Home » Presentation tools and trends 2021 - Part 1

PRESENTATION TOOLS AND TRENDS 2021 (part 1).

The year 2020… what a year! Because of the pandemic, we have realized even more how important it actually is to stay in touch with each other. We can hardly even do without physical contact. Unfortunately, we can’t see each other in real life and, therefore, we are unable to meet offline at the moment. This triggered the arising of a whole new digital world, in fact. Communicating and presenting online has become a  trend. Luckily, there are various presentationtools  which have been designed to make staying in touch more fun and, above all, easier. Last year, we wrote a blog on the tools and trends for the year 2020. In this blog, we will present you with some useful presentation tools and trends for 2021 that will guide you on your creative journey. The tools have been reviewed and tested on usability, options and innovation. We have listed them for you below.
CONTENT:

PRESENTATION TOOL 1.

Ensuring as much interaction with your viewers as possible is very efficient for a presenter, of course. A presenter can easily record a presentation and share it offline with the viewer. But we currently live in a time where people want to know more, and, therefore, are more curious and really tend to lean towards (or crave for) more interaction. This is a real trend when it comes to the world of presentations. Presentation tool Canva has launched a new feature, Canva Live. This feature enables you to involve the audience during a live broadcast. The audience can ask questions and place comments in the presenter’s display directly from their computers or other desired devices. The posted questions and comments become visible to the whole audience. These can be displayed during classroom lessons, brainstorm sessions, meetings and more.

6,5
USABILITY
5/5
Before the corona crisis presented itself, we started working with Albeda College to create educational presentations for 13- to 20-year olds that were more interactive. We dealt with issues concerning which educators we needed and which content was interesting to share. Just as the new presentations were finished and the team was ready to start giving educational presentations in the new style, there was an outbreak of the coronavirus. By making a quick switch – well done, Albeda! – the presentations were converted to Prezi Video (a tool that offers interaction between the students and their teachers) in a week and a half, which allowed us to introduce a new way of educating within Albeda College. The tool is now being used for the classes Hospitality and Healthcare.
POSSIBILITIES
2/5

By enabling live chatting through Canva Live, communicating with others becomes much easier. Participating and leaving the chats is just a click away. Asking questions or adding comments is a breeze with this program.

INNOVATION
2/5

By introducing this way of presenting live, Canva also enables live chatting simultaneously. It is a smart way to increase the interaction by simply merging two commonly used elements. Turns out two non-original inventions can become quite an original invention when combined.

PRESENTATION TOOL 2.

In the beginning of the year, Prezi launched a new innovation: Prezi Design. Prezi Design is a great tool that professionalizes your creations in a heartbeat. They work with a virtual canvas, allowing you to be even more creative and collaborate online. You can give your viewers a better and more creative picture of the message you want to convey. The designs can be created dynamically and there are many interactive designs you can choose from. You can use your designs (such as infographics) in your presentations to effectively present all your beautifully designed data. Besides Prezi Video, this is certainly a tool we use a lot. 

8,5
USABILITY
5/5

Prezi Design is an easy-to-use tool because they provide various tutorials on their website. There is a lot of information on the website and I find it easy to find, add and modify things in Prezi Design. The different templates also make the designing process more fun and give you a shove in the right (creative) direction.

POSSIBILITIES
5/5

With Prezi Design, it is possible to add infographics, posters, social media posts, reports and an original pdf-document, on which you can unleash your own creativity. Prezi Design also offers hundreds of templates and useful tools to choose from. Prezi Design brings your own content to life.

INNOVATION
4/5
Do you need inspiration, or do you really have no idea how to start on something? Prezi Design is the right tool for you. Because of the hundreds of templates available, which you can customize to fit your own style and taste, you will get a lot of inspiration. Prezi Design is a tool that I would quickly open if I’m lacking inspiration and still need to create good-looking content. During this difficult COVID-19 period, more and more shifts to online. That’s why appealing content is so important. With Prezi Design, you can reach your target group in a better and more creative way.

PRESENTATION TOOL 3.

With Maglr, you can create eye-catching interactive content. With this special presentation tool, your message is conveyed to your readers through various devices in an attractive way. Maglr has divided sharing your story into three different solutions: online magazines, interactive quotations and sales presentations. This makes Maglr a more business-oriented tool, although it still enables you to be incredibly creative. We have often worked with Maglr ourselves.

7,5
USABILITY
4/5
What I really like is that Maglr displays certain examples of different projects, such as customer cases, on their website. In this way, you can immediately see which companies have chosen to work with Maglr and how they got started with this tool. In addition, there are also some pages where you can get inspiration.
POSSIBILITIES
5/5
Maglr offers you an enormous number of different templates and themes. Also, Maglr shows you which template is best used for certain themes (think of healthcare, commercial, construction, etc.). This is super useful if you need a shove in the right direction.
INNOVATION
4/5
You immediately notice that Maglr is much more business-oriented and they clearly distinguish between the products they offer. Maglr is marketing-, communication- and sales-oriented, which results in opting between three matching solutions. There are many design and presentation programs, but Maglr is the solution if your goal is more business-oriented.

PRESENTATION TOOL 4.

With Piktochart, you can easily and very quickly create visuals. It’s so simple that you can use it right away. The templates that you can choose from within this tool are created by various experts. Create inspiring presentations with this convenient design tool and involve your audience in a better way.

7
USABILITY
5/5
Log in directly via Facebook, Google or with your name and email address. Tell something about yourself in order for Pictochart to be able to personalize itself according to your needs. Pictochart is completely free, but if you want to make use of the extra features, you need to upgrade your account. You are provided with 30 trial days, and, afterwards, you can decide whether or not it’s the right fit for you.
POSSIBILITIES
3/5
There are different types of flyers, posters, presentations, reports, social media posts and infographics you can choose from. You can opt for different templates for those. You can easily customize the chosen templates with the tools displayed at the top of your screen. On your dashboard, there is a clear overview of all your projects and designs. Also, you have the possibility to create folders, which helps you find your creations faster. On the left, next to the ‘create mode’, you can see what you can add and edit.
INNOVATION
2/5
I think Pictochart itself is incredibly useful, because it helps people who are unfamiliar with making presentations to make a memorable, appealing presentation. But: as we’re aware of, there are many different presentation tools and, to be honest, I don’t think Pictochart has an added value compared to the other tools.

PRESENTATION TOOL 5.

In my opinion, Mmhmm is a tool that really fits the current trend: online presentation. This app is incredibly playful and creative. Not many people know about it yet, but it will certainly appeal to people. With this tool, you can make your presentation even more fun and special. It reminds me a bit of the ”Photo Booth” on the Mac, in which you can use the city of Paris or trees as your background. This is actually the upgraded version and you can create a much more powerful presentation with this tool.
8
USABILITY
4/5
This program is very easy to use and especially easy to apply in Zoom. Zoom enables you to video chat with people or present online, and Mmhmm enables you to create a more interactive and interesting presentation.
POSSIBILITIES
5/5
With Mmhmm, it is possible to change the background of your presentation or live chat to hundreds of different places, shapes and colors. You can insert a presentation and bring it to life with nice moving figures and special effects. It is also possible to create interactive recordings. When you share an interactive recording, your viewers can view the recording as a video or read it as a slideshow. They can combine this to fit their own needs.
INNOVATION
5/5

Tijdens deze pandemie zijn veel sociale en zakelijke interacties overgegaan op online. Dit is een nieuwe manier om contact maken en houden met elkaar een stuk leuker en effectiever te maken. Het behouden van zakelijke relaties zijn daarbij natuurlijk niet minder belangrijk. Nog meer reden om een krachtige presentatie te geven aan klanten en collega’s.

CONCLUSION

The (presentation) tools we chose and tested were assessed on three aspects: user-friendliness, possibilities and innovation. Actually, it is difficult to compare these tools with each other, because Canva Live and Prezi Design, for example, do something completely different. Nevertheless, we did choose two favorites from these five tools: Prezi Design and Mmhmm. Both tools offer a lot of possibilities and are very innovative and easy to use! We also use Prezi Design on a regular basis. With these handy programs we try to help our customers even better with creating beautiful presentations and other visuals. Do you want help with this, or do you want tips? Then please contact us using the contact form. Then we will make a (Zoom) appointment without any obligation. And sign up for the newsletter to stay informed for part 2 of this blog.

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