How to Make Presentations for Learning & Development [L&D Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- 20 hours ago
- 6 min read
When our client Jude asked us,
“How do you make a learning and development presentation stick with employees who don’t care much about slides?”
Our Creative Director replied,
“By designing the presentation for the learner, not the trainer.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on many learning and development presentations throughout the year. And in the process, we’ve observed one common challenge: most L&D slides are designed as information dumps, not as experiences people actually want to engage with.
So, in this blog we’ll talk about how to approach L&D presentations differently, so your training sessions not only transfer knowledge but also create a lasting impact.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why You Need to Rethink Your L&D Presentations
1. Most Training Slides Are Built for the Trainer, Not the Learner
When we review corporate decks, what we often see are slides overloaded with text, bullet points, and jargon. They’re built as notes for the trainer, not as engaging experiences for the learner. The result? Learners disengage because the content doesn’t feel designed for them.
2. People Don’t Hate Training, They Hate Boring Training
Employees aren’t against learning. In fact, most want to grow in their roles. What they resist is training that feels irrelevant or painful to sit through. If your slides look like policy manuals and your delivery is monotone, the message will get lost.
3. Information Dumping Is Not the Same as Learning
Throwing a hundred facts into a deck doesn’t mean the audience has learned. Learning happens when ideas connect to real scenarios, emotions, and actions. If your L&D presentation is just an information dump, expect little to no retention.
4. A Great L&D Presentation Shapes Behavior
The difference between a bad and a good learning and development presentation is simple: one ends when the meeting ends, the other lives on in how people work the next day. A good presentation doesn’t just share knowledge, it changes the way people act.
How to Make Learning and Development Presentations
1. Start With the Learner, Not the Content
Most training decks are designed backward. They start with, “Here’s all the stuff we need to cover,” and end with a rushed attempt at engaging the audience. That approach rarely works.
Instead, start with the learner. Ask yourself:
What’s their current level of understanding?
What do they care about in their day-to-day work?
What resistance or hesitation might they bring into the room?
When we designed a leadership program deck for a client last year, we didn’t begin with theories on management. We started with a scenario every manager had faced: giving tough feedback to an underperforming employee. Immediately, the learners were engaged because the material spoke to their reality. That’s the difference between content designed for checklists and content designed for actual humans.
2. Define One Clear Learning Objective
A common mistake is cramming too much into one session. Many L&D leaders feel pressured to show value by covering as much ground as possible. Ironically, this dilutes impact. People leave remembering fragments, not frameworks.
The solution is simple: set one clear objective. For example:
“By the end of this training, employees should be able to apply the 3-step complaint handling process with confidence.”
“By the end of this session, new hires should know the five most important compliance rules they need to follow daily.”
Once you define this objective, everything else becomes easier. You can evaluate every slide and ask, “Does this serve the objective?” If not, it gets cut. Ruthlessness here equals clarity for the learner.
3. Build a Narrative, Not a Slide Collection
Here’s a hard truth: slides don’t teach, stories do. A collection of bullet points might look neat, but it rarely sticks. A narrative, on the other hand, takes people on a journey.
Every effective learning and development presentation has three key beats:
The problem: Why this training matters. People need to feel the pain or risk of not knowing.
The solution: The framework, process, or skill you’re teaching.
The application: A scenario where learners see the new knowledge in action.
For example, in a workshop on handling customer complaints, we opened with a real voicemail from an unhappy customer. That raw example created urgency. Then we introduced the 3-step resolution framework. Finally, we played a roleplay where the new method turned the situation around.
Employees didn’t just hear the framework—they saw it work. That’s narrative-driven design in action.
4. Use Visuals That Teach, Not Just Decorate
Visuals are not decoration. They’re teaching tools. Yet most training decks either use stock images of people high-fiving or rely on plain text. Neither approach helps learners retain information.
Instead, design visuals that carry meaning:
Use diagrams to explain how a framework works.
Use icons to create simple associations. For example, a “lock” icon for compliance, a “handshake” icon for collaboration.
Use process flows to show step-by-step actions.
We once redesigned a compliance training for a client who had 50 slides of text-heavy policies. By turning them into 10 illustrated scenarios with icons and short callouts, retention scores jumped significantly. Learners later reported that they could actually recall what the icons represented during real work situations. That’s how you make visuals do the heavy lifting.
5. Chunk Information Into Digestible Parts
Nobody enjoys being hit with a wall of text. Yet many L&D decks still look like legal documents pasted into PowerPoint. The human brain can only handle so much at once.
The fix? Chunk information.
Stick to one key idea per slide.
Use short sequences of slides to unpack a concept step by step.
Repeat important points in different formats: a diagram, a scenario, a quick recap.
Think of your slides as small bites, not a giant buffet. People learn better in sprints than in marathons of information overload.
6. Add Real-World Scenarios
Adults learn best when they see how knowledge applies to their lives. That’s why real-world scenarios matter. Instead of abstract theory, give learners examples they recognize.
If you’re teaching customer service, use an actual customer call transcript. If you’re training on safety protocols, show a real workplace accident case study. This not only makes the training more relevant but also adds emotional weight. People remember stories far longer than they remember policy lists.
One of our favorite techniques is the “choose your own adventure” format. You present a scenario, give learners options, and let them see the outcome of each choice. It’s interactive and forces engagement. Suddenly, people aren’t passive—they’re decision-makers.
7. Make It Interactive
A presentation without interaction is a lecture. And most employees don’t need another lecture. The best L&D presentations create opportunities for participation.
This doesn’t have to mean elaborate gamification. Simple tactics go a long way:
Ask learners to vote on a question using a show of hands.
Build in reflection pauses where people jot down how they’d apply the lesson.
Use roleplays or breakout discussions for key scenarios.
We worked with a client who added one simple exercise: after explaining a framework, they asked learners to pair up and apply it to a real situation they’d faced at work. The feedback? “This was the first training that didn’t feel like a waste of time.” Interaction is the difference between passive learning and active engagement.
8. Balance Authority With Approachability
Trainers often fall into two traps. They either sound overly formal—like they’re delivering a legal verdict—or too casual, where the session loses seriousness. A good L&D presentation strikes the right balance.
Your slides should look professional, but not intimidating. Your language should be simple, but not simplistic. The tone should communicate authority, yet feel approachable. When learners sense both competence and relatability, they engage more openly.
9. Reinforce With Repetition and Recap
One-off exposure rarely sticks. Learners need repetition. But repetition doesn’t mean copy-pasting the same slide three times. It means finding creative ways to reinforce.
Recap at the end of sections with a short checklist.
Use icons or colors consistently to signal recurring themes.
Revisit the core objective multiple times in different contexts.
For example, if your training is about “the 3-step complaint process,” keep looping back to it after each scenario. By the end, learners should be able to recite it without effort. That’s effective reinforcement.
10. Design for Retention, Not Just Delivery
The real test of any L&D presentation isn’t how polished it looks in the room. It’s what people remember and apply afterward. That means your deck should be designed as a memory tool, not just a delivery aid.
Some practical ways to do this:
End with a visual summary slide learners can screenshot or print.
Provide a quick-reference version of the framework.
Use metaphors or visuals that stick in people’s heads.
We once compared a compliance framework to a “traffic light.” Green for safe behaviors, yellow for caution zones, red for prohibited actions. Months later, employees still referenced the “traffic light” in their discussions. That’s retention.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.