e256 – Are PowerPoint’s Interactive Slides Right for You?

Show Notes – Episode #256

In episode 256, Troy Chollar of TLC Creative Services explores Microsoft’s new PowerPoint Interactive Slides feature and evaluates its practical value for presentation professionals, asking the question, “Are PowerPoint’s Interactive Slides Right for You?”

The conversation highlights how Interactive Slides can create engaging dashboards, simulations, and exploratory experiences directly within PowerPoint, all on a single slide. While the feature shows significant potential for training, education, and workshops, the episode also examines limitations around customization, branding, and design control.
The conclusion is balanced: Interactive Slides may not replace traditional presentations, but they introduce an important new capability that presentation designers should know about.

The 5-sentence reusable framework, to build-an-interactive slide:

  1. Create a new interactive slide based on [source].
  2. Audience: [audience]. Purpose: [decision, explanation, exploration, training, comparison].
  3. Allow the user to [filter, click, expand, drill down, adjust, reveal].
  4. Include [KPIs, charts, filters, tabs, tooltips, reset button].
  5. Match the presentation theme, preserve the source slide, and make the initial state useful as a static image.

Episode Highlights:

  • Exploration of Microsoft PowerPoint’s new Interactive Slides feature and its intended use cases.
  • Comparison between traditional presentations and AI-generated interactive experiences.
  • Real-world testing of interactive dashboards, simulations, and decision-making tools.
  • Discussion of where Interactive Slides excel, including training, education, and workshops.
  • Analysis of customization limitations and challenges for presentation designers.
  • Examination of how Interactive Slides impact branding, visual consistency, and design control.
  • Insights into using AI tools to accelerate research, learning, and technology evaluation.
  • Key takeaways from Troy Chollar of TLC Creative Services on whether Interactive Slides are a breakthrough innovation, a niche tool, or the future of presentations.

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