Creative Alternatives to Boring Bullet Points in Presentations

Although creating a list using bullet points helps it look more organised and clean, using them, too often, in the presentation, can kill the interest of the audience. But what if you really need to put the list into the presentation and you do not have the option to remove any of them?

But what would be the purpose of creating the presentation, if the audience is not going to like it? The answer to this question is that using bullets is not the only option, and there are various other effective and better methods that can help you create the lists, without using the bullet points:

1. Go for Lesser Words: The first and the simplest way to get rid of those boring bullet points is to remove all the unnecessary content from the presentation. It won’t be possible to remove all the lists from the presentation, but yes, you might get rid of a few.

2. Make One Point Per Slide: Instead of using bullets to list the various points on a single slide, you can use separate slides for each list point. This will automatically eliminate the need of the bullets and make the presentation more interesting and engaging for the audience. You can also decorate the slides with beautiful designs, infographics and animations.

3. Highlighting the Key Points: Even if you have to use the list, you can highlight the key points making them pop out of the presentation. You can also use animations or transitions, for highlighting the points, making the list look dynamic. Also, using colours for different points on the list can help you avoid using the bullet points.

4. Use Tables & Text Boxes: Using tables or separate text boxes for each list point on the slide will help you break the text into a more organised way. You also have got various option to decorate the table and the text boxes, like you can use a different colour for the border, you can also make use of animations to highlight and separate each cell or text box from the other, etc.

5. Using Icons Instead of Bullets: The fact is, icons are way better looking than the bullets and can represent the context of the list point visually. So why not use the icons and pictures instead of bullets. Using them along with the list text will help the audience with a better understanding as well as beautify the list.

6. Let Others Tell Your Story: Another way to eliminate the bullet points in your presentation is to use interesting shapes and outliners, and let it quote the list points for you. You can use different images of people or icons representing people, and speech bubbles with your text inside. This trick will not only get you away with the bullets points but also make the presentation look more interesting.

7. Draw a Diagram: You can also create a diagram representing the different points of the list, placing the main title of the list at the centre, with a bolder text. You can also make an informational tree structure for the list, such that there will be no need for using the bullets.

Bullets were never that important, and going a bit creative, proves this fact. Going with any of the above options, you not only escape using the bullets in the list but also create more engaging and visually interesting slides. So experiment with the above alternatives and see the change these bring to your presentations.