor’s culture book is a prime example of how you can bring your company culture to life and leave a lasting impression on your employees from the very first day they start.
• What comes to mind when you hear quarterly reviews? Fun? Engaging? A delight to the eye? Probably not. But what if they could be? Compass Development’s Quarterly Review is sleek, smart, and a refreshing change from the traditional approach to sharing market insights. 
• Say sayonara to boring newsletters and check out this eye-pleasing, interactive, and engaging Paycor newsletter that incorporates videos, GIFs, and audio to engage and inspire staff as they read along.
• Recruit the right people and attract talent with this innovative job recruiting template . With crisp, clear, and easy-to-read content, it will leave your prospects scrolling for more.
• Make onboarding new staff a fun and easy experience with this self-paced, customizable resource guide .
• Revamp your product guide with video, scrolling pictures, and a contact form at the end to help you easily gather user info.  
• Does your presentation need a modern update? Take a look at this webinar template . It’s simple and visually appealing with video, key takeaways, and highlights.
• Case studies are tricky. They can be really good or really boring. Many are text heavy and they’re not exactly the crowd pleasers of marketing. But what if you could change that and engage readers from the onset with a structured and easy-to-read format that makes them want to click through to the very end? Look no further and download this case study template .
• User guides don’t have to be lame. This user guide template does all the work for you with its bright, colorful, and easy-to-follow format.

Still craving more? Check out even more examples in our showcase .

How to Create Interactive Documents That Make You Stand Out From the Crowd

The answer is simple: microapps. It sounds complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Not sure what a microapp is? Microapps are interactive digital assets that enable immersive experiences. Ultimately, they connect your brand with your customers, prospects, and employees so everyone can be part of your story. Sure, you could take a stab at it on your own, or perhaps you’ve already downloaded one of the templates previously mentioned. The thing is, microapps allow you to build interactive documents effortlessly so you have more time to invest in your content — and ultimately your people. Consider Tiled’s seven steps as you go about creating:

• Think like your audience: What are the deeper benefits for them? How do you address their struggles? And speak to them in a format that they identify with? Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.
• Establish the outcome: What’s your intent? Educate? Train? Buy? And what’s the ultimate end goal? Are you assessing their comprehension if it’s training material or convincing them to take the next step, whatever that may be?
• Create your structure: Think back to the interactive features you can include: videos, graphics, statistics, quotes. What will speak to your audience?
• Be dynamic by default: What interactive features attract people and which ones will you incorporate into your interactive document? Maybe it’s simple, with navigation and galleries, or perhaps you want more videos and/or surveys.
• Make actions obvious: Ensure the next step is clear so it’s easy for the reader to take action. For example, watch this video, click here to continue, etc.
• Improve with analytics: Remember that it’s a team effort. Work with your team to ensure the flow, visuals, words, interactive content, and call to action are obvious. 
• Measure engagement: With microapps, you can track KPIs like open rates and engagement easily and remove the guesswork. 

Learn More and Get Started Today

The idea of creating interactive documents may sound daunting at first, but now that you know how to go about it the right way and have come to realize just how simple the process can be, it’s time to say goodbye to static content. Join the interactive document revolution. Make your people an active part of your story, inspire, and engage them with meaningful content. 

For more resources including webinars, e-books, and other inspiration, check out Tiled’s Resource Library .

Are blogs more your thing? Read up on the latest and greatest food for thought on our blog .

Let’s do this .

Imagine a new world of content.

• Interactive Presentation

How to Make a Presentation Interactive | 7 Great Ways

Lakshmi Puthanveedu • 13 September, 2024 • 11 min read

Are your presentations putting people to sleep faster than a bedtime story? It’s time to shock some life back into your lessons with interactivity🚀

Let's defibrillate “Death by PowerPoint” and show you lightning-quick ways how to make a presentation interactive .

With these tips, you'll be able to activate that dopamine drip and get butts in seats leaning in - not delving deep into the chairs!

Table of Contents

What is an interactive presentation.

• Why Use an Interactive Presentation?

#1. Create icebreaker games🧊

• #2. Make use of props 📝

#3. Create interactive presentation games and quizzes 🎲

#4. tell a compelling story, #5. organise a brainstorming session, #6. make a word cloud for the topic, #7. bring out the poll express, easy interactive activities for presentations, more presentation examples you could learn from.

Keeping your audience engaged is the most critical and challenging part, regardless of the topic or how casual or formal the presentation is. 

An interactive presentation is a presentation that works two ways. The presenter asks questions during the production, and the audience responds directly to those questions.

Let's take an example of an interactive poll .

The presenter displays a poll question on the screen. The audience can then submit their answers live through their mobile phones, and the results are immediately displayed on the screen, as shown in the image below. Yay, it's an interactive slide presentation .

Making a presentation interactive does not have to be complex or stressful. It’s all about letting go of the static, linear presentation format and using some tools and techniques to create a personal, more involved experience for the audience.

With software like AhaSlides , you can easily create interactive and dynamic presentations with tons of interactive quizzes, polls, and live Q&A sessions for your audience. Keep reading to find out fired tips on how to make a presentation interactive 👇

Why Interactive Presentation?

Presentations are still one of the commonly used methods to pass on information. Still, no one likes to sit through long, monotonous presentations where the host doesn’t stop talking.

Interactive presentations can help. They...

• Increase audience engagement , allowing them to connect with you and the purpose of the presentation. 64% of people believe a flexible presentation with two-way interaction is more engaging than a linear one.
• Improve retention capacity . 68% say that it’s easier to remember the information when the presentation is interactive.
• Tips: Use a rating scale to gather feedback !
• Act as a break from the routine and allow participants to have an enjoyable experience.

How to Make a Presentation Interactive

Whether you are hosting a virtual or offline presentation, there are many ways to make presentations interactive, exciting and two-way for your audience.

Starting a presentation is always one of the most challenging parts. You are nervous; the audience might still be settling, there might be people not familiar with the topic - the list could go on. Get to know your audience, ask them questions about how they are feeling and how their day was, or maybe share a funny story to get them hooked and excited.

🎊 Here are 180 Fun General Knowledge Quiz Questions and Answers to gain better engagement.

#2. Make use of Props 📝

Making a presentation interactive does not mean you have to let go of traditional tricks of engaging the audience. You could bring a lighting stick or a ball to pass around to the audience when they want to ask a question or share something.

Games and quizzes will always remain the star of the show, no matter how complex the presentation is. You don’t necessarily have to create them related to the topic; these could also be introduced into the presentation as fillers or as a fun activity.

💡 Want more? Get 10 interactive presentation techniques here!

Stories work like a charm in any situation. Introducing a complex physics topic? You could tell a story about Nicola Tesla or Albert Einstein. Want to beat the Monday blues in the classroom? Tell a story! Want to break the ice ? 

Well, you know… ask the audience to tell a story! 

There are many ways you could use storytelling in a presentation. In a marketing presentation , for instance, you can create empathy with your audience by telling an engaging story or asking them if they have any interesting marketing stories or situations to share. If you're a teacher, you could pitch an outline to the students and ask them to build the rest of the story. 

Or, you could tell a story till just before the ending and ask the audience how they think the story ended.

You’ve created a stellar presentation. You’ve introduced the topic and are mid-way through the exhibition. Wouldn’t it be nice to sit back, take a break and see how your students put some effort into taking the presentation forward?

Brainstorming helps get the students excited about the topic and allows them to think creatively and critically.

💡 Get an engaged class with 6 more interactive presentation ideas

Want to make sure your audience gets the concept or topic of the presentation without making it feel like an interrogation? 

Live word clouds are fun and interactive and ensure the main topic is not lost in the presentation. Using a word cloud free , you can ask the audience what they think is the main topic for the production.

How do you feel about using visual aids in your presentation? It's not anything new, right? 

But what if you can merge funny pictures with an interactive poll? That's got to be interesting! 

“How do you feel right now?” 

This simple question could be turned into an interactive fun activity with the help of images and GIFs describing your mood. Present it to the audience in a poll, and you could display the results on the screen for everyone to see.

This is a great, super simple icebreaker activity that can help revitalise team meetings, especially when some folks are working remotely.

💡 We've got more - 10 interactive presentation ideas for work .

Whether you’re hosting something for your colleagues, students or friends, retaining their attention for a while can be a daunting task.

Games such as What Would You Do? and 4 Corners are easy interactive activities to help the audience get back on track with your presentation …

What Would You Do?

Isn’t it interesting to know what someone would do in a particular situation or how they would handle it? In this game, you give the audience a scenario and ask how they would deal with it.

Say, for example, you are having a fun night with your friends and family. You could ask questions like, “What would you do if you could be invisible to the human eye?” and see how they handle the given situation.

If you've got remote players, this is a great interactive Zoom game .

This is a perfect game for anyone with an opinion. It’s a great way to start a conversation on your presentation's topic before diving into the meat of it.

You announce a statement and see how everyone feels about it. Each participant shows how they think by moving to one corner of the room. The corners are labelled ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘strongly disagree’, and ‘disagree’. 

Once everyone has taken their place in the corners, you could have a debate or discussion between the teams.

🎲 Looking for more? Check out 11 interactive presentation games !

The 5 Best Interactive Presentation Software

Making a presentation interactive is so much easier with the right tool.

Among various presentation software , interactive presentation websites let your audience respond directly to the content of your presentation and see the results on the big screen. You ask them a question in the form of a poll, word cloud, brainstorming or even a live quiz, and they respond with their phones.

#1 - AhaSlides

AhaSlides presentation platform will let you host fun, engaging presentations for all your needs, with quizzes, live Q&As, word clouds, brainstorming slides, and such.

The audience can join the presentation from their phones and interact with it live. Whether you are presenting to your students, a businessman who wants to hold team-building activities, or someone who wants to have a fun quiz game for your friends and family, this is a great tool you can use, with a ton of fun interactive options.

If you are looking for ways to boost your team’s creativity at your workplace, then Prezi is an excellent tool.

It is a bit similar to how a standard linear presentation would be but more imaginative and creative. With a huge template library and many animated elements, Prezi lets you create a cool, interactive display in no time.

Although the free version does not come with many features, spending a little on the tool is worth it to create content for any occasion.

🎊 Learn more: Top 5+ Prezi Alternatives | 2024 Reveal From AhaSlides

NearPod is a good tool that most educators would get a kick out of. It is specifically designed to cater to educational needs, and the free basic version lets you host a presentation for up to 40 students.

Teachers can build lessons, share them with students and monitor their results. One of the best features of NearPod is the Zoom integration, where you can merge your ongoing Zoom lesson with the presentation.

The tool also has various interactive features such as memory tests, polls, quizzes and video embedding features.

Canva is an easy-to-use kit that even a person with no design experience could master in a few minutes.

With the drag-and-drop feature of Canva, you can create your slides in no time and that too with copyright-free images and a ton of design templates to choose from.

🎉 Learn more: Canva Alternatives | 2024 Reveal | Updated 12 Free and Paid Plans

Keynote for Mac

Keynote is one of the most popular bits of presentation software for Mac . It comes pre-installed and can be easily synced to iCloud, making it accessible across all Apple devices. Along with creating engaging presentations, you can also add a little bit of creativity by adding doodles and illustrations to your presentation.

Keynote presentations can also be exported to PowerPoint, allowing flexibility for the presenter.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i make my presentation more interactive.

You can make a presentation more interactive with these 7 simple strategies: 1. Create icebreaker games 2. Make use of props 3. Create interactive presentation games and quizzes 4. Tell a compelling story 5. Organise a session using a brainstorming tool 6. Make a word cloud for the topic 7. Bring out the Poll Express

Can I make my PowerPoint interactive?

Yes, you can use PowerPoint's AhaSlides add-in to save time and effort while still being able to create interactive activities like polls, Q&A or quizzes.

How can you make presentations interactive to get students involved?

Here are some effective ways to make presentations more interactive and get students involved: 1. Use polls/surveys 2. Use quizzes, leaderboards, and points to make the content feel more game-like and fun. 3. Pose questions and cold call on students to answer and discuss their thinking. 4. Insert relevant videos and have students analyse or reflect on what they saw.

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To help you craft an impactful presentation, let's explore some common pitfalls and how to overcome them

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Lakshmi Puthanveedu

A small-town girl enthralled by culture, languages, and sunsets. Casual artist and musician looking to make memories every step of the way. Now changing the way humans live and have virtual interactions with AhaSlides.

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12 Interactive Presentation Ideas to Engage Your Audience in 2024

Too often, presentations are thought of as one-way communications. The speaker is on the stage delivering their presentation and it's the audience's role to listen attentively. Interactive presentations are different because they involve the audience.

As freelancers and small business owners, our clients hire us for our expertise and solutions to problems that they have. That's why I firmly believe that when the opportunity arises, it's a great idea to give a presentation and share your knowledge.

You can involve the audience by giving an interactive presentation. In this tutorial, I'm going to share ideas on how to make an engaging presentation by including audience participation in your presentation. With an interactive presentation you'll make a memorable impression. I'll share seven interactive presentation ideas to engage your audience.

Guide to Making Great Presentations (Free eBook Download)

Before we dig into the tips though, there's another resource we've got that can help you to improve your presentations. Download our FREE eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations .

It'll help you with the complete presentation process, taking the interactive presentation ideas you'll learn in this article further.

Now, let's take a look at how to make your presentations more interactive:

1. Use Social Media

Most people have social media these days, so why not include it in your interactive presentation?

Twitter is the easiest to use for this purpose. Create a hashtag that people can use for their questions or thoughts. Tell your audience what your hashtag is before the presentation starts. Then, let your audience know that you’ll answer questions during or after your presentation.

You can also use Facebook and create a Facebook group for audience members to post their questions about your presentation. Social media is an excellent way for people to interact with your presentation. Try this if you're looking for interactive presentation ideas for students.

2. Print Out a Handout

Print the main points of your interactive presentation topics on a handout and give it to your audience. This allows the audience to look back over previous parts of your presentation. This can also allow the audience to take notes if they choose to

3. Use Props

Looking for interactive activities for presentations? If you've got a small audience, using props is a great interactive presentation idea. Use a prop to reinforce important points.

You can also use props to help explain a problem or situation. Props can allow you to visualize what you’re talking about. And it can be a way to get your audience involved with the presentation.

4. Lead a Q&A Session

One of the most popular ways to engage an audience is to open the floor for a  question and answer  (Q&A) session. These sessions give you the opportunity to take questions from the audience and interact with them.

Leave time at the end of your presentation to take questions from the audience. Not only will a Q&A session spark direct interaction with the audience, it gives you a chance to share your knowledge and build up your expertise. The audience may even consider the way you're answering your questions and picture working with you. Here's a sample slide to add to your presentation: 

When you open up questions to the audience, it opens the floor for discussion. The presentation might go in a direction it may never have gone without the audience input. 

Check out the full tutorial below for a complete guide to preparing for a Q&A session with the audience.

5.  Host an Experts Panel

One interactive presentation idea is to have an experts panel during your presentation. An experts panel is like a Q&A session on steroids. Instead of directing all the questions to one speaker, design your presentation around a group of experts who are well-equipped to answer any question that may arise.

Most expert panel sessions feature a mix of questions you'll prepare for the audience and questions from audience members.

Let's take a look at an interactive presentation example. The video below from TechCrunch's Disrupt conference is a great example of an expert panel:

You might be afraid that you can't find qualified candidates for your own expert panel. Don't forget that there's plenty of benefits for the experts who take part, as it gives them a chance to showcase their expertise. The experts don't have to be industry leaders to add insight, they just have to be more knowledgeable than the audience.

6.  Get Audience Feedback in Real-Time

What if you could find out what your audience is thinking while you're giving a presentation? You could use this feedback to not only understand your audience, but also to tweak the presentation as you go.

Audience participation in presentations can help. This could be as simple as a show of hands question, such as "How many of you freelance for your primary source of income?" But there are even better ways to take a poll and feedback from your audience.

I recently attended a presentation where the presenter used a tool called DirectPoll to ask for feedback from the audience. This tool lets you create a quick poll that your audience can access and vote on from their mobile device.

A poll is an engaging way to let your audience know that you care about their opinions and are speaking directly to them. Consider a poll to grab attention and build trust by showing that you're interested in their background.

7. Use a "Choose Your Own Adventure" Approach

When I was younger, my favorite books were ones that had a fork in the road where I could choose my path. Instructions like "turn to page 43 if you want to take the door on the left, turn to page 55 if you want to take the door on the right" made me feel like I was in control of what happened to the characters.

What if we brought this same mindset to giving a presentation, except we let the audience influence which direction we go? Using either the polling approach I showed you earlier or a simple show of hands, consider designing a presentation that's got many branches. Here's a sample interactive presentation slide you could use:

Those presentation branches could vary the anecdotes you tell the audience, the videos you show, or any piece of content that you've got more than one option for.

This approach requires a bit more preparation, but it also has some advantages. First, having many paths for your presentation means that you may never give the same presentation twice. 

The best part of making the audience choose the path for the presentation is that your audience may ask for the stories they didn't  hear as a follow-up. 

A branching presentation is yet another chance to interact with audience during the presentation. Giving the audience a role in deciding the direction of a presentation is one of the best ways to interact.

8.  Follow-Up After the Presentation

Follow up is another way to interact with  your audience. There's no reason that giving a presentation has to be the last contact you can have with the audience. What if your presentation could become the beginning of a dialogue between you and the audience members?

Many freelancers and small businesses use presentations and speaking engagements to gently promote their businesses. There are many great stories of using a presentation to gain new clients. 

The wrong way to approach presentation follow-up is as a heavy-handed sales pitch. Instead, educating the audience and showing your expertise will make them think of you the next time they need to hire someone. Here's a slide that invites continued audience participation:

Here are three interactive presentation ideas to ensure that your presentation won't be the last time you speak to the audience:

• Make sure to include a  Contact Us  slide that gives your audience the chance to reach out to you. An email address or social media handle can be the start of a conversation with the audience to find collaborators or potential clients.
• Consider taking contact details from your audience before the presentation. If they're willing to share their email address, for example, you could reach out to them after the presentation in a personal way.
• Send anyone who signs up and shares their contact details a bonus, like a PDF supplement with your top tips from the skill you taught.

It only takes a few successful presentations to launch your business with enough clients to make the leap from your day job. But, you've got to give the audience a chance to connect with you after the presentation to launch those opportunities. Interactive presentations can be a key part of that.

9.  Ask for Audience Action

Interacting with your audience is a start, but what if you directly asked for action from the audience? Audience activities during presentations are a good way to keep them engaged.

Those activities could include audience exercises such as greeting one another before you get started. You could also offer an intermission for everyone to stretch and take a break. You could also ask for follow-up action after the presentation. Here's a sample slide lead-in for an audience get acquainted time:

What I've found when I've used these techniques is that they generally increase audience engagement, even if that engagement is between audience members. Breaking down those invisible barriers during a presentation can continue the conversation long after the fact.

10.  Publish an Interactive Presentation Online

Some presentations transcend themselves because they're shared online with others. When you've put so much time into your interactive presentation, why limit yourself to sharing with an audience only in person?

You never know what will happen when you share an interactive presentation online. Maybe the presentation takes on a life of its own.

Here's an interactive presentation example. This Netflix culture slide deck was published online and has now been viewed over 20 million times:

When you publish your interactive presentation, you give your work a chance to be seen by others. It can reach a greater audience than just those who can attend your live presentation.

Before you publish your presentation online, you may want to adjust the slides before you upload them. Here are three tips to help you get your presentation ready for sharing online:

• Consider adding an extra slide to explain the context of where your presentation was given. This helps an audience understand the reason you were giving the presentation.
• Since your audience may only see the slides, you may want to add  Speaker Notes  to the presentation. They'll help explain the slides in more detail to an online reader.
• Above all, make sure that your interactive presentation is okay to be shared online. For example, slides that you prepare for your company shouldn't be shared online without permission if they contain sensitive information.

Check out the tutorial below for ideas on how to share and popularize your presentation using popular services. You'll learn how to use SlideShare and PowerPoint Online so that a broader audience can see your presentation.

Remember, if you're using presentations to build your business, it's all about giving your audience value. The goal is to share your expertise and make yourself valuable and useful. You never know when your next client is sitting in the audience.

11. Create Discussion Questions

Another interactive presentation idea is have discussion questions for your audience. Have your audience break up into groups to discuss the questions. This allows the audience to interact with each other.

12. Use Music

Some interactive presentations have music added to the slides. This could excite the audience and break up the material you’re presenting.

For example, you could add fun music to some slides and light background music to other slides. You can also add fun music to one or two slides to add interaction.

Common Interactive Presentation Questions Answered (FAQ)

Do you have more questions about creating interactive presentations? Here are common presentation questions and answers:

1. Is It Possible to Personalize My Presentation?

Yes, it’s possible to personalize your interactive presentation. A key to personalizing your presentation is knowing your audience. Another tip is to use personal, relevant stories in your presentation.

2. Are There Different Presentation Styles?

Many different presentations styles can be used for your interactive presentation. If you're comfortable with your subject, there's the instructor style . If you need to convince your audience of an idea or product, then there's the persuasive style .

For more information on different types of presentation styles, read this article:

3. How Can I Use PowerPoint to Make a Better Interactive Presentation?

PowerPoint makes it easy to use premium premade templates. Plus, PowerPoint has a Slide Master where you can easily edit your slides from one screen. Slide Master controls the design for each slide that uses the master.

Another helpful feature is the Align Objects button. This helps your slide to look less messy. Learn more in the tutorial below:

4. What’s a Tip for a Good Presentation?

Rehearsing is an essential tip to have a good interactive presentation. When you rehearse, you find mistakes that you didn’t catch before and fix them. It can help to rehearse with a friend watching. They can tell you what the audience will see and whether they see any mistakes.

For a complete list of presentation tips to use for your interactive presentations, review the tutorial below:

5. How Do I Create an Impactful Ending to My Interactive Presentation?

One way to have an impactful ending is to stimulate the audience’s curiosity. Do this by stating a question or problem and then giving the audience the answer at the end of the presentation. This will cause the audience to look for clues for the solution throughout your presentation.

Learn Even More About Creating an Engaging Presentation

Download our free eBook: The Complete Guide to Making Great Presentations ,  which comes with a subscription to the Tuts+ Business Newsletter.

This 30 page PDF guide with included checklist will help you with the complete presentation process. Learn how to write your presentation, design it like a pro, and quickly prepare it to present powerfully.

A presentation isn't just a megaphone to speak to an audience. Instead, think of them as an opportunity for two-way communication with the attendees. You never know what connecting with audience members will lead to for your freelance business.

The tips in this tutorial are designed to engage your audience through interactive presentations. Try them out if you want to create a presentation that's less like a megaphone and more like a phone call.

Here are some tutorials that'll help you learn more about PowerPoint:

Build Your Interactive Presentation Today

What do you do to engage an audience when you're presenting? Do you use interactive presentations? If not, what's holding you back?

Now that you know how to make a presentation interactive, give it a try. Save time by starting with a presentation template from Envato Elements or GraphicRiver .

Editorial Note: This post has been updated with contributions from Sarah Joy . Sarah  is a freelance instructor for Envato Tuts+.

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How to Make a Presentation Interactive: Best Tips, Templates & Tools

Written by: Raja Mandal

Delivering a presentation often comes with the fear of losing your audience's attention. You dread seeing unfocused eyes, whispering conversations or cell phone tapping.

If you've experienced this, you’re not alone. Recent surveys highlight that 4 in 5 business professionals admit they tuned out during the last presentation they attended. The reason could be anything from getting bored with the topic to people's decreasing attention spans.

So, how do you tackle this? One of the best solutions for this is to make your presentation interactive.

This way, they will have a lesser chance of getting distracted. In fact, studies show that when the audience participates, the engagement can reach an impressive 92% .

That’s why we've created this guide to help you make your presentations interactive, even if you have no prior design experience.

Stay tuned till the end to get the best tips, templates and tools to turn your ideas into an interactive visual presentation.

Additionally, you can watch this video to learn about 15 more interactive presentation ideas.

Table of Contents

What is an interactive presentation, what makes a presentation interactive, interactive presentation example, 16 interactive presentation ideas, how to make an interactive presentation with visme, interactive presentation faqs.

• An interactive presentation allows the audience to engage with and respond to the material presented.
• To make a presentation interactive, encourage audience participation, ask and answer questions, conduct polls, use technology tools and share engaging stories or scenarios.
• Some interactive presentation design ideas include SWOT analysis, animated videos, data storytelling, case studies, idea mapping, countdown timers, visual animation, timelines, map exploration, and QR codes.
• Visme's presentation software and templates are the best way to create an interactive presentation. Just choose a template, add your content, include interactive features and multimedia, and your presentation is ready to download, share, and present.
• Sign up for Visme and create an interactive presentation that keeps your audience engaged throughout the presentation.

An interactive presentation is a type of presentation that allows the audience to actively participate and engage with the content.

Unlike regular presentations, where the audience simply views the slides, interactive presentations involve the audience in the experience.

For example, they can click on different elements to reveal more information, choose topics they're interested in exploring further and even manipulate data or graphics to see different outcomes.

This hands-on approach makes the audience an important part of the presentation, which ultimately enhances their understanding and retention of the information presented.

Interactive presentations may also feature quizzes, clickable videos and decision trees that allow attendees to control their view or interact with the material.

The primary goal of creating and delivering an interactive presentation is to engage the audience throughout it and help them retain the information for longer.

Here’s an example of an interactive presentation created with Visme

Made with Visme Presentation Maker

A good interactive presentation gets the audience involved in the learning process. But what exactly turns a regular presentation into an interactive one?

Let's break it down into five key elements.

1. Active Participation of the Audience

Unlike standard presentations, the audience doesn’t just sit back and listen in—they need them to get involved. This could mean answering questions, participating in discussions, giving feedback or participating in quizzes.

Presenters might ask the audience to share their experiences or give their opinions on the topic at hand. This not only keeps everyone engaged but can also bring a wealth of different perspectives to the discussion.

2. Polls and Surveys

Real-time polls and surveys are a standout feature of interactive presentations. The presenter can easily collect audience responses with clickers, smartphones, or raising hands and then show everyone the results.

From this immediate feedback, the speaker understands the audience's knowledge or opinions. It can even guide the direction of the presentation.

3. Dynamic and Interactive Elements

Adding dynamic and interactive elements to your presentation can make a big difference. Think about including an interactive menu or a table of contents that lets you jump to the right section by clicking a link.

Interactive elements like custom navigation buttons, hyperlinks, hotspots, transitions and clickable pop-ups or hover effects also spice up presentations and keep your audience hooked to your slide deck .

4. Engaging Animation

Animations like animated graphics, icons and characters bring life to presentations. Whether in 2D or 3D format or cool visual effects, it’s one of the best ways to grab attention and explain complex ideas in an enjoyable way.

5. Interactive Content

Finally, multimedia content like videos, GIFs and even background music or sound effects is a great way to engage your audience. Visual aids like photos, charts, graphs and maps also make information more accessible and fun. Adding these interactive pieces can turn a standard presentation into a dynamic learning experience.

6. Use of Interactive Technology

Modern technology has transformed the art of interactive presentations.

For example, there are digital tools that allow participants to submit questions or comments, vote on issues, or play educational games related to the topic. During interactive whiteboarding, participants can write, draw, or post sticky notes.

These tools make it easier for everyone to engage and interact during virtual presentations, no matter where they are.

7. Storytelling and Scenario-Based Engagement

Telling stories or creating hypothetical scenarios is a proven interactive presentation strategy.

For example, you might present real-world scenarios and ask the audience to discuss or solve them. These role-playing scenarios or case studies encourage participants to think critically or apply what they've learned.

Wondering what an interactive presentation looks like. Below is an example of an interactive presentation created with Visme. Check out this awesome example of an interactive presentation made with Visme.

You can actually engage with various elements of the slides and see interactivity in full effect!

Made with Visme

Whether you’re delivering a physical or virtual presentation, there are many different ways to infuse interactivity into your presentation.

Check out these 16 interactive presentation ideas to wow your audience and leave a lasting impression.

1. Add Visual Flair with Special Effects

Special effects like popups and hover effects are not just for visual purposes; they give extra information and make the experience interactive.

For example, a hover effect might show notes on an image and add more detail to your points without making the original view too messy.

Consider adding a flipbook effect to give a real-world experience in a digital format. It makes the audience feel like they're going through a real document and flipping through content pages, making digital presentations feel more personal and engaging.

With Visme, you can easily incorporate all these special effects and interactive elements and more to elevate your interactive presentations. From creating eye-catching popups and informative hover effects to adding engaging flipbook animations, Visme helps you bring your presentation to life.

2. Explain Complex Ideas with Animated Videos

We all love a good story, especially when it's visually appealing. Animated explainer videos can turn complex ideas into fun, easy-to-understand stories. By incorporating these videos into your presentation, you can capture your audience's attention and explain concepts in a memorable way.

Whether you're explaining a new product, concept, or process, adding animation can breathe life into your words. It's an enjoyable way to break the monotony of traditional presentations and bring your story to life.

Not sure how to make a great video? Visme's online video maker makes it a breeze for anyone to create an explainer video for their interactive presentation.

Get started with our rich variety of explainer video templates covering various industries, business types and sizes.

Here's an explainer video template you can customize and insert in your presentation.

3. Turn Data into Engaging Stories

Static data can sometimes be dry or overwhelming and make your presentation difficult to understand.

Adding a dose of storytelling and interactivity transforms your numbers into engaging narratives.

Interactive data visualization helps your audience understand the significance of the numbers, making the data impactful.

In this example below, check out how 270toWin makes the intricate US presidential election process come alive with an interactive and educational experience!

Visme's advanced data visualization tools help you turn complex data into engaging stories. Choose from 30+ data widgets like radial gauges, progress bars and population arrays.

Additionally, you can use 20+ types of charts and graphs, including pie charts , bar graphs , bubble charts and more.

Additionally, Visme comes with 3D data widgets , charts and graphs to help you add an extra layer of interactivity to the data visualizations.

Customize these data visualization tools to craft compelling narratives and make your data relatable and memorable.

4. Add a Personal Touch with Voiceovers and Music

Another way to enhance your presentation is by incorporating voiceovers or subtle background music to captivate your audience's senses.

A voiceover can act as a secondary storyteller, delivering key points without overwhelming the visuals on the slide. This is especially ideal for asynchronous viewing, where the viewers can watch the presentation at their own pace.

On the other hand, background music is a powerful tool that deeply connects with your audience's emotions. For instance, a stirring classical piece can add a sense of seriousness to historical topics. At the same time, light, airy tunes can maintain a pleasant mood during longer video presentations , preventing attention from waning.

Visme allows you to add voiceovers, songs, background music, and any soundtrack to your presentation. You can either use your device's microphone to record the voiceover or upload your own recording or soundtrack and add them.

Read this article to learn more about creating a narrated presentation with voiceovers . Or watch the video below to learn more about recording an audio voice over in Visme.

5. Use Transitions and Animations to Enhance the Flow

Transitions and animations aren't just for making the presentation look good; they enhance comprehension and retention.

Use transitions to keep your presentation flowing smoothly and prepare your audience for what comes next. Transitions create a connection between slides, like visual punctuation that frames each new slide as a part of the story. They provide a moment for the information to be absorbed before moving on.

With Visme, you can choose from various slide transitions like "flipping page," "enter from side," "simple fade" and more. Additionally, you can choose when the slide should move to the next one, based on a specific time, a click, after a video or a transition delay.

Explore our tutorial article on how to add transitions to your presentation slides to learn more.

6. Encourage Participation with a Q&A Session

Allocate time for questions and answers to turn a one-sided presentation into a conversation, building a good relationship with your audience.

A Q&A session encourages the audience to think about and question the information, creating a two-way exchange of ideas. It's not just for them; the questions they ask can also show you which parts of your presentation were most interesting or might need more explanation.

To make the session productive, ask the audience to think of questions as they listen and consider using a tool to gather questions from the audience. This way, you can address the most important questions from the audience.

Moreover, to ensure the session stays on track, consider timing the Q&A section and other interactive segments like polls and quizzes. Visme offers a Timer feature that can help you manage the length of these activities effectively.

Using the Visme Timer, you can allocate specific time slots to each part of your presentation, ensuring you cover all planned topics and interactive elements without running over your allotted time.

7. Bring Your Content to Life with Animated Characters and Icons

Animated characters and icons can truly bring your presentation to life. Think of them as the sidekicks in your presentation story, adding humor or clarity and making the overall experience more enjoyable and memorable for everyone. And beyond their aesthetics, they help your audience visualize and relate to your content on a personal level.

Transform your interactive presentation into an immersive experience with Visme’s 3D character creator . Choose a pre-designed character that matches your requirements and you can customize everything from the hairstyle, hair color, skin tone, animation style and more.

8. Navigate Through Timelines

Instead of static dates and events on a slide, imagine your audience clicking through a timeline, uncovering detailed explanations or exciting facts at their own pace.

This method turns a simple presentation into a journey through time, where each viewer becomes an active participant, exploring your subject's past, present, or future.

It's a powerful tool for storytelling and engagement, making history lessons, project milestones or future forecasts more compelling.

Visme's interactive presentation templates come with timelines for various purposes, including project management, event planning, history and more. Choose a template and customize the timeline using Visme's online timeline maker and the interactive features you want.

Check out this article to explore 11 timeline presentation templates and use them in your presentation.

9. Incorporate Interactive Maps

Using interactive maps can transform a geographically dense presentation into an interactive exploration. With these maps, your audience can explore different places just by clicking and learning about each location.

Whether you're showing the spread of a trend, the sites of historical events, or your company's offices, interactive maps make learning about geography interesting and informative.

They invite your audience to dive deeper, understanding not just the "where" but also the "why" and "how" behind each pin on the map.

Visme's interactive map maker allows you to customize regions and markers. You can adjust colors, add tooltips and display data values for clarity. This helps to illustrate various information effectively, turning static data into a visual experience that encourages engagement and deeper understanding.

Below is an example of an interactive map created with Visme.

Did you hover over each state to see the different numbers and statistics? Do you see how powerful that is? Users are much less likely to scroll past interactive content. They want to stick around and play with it for a bit first. 

Explore our beautiful, interactive map templates and select one that suits your needs.

10. Surprise Your Audience with a QR Code

Ending your presentation with a QR code is a modern twist that surprises and engages your audience. This could be your call to action, leading them to a website for more information, a video summary of your presentation or a feedback form to capture their thoughts.

The anticipation of scanning the code and discovering what's behind it adds a touch of mystery and interaction. This simple method can extend the conversation beyond the presentation room and keep your audience thinking about your message long after the discussion.

And guess what? Visme also lets you generate a QR code with its free QR maker . You just need to enter the text or paste the URL you want to link the QR code with, and that's it—it's that easy. Additionally, you can customize the appearance of the QR code to match your design.

11. Turn Learning into a Game with Interactive Quizzes

Turn passive reception into active learning by incorporating quizzes into your presentations. Quizzes grab attention, encourage participation and support the material covered.

Craft questions that are engaging yet easy to understand to ensure wide involvement. Interactive sessions can bring new energy to your presentation and add an element of fun and competition. Instant feedback on quiz responses can boost engagement, making the experience even more rewarding for participants.

Creating interactive quizzes and surveys for your presentation is a breeze with Visme. Its intuitive quiz maker allows you to design visually appealing and engaging quizzes with various question types and instant feedback options. You can even track quiz results to gauge audience understanding and tailor your content accordingly.

12. Conduct Polls to Make Your Presentation Fun

Using polls in your presentations is a great way to keep your audience engaged and get immediate feedback. You can ask questions throughout your talk to see what your audience thinks.

Use tools like Survey Monkey , Typeform and Formstack to create your poll and embed it easily into your Visme presentation.

As your audience votes, they can see the results in real time, making the experience more dynamic and interactive. It's a simple but effective way to make your presentations more engaging.

13. Make Your Presentation Non-Linear

Creating a non-linear presentation offers a unique way to engage your audience by allowing them to navigate the content according to their interests and needs.

Here are three key elements to consider:

• Hyperlinks: Hyperlinks allow you to connect different slides or external resources in your presentation. They make it easy for the audience to jump to related topics, examples, or supporting materials.
• Table of Contents: A table of contents in your presentation is like a map for your audience. It shows all the topics covered and lets them choose where to start or which parts to skip.
• Navigation Buttons: The navigation buttons allow the audience to move back and forth between slides freely. This gives them control over their viewing experience. You can customize these buttons to go to specific sections or return to the main menu.

14. Captivate Your Audience with Storytelling

Using storytelling techniques while giving the presentation is one of the best ways to increase audience engagement. You can use relevant and interesting stories to make your content more relatable, engaging and memorable.

Begin with a compelling story to capture your audience's attention, and use anecdotes or real-life examples throughout to illustrate key points. Storytelling makes your presentation more human and helps people understand and remember even complex information. This method can transform a boring presentation into an engaging experience.

A great example of this is Brené Brown's TED Talk, " The Power of Vulnerability ." She uses personal stories and anecdotes to make her research on vulnerability relatable and memorable. This is a great example of how storytelling can make even complex topics engaging.

15. Learn by Doing with Role-Playing

Role-playing is a different dimension of interactivity that you can add to your presentation. To do this, you need to involve your audience in hypothetical scenarios or simulations and enable them to apply what they are learning in a practical context.

For instance, if you're giving a presentation on customer service, you could have audience members role-play a problematic customer interaction, allowing them to practice handling such situations.

This idea is especially helpful for training sessions, workshops and team-building exercises. It reinforces key messages and encourages participants to think creatively and explore different perspectives, which enhances the overall learning experience.

16. Brainstorm and Collaborate with Interactive Whiteboards

Interactive whiteboarding tools change how you and your audience interact together during presentations. These tools let everyone share ideas simultaneously, making group discussions, planning and meetings more interesting and efficient.

Participants can draw, write or add sticky notes directly on the digital board, building a sense of shared ownership and creative problem-solving.

Visme's built-in online whiteboard tool takes this interactivity to the next level. You can bring your presentation slides to this tool and use them effortlessly. This way, you and your audience can sketch out concepts, map out strategies or simply jot down ideas as they arise.

Creating an interactive presentation that captivates and engages your audience is easier than you think. With Visme, you don't need to be a design wizard or tech whiz.

Just follow these five simple tips to create an interactive presentation that looks professional and keeps your audience hooked from start to finish.

The Graphic Content Developer at WOW, Kendra Bradley, used Visme for her interactive presentation creation needs. Her experience says it all: Visme is one of the best presentation makers in terms of interactivity, ease-of-use and high-quality design output.

Here's what she has to say about Visme.

"Previously, we were using PowerPoint, which is fine, but the interactivity you can get with Visme is so much more robust that we've all steered away from PowerPoint."

"PowerPoint templates are plain and boring, and we want to create more fun and engaging content. Visme has multiple slide templates to choose from, which makes this so much easier."

"I just made a deck recently and it took me about 15-20 minutes. I found a template I really liked and tweaked it and put it in our brand colors. In PowerPoint, it would take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half."

Read this case study to learn How WOW! is Saving Nearly 79% in Time and Cost With Visme.

Now, let’s get back to the process.

Step 1: Choose an Interactive Presentation Template

Before starting the process, you'll need a Visme account, which you can create using your email ID or Facebook account. Once done, it's time to choose a template.

Using a template saves you valuable time and gives you a professional starting point.

Look for a template that matches your topic and aligns with your design preferences.

Visme offers thousands of professionally designed presentation templates, so you’re sure to find one that aligns with your vision.

Go to our template library, click "Presentations" from the left panel and choose from various categories, including business , education , pitch deck and creative .

Better yet, head over to the editor, click "New," then "Project," and choose "Presentations" to access the extensive collection of presentation templates Visme offers.

There’s also an option to create your presentation from scratch on a blank canvas.

Step 2: Customize the Template

Customizing your chosen template in Visme is both easy and enjoyable, thanks to our intuitive design tools and features.

Here’s how you can infuse own content and style into your presentation:

Add Content and Edit Text

Visme’s drag-and-drop functionality makes it simple to add various content elements like text, images, charts or other visuals to your template.

Just select the element you want to add, drag it to the desired spot and drop it in place.

Personalizing the existing text is simple. Click on any text box to start editing. You can change the font, size, color and style to better match your brand or your personal preferences.

Change Colors

Adjusting the color palette of your template allows you to align it with your brand guidelines or set a specific mood for your presentation.

Visme enables you to customize the colors of various elements, from background to text and shapes. Simply click on the element you wish to change and select a new color using the color wheel.

With Visme's brand design tool , you can easily save and apply your brand elements. Just copy and paste your website URL, and the tool will extract your brand colors, brand fonts and company logo. You or anyone in your team can then apply them to your projects with just one click.

Add/Change Design Elements

Adding new design elements like icons, illustrations or shapes can significantly enhance the visual appeal of your presentation.

Choose from Visme’s extensive library of design assets, including vector icons , illustrations, shapes and 3D animated graphics .

Select the element you want to change, and either replace it with another from our library or adjust its attributes to better suit your vision.

Include your team members in the design process to get feedback or ideas using Visme's collaborative design feature . Invite your team via email or a shareable link and allow the invitees to comment, annotate and live edit your presentation.

Step 3: Add Interactive Features

Visme offers interactive tools like polls, quizzes, hotspots and clickable links to make presentations more engaging.

Here’s how you can include these interactive elements in your presentation.

Polls and Quizzes: Add polls and quizzes to make your presentation interactive and fun. For polls and quizzes, click on "Apps" from the left panel. Choose an app like Formstack, SurveyMonkey or Typeform to create your poll or quiz. Once you've created it, you can embed it directly into your presentation.

Hotspots: Hotspots allow you to hide extra information behind clickable icons. To create hotspots, select "Actions" from the top toolbar and then choose "Hotspot." You will have options to link to an object, video, or audio. Customize the settings for how you want the popup content to appear and show any additional details.

Clickable Links: Insert links into your presentation to let your audience explore more information easily. To add external links, first click on the object you want to link from. Then, from the top panel, click "Actions" and select "External Link." You'll be given options to link to different types of external sources such as websites or social media. Paste your URL in the provided field to set the link.

Embeddable Content: To embed online content, click "Media" from the left panel and select "Embed Online Content." Paste the URL of the content you want to embed in the provided box, then click "Insert." The content will be embedded in your presentation.

Transitions and Animations: To add transitions and animations to your Visme presentation, click on the object or text box you want to animate. Next, click on the "Animate" tab in the top toolbar and choose your desired animation effect. Finally, adjust the animation settings, such as duration and delay, to tailor it to your presentation's needs.

Step 4: Incorporate Animations, Visuals and Multimedia

Include visuals and multimedia in your presentation to break the monotony of text and convey messages faster. Visme allows you to add images, videos, audio and voiceovers to aid comprehension and improve your storytelling.

Here is how you can leverage these resources efficiently:

• Adding Images and Icons: Navigate to the "Graphics" tab within Visme to access various stock images , 3D characters , animated shapes, icons and special effects. You can easily search for specific visuals that align with your presentation's theme. Once you've found the right image or icon, simply drag and drop it into your slide.
• Incorporating Videos : To add a video, switch to the "Media" tab, where you can either upload your video or embed one from popular platforms like YouTube. Videos are excellent for breaking up the monotony of text-heavy slides. Plus, they can provide a dynamic illustration of your points.
• Implementing Voiceovers: Adding voiceovers to your slides can deliver a personalized touch and cater to auditory learners. In Visme, you can record your voice directly onto a slide or upload pre-recorded audio files. This allows for a more interactive and accessible presentation.

Easily create professional voiceovers and transform your written content into speech using Visme's AI text-to-speech generator . Simply type in or paste your text to generate high-quality speech that enhances presentations and makes them more accessible and engaging to a wider audience.

Read this article about creating multimedia presentations using Visme, or watch the video below to learn more.

Step: Download, Share and Present

Once your interactive presentation is ready, Visme allows you to publish it in multiple ways.

Click on the "Download" button on the upper right corner of the dashboard, choose "Present Offile," and click on "HTML5". Downloading your presentation in HTML5 lets you keep all the interactive and animation features.

Additionally, you can download the presentation in PPTX, JPG, PNG and PDF formats.

Visme also gives you the option to export the presentation directly to your learning management system (LMS) in xAPI and SCORM format.

Click on the "Share" button next to the download button to publish the presentation on social media, share it via a private or public link or embed it on your website with a code snippet.

And the best part? You can present your interactive presentation directly from Visme, so you don't have to leave the app and use all the features of the presentation software on the go. Visme's presenter studio tool comes with various practical features to enhance your ability to deliver presentations confidently.

You can use the presenter notes to keep track of key points you want to cover without cluttering your slides.

With the option to record yourself, you can create personalized asynchronous presentations. This feature is perfect for participants who cannot join live sessions, allowing them to watch the presentation at their own pace while still experiencing a face-to-face connection.

After sharing the presentation, use Visme's advanced analytics features to understand the audience engagement. It collects data, including average time spent, unique visits, total views and even visitor's IPs. This feedback can help refine your presentations, ensuring they effectively capture and retain audience interest. It's especially helpful when you are delivering the presentation virtually.

Q1. What is an interactive presentation tool?

An interactive presentation tool is software that allows you to create presentations with interactive elements like quizzes, polls, and clickable links. Visme is one example of an interactive presentation tool.

Q2. How can I make my presentation more interactive and fun?

You can make your presentation more interactive and fun by incorporating g quizzes, polls, games, storytelling, multimedia and other interactive elements. visuals. Visme offers many features that can help you create interactive presentations.

Q3. How can I make my PowerPoint presentation interactive?

You can make your PowerPoint presentation interactive by using tools like Visme that makes it easy for you to infuse animations and interactive assets embed quizzes, polls and videos or link text and objects to ing to external websites and resources and much more

Q4. How to present creatively without PowerPoint?

There are many ways to present creatively without PowerPoint. You can use various interactive presentation tools like Visme, which offers a wide range of templates, features, and integrations to help you create and deliver engaging presentations.

Put Together Interactive & Beautiful Presentations with Visme

As we've seen, interactive presentations aren't just a trend; they're a powerful tool to combat declining attention spans and make your message memorable. You can turn passive listeners into active participants using interactive elements like clickable buttons, hover effects, menus, polls, videos, maps and QR codes.

With its user-friendly interface, millions of visual assets, and wealth of features like a presenter studio, interactive features and collaboration tools, Visme empowers you to craft interactive presentations that leave a lasting impact.

No design experience? No problem. Choose an interactive presentation template from the Visme library and use the design ideas and step-by-step tutorial explained in this article to create your interactive presentation in minutes.

Create a free account in Visme and start your journey towards more engaging presentations today.

Create beautiful presentations faster with Visme.

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About the Author

Raja Antony Mandal is a Content Writer at Visme. He can quickly adapt to different writing styles, possess strong research skills, and know SEO fundamentals. Raja wants to share valuable information with his audience by telling captivating stories in his articles. He wants to travel and party a lot on the weekends, but his guitar, drum set, and volleyball court don’t let him.

What is Genially?

Genially is a cloud-based platform for building interactive learning and communication experiences.

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Create show-stopping presentations and clickable slide decks with Genially’s free online presentation builder. Leave boring behind and tell a story that’s interactive, animated, and beautifully engaging.

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Engage your audience with interactive slides that they can click on and explore. Add music, video, hotspots, popup windows, quiz games and interactive data visualizations in a couple of clicks. No coding required!

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Bring a touch of movie magic to the screen with incredible visual effects and animated page transitions. Add click-trigger and timed animations to make any topic easy to understand and captivating to watch.

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With Genially, anyone can create a polished and professional presentation. Choose from over 2000 pre-built templates, or create your own design using the drag-and-drop resources, color palettes, icons, maps and vector graphics.

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Because Genially is online, you can relax knowing that your slides are always up-to-date. There’s no risk of forgetting to save changes or accessing the wrong file. Log in from anywhere, collaborate with your team, and make edits in real time.

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Share the link

Every Genially slide deck has its own unique url, just like a website! Share the link so that others can explore at their own pace, or download an MP4 video slideshow or PDF.

Post online

Embed the slides on your website or post them on social media. Upload to Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, Moodle or any other platform.

The benefits of interactive slides

🗣️ Active participation An interactive slide deck gives your audience cool things to click on and discover, boosting learning and engagement.

👂 Multi-sensory experience Audio, video, animations, and mouse interactions make your content immersive, entertaining and accessible.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 People-friendly format Pop-ups and embeds condense more material into fewer slides so you can break information down into digestible chunks.


🎮 Gamification Games, quizzes and puzzles make information more memorable and enable you to gather feedback and check understanding.

How to make an interactive presentation

With Genially’s easy-to-use presentation platform, anyone can make incredible visual content in moments.

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Resources to become a pro presentation creator

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Genially in a nutshell

How do I make a presentation interactive and how does Genially work? Find the answers to all of your slide-related questions here!

What’s an interactive presentation?

Interactive slides contain clickable hotspots, links, buttons, and animations that are activated at the touch of a button. Instead of reading or watching passively, your audience can actively interact with the content.  

Genially’s interaction presentation software allows you to combine text, photos, video clips, audio and other content in one deck. It’s a great way to condense more information into fewer slides. 

If you’re a teacher, you can share multiple materials in one single learning resource. Students can create their own projects using digital media and online maps. For business or training, try embedding spreadsheet data, PDFs, and online content directly in your slides. 

An interactive slide deck is more user-friendly than a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or Google Slides document. That’s because you can break information down into chunks with pop-ups, labels, voiceovers and annotated infographics.  

The other benefit of interactive content is increased engagement. It’s easier to keep your audience’s attention when they’re actively participating. Try Genially’s presentation software and free slideshow maker to see how it’s better than other presentation websites. You won’t go back to standard presentation apps!

How do you make a clickable slide?

The best way to make slides clickable is to use Genially’s free interactive presentation program. Design your slide then apply an interaction. In a couple of clicks, you can add popup windows, hyperlinks, close-up images, games, animations, multimedia and other content. 

Choose from the library of hotspot buttons and icons to show people what to click on. Go to Presenter View to get a preview and see how your content will appear to your audience.

How do I create presentations that look professional?

You’ve got a deadline looming and you’re staring at the screen with a blank presentation. We’ve all been there! Starting a presentation design from scratch is tricky, especially if you’re short on time. 

Genially’s free online presentation maker has over 2000 ready-to-use templates for professional slide presentations, photos slideshows, and more. Each slide design has been created by our team of top graphic designers. No need to worry about fonts, centering images, or designing a matching color scheme. It’s all done for you. 

Start by browsing our layouts and themes for education, business and then customize with your own text and images.

How do I share or download my slides?

Because Genially is a cloud based presentation software, you can simply share the link to your slides. Like other online presentation tools, there are no files to download or store on your computer. Everything is saved online.  

When you publish your slide deck, it gets its own unique url, just like a website. Share the link with others to let them explore the content in their own time. If you’re presenting live, just click the Present button. 

You can also embed your presentation on your website, company wiki, or social media. Genially is compatible with WordPress, Moodle, Google Classroom, and other platforms. If you use an LMS, you can also download your interactive design slides in SCORM format.

For slideshow videos and slideshows with music, share online or download as an MP4 video. Check out our free slideshow templates for ideas.

Can I make a free presentation in Genially?

You bet! Genially is an easy-to-use slide maker, with a free version and paid plans. The free plan allows you to create unlimited slides with interactions and animations. Subscribe to one of our paid plans for more advanced features.

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Speaker 1: When I first started giving presentations at work, I thought as long as my slides looked pretty and the content was important, people would give me their undivided attention, right? Not a freaking chance. I'm not gonna lie, and working professionals back me up here, it kinda sucks when you work so hard on a large team presentation, a presentation you know is very useful, only to have the audience look at their phones, work on something else, and maybe even turn off their webcam completely. So in this video, I'm gonna teach you how to cheat, how to use three interactive online tools to keep your audience's attention throughout the presentation against their will. Let's get started. Hi, friends, my name is Jeff, and welcome back to another episode of Think Outside the Box, where I show you creative ways to stand out at work. Like the Harry Potter series, your presentation should hook the audience's attention right at the beginning, keep them engaged throughout, and leave them wanting more at the end. And believe it or not, these three tools will help you get there. I like to start off my presentation strong by polling the attendees with a free online tool called Mentimeter. As a presenter, this is what I see in the backend. I can create slides with different question types, polls, quizzes, and content. Polls and quizzes are obviously for the audience to interact with, and content slides are static information you want to share. For my first slide, I have a multiple choice poll, asking them on a scale of Harry Potter how they're feeling today. And because I'm a very funny guy, this lightens up the mood immediately. You can also change the images, of course, in the content tab here, or you can just go with a very boring, feeling good, feeling bad. And there are advanced options down here as well. The second slide is a word cloud poll, where participants type in words in response to the question I've input here. What words come to mind when you think of digital marketing? I show you how the end result looks like in a little bit. And the third slide is a quick and easy quiz that allows me to get a sense of how knowledgeable the participants are regarding the topic I'm about to present on. Under the content tab, I can add up to six options, and I can check the correct answer by checking the box here. And the fourth slide, leaderboard, is automatically generated and it shows the results of the quiz. Some of you have probably already noticed the instructions up here, where you can go to www.menti.com and input this code to start interacting with these questions. Pro tip, you can also, in presentation mode, by pressing the present button here, you can click I, the hotkey I, to bring up a QR code for people to scan. If you're an audience member, simply use your phone or your laptop, go to menti.com, type in the code, and start playing. All right, I'm not gonna go through the entire thing. You get the gist. The free version of Mentimeter is a bit limited, but I think it's more than enough for most of us. I always try to include a variation of these three questions at the beginning of my presentations to hook the audience in and lighten the mood. The second tool is pretty powerful in keeping your audience engaged throughout the presentation, and this free tool is called Slido. That's probably not how it's pronounced, but it's what I'm going with. Have to use Slido. As a presenter, it's very easy to get started. Simply go to new Slido, from scratch, name it, big meeting, Tuesday start and end date, note down the event code, and click schedule Slido. And under the live polls tab here, you'll see a bunch of features, but I don't use any of these. I mainly use Slido for the audience Q&A function here. You can click present in a new tab, and here you can actually copy paste the QR code into your presentation, and you can even consider adding the QR code onto every single slide so that the audience can scan the QR code and input their question into the Slido queue whenever they want. And this is what the audience member sees after they scan the QR code or input the code into slido.com. They can ask a question anonymously if they want to, they can upvote other people's questions, and they can even withdraw their own questions if it has already been answered by the presenter. This Q&A workflow has two key benefits. One, a lot of professionals don't ask questions even if they want to because they're afraid of looking stupid. The anonymous option takes care of that issue. Second, it's smart to give attendees the option to add questions throughout the presentation so they don't interrupt you and they don't forget what they wanted to ask. On the backend, you can actually give a written reply if the question wasn't addressed in real time, you can star or highlight a question so that you can filter it for later, and of course you can mark as answered so the next most upvoted question gets pushed to the top. Pro tip, research has shown that on average, attention spans during presentations max out at 10 minutes. So you might want to review Slido Q&A questions every seven to eight minutes and or take advantage of the polling features here. These are similar to what Mentimeter has, but I personally just use Slido for the audience Q&A function. Last but not least, we have Kahoot. This tool has been around for quite a while now and I know they've added a bunch of new features, but I personally just use Kahoot as a quiz at the end of my presentations to test whether the audience has been paying attention. When you create a new Kahoot, click the settings button here to change the title and upload a cover image if you want. There are three question types, a multiple choice quiz, true or false, or a content static content slide. You can change the time limit of your question, how points are rewarded, and a single select versus multi-select answer option. After going through all that, you'll end up with something like this. I have five questions here. I have three multiple choice quizzes and two true or false. I recommend going through a practice round with yourself first to make sure there are no mistakes. To start the actual game, click start button here and you'll choose under player versus player classic mode and you'll be brought to this screen. By now, you can probably guess how this works. People log into Kahoot, they go to Kahoot, scan the QR code, input the game pin, input their name, and once everyone has joined, you as a presenter can start the game by clicking start. Pro tip, I always like to prepare a small prize and announce at the beginning of the presentation that we're gonna have a Kahoot competition at the end and the top three players get a reward. And no, it's not bribery if there's some sort of fair competition involved. Wait. Pro tip number two, in order to get a free account for Kahoot, you gotta put yourself down as an educator or student when you sign up and even then, you only get to have 20 players playing the game with you. It used to be completely free, but I guess they gotta make a living somehow, just like me. So give this video a thumbs up and subscribe. If you enjoyed this video, I highly recommend you check out my think outside the box playlist where I show you how to be more resourceful and scrappy in the workplace. See you on the next video. In the meantime, have a great one.