Don’t “build” every slide. Audiences get weary of such repetition. The practice of revealing bullet points one at a time (the “build” technique) works well if not overdone. You can even “gray-out” points as you finish discussing them so the next point built on the slide will stand out more brightly. Also, avoid mixing different kinds of transition effects in the same presentation.
Adhere to color scheme or style guidelines used in your company. If you have freedom of choice for computer-projected slides, use dark colors for backgrounds or objects (like boxes, circles, lines, etc.) and light colors for text. For computer images projected to large audiences, information that is white or yellow on dark blue will be easier to read than the reverse.
Consider using sans serif fonts (fonts without strokes or “feet” at the ends of the letters), as some people find them easier and faster to read when projected from a slide. Arial and Helvetica are sans serif fonts. When projecting your presentation for a large audience, a sans serif font might improve readability, particularly for people in the back of the room.
Animating drawings (by building a slide in steps) is one of the simplest ways to keep an audience’s attention. Just don’t overdo it. While animation can help explain the flow of a complex process, too much animation keeps your audience waiting for the next visual trick, rather than paying attention to what you are saying.