How to make a presentation interactive? Our top tips

The time has come: you need to make an important presentation, but fear the content you want to share is very dense and the amount of information you have to deliver will be hard for your audience to assimilate. There’s an art to creating a presentation that’s both engaging and informative!

In order to achieve this, learn how to make your presentation interactive so that your public feels included in the process and has fun while learning about any topic. Not quite sure where to start? Here are our tips!

How to make a presentation interactive? Our top tips

What is an interactive presentation?

Why make a more interactive presentation?

5 tips to promote audience interaction

1. Obtain feedback from your public
2. Create quiz tests
3. Add icebreakers
4. Include images and video content
5. Use white boards

The best tools to create an interactive presentation

1. PowerPoint
2. Google Slides
3. Wooclap

What is an interactive presentation?

An interactive presentation is one that, far from old-fashioned lectures where the speaker talks as if they were alone in the room, makes a priority of engagement and audience participation. An interactive presentation is designed as a conversation and it works thanks to the reactions and comments from the public.

In this type of presentation, participants play an active role: their reactions and contributions determine how the session goes, polls and quiz tests (including various kinds of questions) keep them directly involved in the session, etc. The goal is to promote your public’s engagement and keep participants’ attention through different activities. So whether your class is face-to-face or via video conference (have you ever wondered how to make a Zoom presentation interactive?), many options are possible.

Why make a more interactive presentation?

We’ve all gone through the same experience: attending a never ending presentation, made up of black and white slides with only a few graphs to illustrate data (no questions –quiz tests, live polls– no engaging content or elements, no video content, no animations, no team activities…), is all but interesting. Just as preparing a presentation that leaves your audience cold and doesn’t get any participants’ attention can be very demoralizing.

An interactive presentation avoids these two traps. If you keep interaction in mind while preparing your presentation, you’ll be able to include activities to foster engagement (whether it is a business presentation at work or a lesson in school). ****On the other hand, your presentations’ quality will improve: comments and feedback from your audience will help you make them (and their content) even more attractive and interesting!

5 tips to promote audience interaction

Now that we’ve covered the many advantages of interaction, let’s go through some practical tips and ways to make an interactive presentation. Here’s all you need to know:

Obtain feedback from your public

During your presentation, speak directly to your participants to obtain feedback on the topic you’re discussing. A simple and classy way to do so is by integrating polls including various types of questions to your presentation.

Depending on the question, it can be a vote, a multiple choice question or a free answer. The main point is for the poll to open the topic for discussion and allow each participant to contribute to the presentation and share their ideas, making it even more dynamic and engaging for everyone.

Create quiz tests

An interactive presentation could also be the perfect occasion for you to test your public’s knowledge. One of the best ways to do so, is to include a quiz in your presentation, in order to add rhythm to your explanations and help participants to better assimilate information.

This is a great way to get participants involved, and for you, it is an excellent opportunity to determine your audience’s exact knowledge. This, in turn, allows you to adapt your presentation and its content: should you insist (for example, by dedicating more than a slide) on a specific concept that is yet too vague, or skip to the next part because it has already been assimilated? Such a useful tool in teaching!

Add icebreakers

Before diving in, it might be interesting to begin a lesson with an icebreaker. This can be particularly useful when participants don’t know each other well. After all, it is often easier to speak up and share our thoughts/experience/ideas when we feel comfortable with those around us.

There are many different icebreaker activities, and choosing the one that suits you isn’t always an easy task. Don’t worry: we’ve selected a few icebreaker activities you can use with your participants to help you out!

Include images and video content

What better way to make your presentation more engaging than by adding a relevant video or an image? It’s one of the best ways to illustrate your explanations and keep your participants focused, thus feeling more engaged.

You could also combine this tip with the previous ones. For example, you could use a video for one of your quiz questions, or you could show an image to begin an icebreaker activity within a group of people. The goal is to make your presentations more varied and dynamic to get your audience’s attention and encourage participants to interact with you.

Use white boards

Allow participants to express themselves and share ideas directly through a white board! It’s a free space where each and every one can contribute by tracing an organigram or taking notes in a collaborative way (participants can read each other's comments).

There’s no better way to foster interaction! Participants step in the drivers’ seat and having graphic support allows everyone to illustrate their ideas –which improves communication and mutual understanding.

The best tools to create an interactive presentation

PowerPoint

A true reference in the Microsoft Office suite, PowerPoint is one of the best known presentation software. Despite it being user-friendly and ideal to create slides, it’s missing some functions to foster interactivity. But because of its popularity, other tools, such as Wooclap, include a PowerPoint integration, making it highly customizable (thanks to templates, and features –quiz tests, live polls, audio/video features– and many more interactive elements!).

Discover our tips to create interactive PowerPoint presentations!

Google Slides

The interactive Google Slides tool, a free alternative to PowerPoint, is also very popular. It is available on many devices, and can be accessed via a Google account. Easy to use and compatible with many other presentation tools. You can easily get started in making engaging and interactive presentations with Google Slides.

Wooclap

If you’re looking for a tool to create diverse, interactive presentations, you’ve come to the right place: Wooclap offers many functions to improve your audience’s engagement. With several templates and over 20 types of questions (open questions, live polls, quiz tests…), you can mix things up and capture your public’s attention, encouraging more active participation (and an overall better experience, for both you and your audience).

Wooclap can be integrated in many presentation tools, such as PowerPoint and Google Slides, as well as video conference software, like Zoom and Microsoft Teams. It can easily be adapted to different types of use, so go ahead and try Wooclap for free!