Description

Well designed slide presentations can be an effective way to communicate information.

Purpose

Slide design is critical for maintaining audience engagement and content retention.

Procedure

• Stick to key concepts. Slides should support your content, not deliver it.
• Keep slide density low. 20 words or less per slide is ideal.
• Use large font sizes (no less than 28 point).
• Use a limited color palette (3-5 colors).
• Slide contrast should be high (dark background with light text or reversed).
• Avoid bullet points where possible. Varying slide layout will help maintain audience attention.
• Avoid overwhelming your audience with visual clutter and animations.
• Use high quality images and avoid stock themes. Stock themes tend to incorporate distracting visual elements that will compete with your content.
• Know when to add content to a slide versus creating a separate handout for your audience. Printed PowerPoint slides should not be a substitute for a handout with additional details or resources.

Considerations

• Know the resolution of the computer/projector you will be using. You can specify the slide size/ratio to maximize the visible projected content. Changing size requires additional editing.
• Adding additional multimedia elements to a slideshow may require you to test this on the machine you will be presenting from.
• Slide presentations may appear differently on different operating systems (Windows vs Mac).
• If using nonstandard fonts, they should be embedded before transferring between computers.

Resources

• Reynolds, Garr. Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2010.
• “Top Ten Slide Tips.” Garr Reynolds Official Site. <http://www.garrreynolds.com/preso-tips/design/>.