We all know what to do when we need to present a list of information on a slide – break out the bulleted list layout, and plug in the facts. The results are predictable and reliable but are also, unfortunately, bland and repetitive.



In a presentation I have given a couple of times, I broke one of my rules while revising the slides and had several points on each slide. However, the tidy lists tend to be visually repetitive, and all information is equal. Bulleted lists equalize data – nothing appears more effective or more important than anything else.

In changing approaches, I kept a tidy list when presenting the facts because all of the information was equal in my opinion. However, when it comes to interventions, my experience has shown some more effective than others. In this approach, I scattered the data, and they appear in no particular order. Here, some points are larger than others, non-verbally communicating my experienced effectiveness of that strategy.



In addition to eschewing bulleted lists, these slides are also more visually engaging and the language is simpler. Less reading equals better listening. Even though they are conventionally accepted, bullets are not always the best solution for presenting information. Break the predictable, and arrange your information in a way that is unexpected and fresh, helping your talk be all the more unique and memorable for your audience.

Additional reading: Presentation Zen: Bullets and "delusional" briefing slides

Tags: text, conventions

I must seem a total stick-in-the-mud when it comes to slide design at times. I talk all about slides to avoid. I go one about image and background quality. I rant about fonts. Really, all I want is for your professional presentations to look better and more effectively reinforce the things you are trying to communicate. Still, some topics beg for a more casual and "fun" approach to slide design. Here are two examples in my own catalogue.

For some time, I've been working on a presentation about using Scrabble in classroom settings. Scrabble is a game, and I couldn't help but pay homage to its distinctive gamepaly on many of the slides in painstakingly recreating tiles on which much text appears.

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Add to this fact that every slide has numerous animations and builds (I'm particularly proud of some of the slides that record scores), and you end up with a presentation that breaks most rules of sensible design. The great thing, though? The presentation works anyway.

In about a month, I'm going to be giving a talk at a conference in Indianapolis discussing the merits of positive reinforcement in video games and classroom application. Video games! How can you pass up having fun with that topic?

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(I picked up material that helped with these slides from this blog.)

Silly fonts, bright colors, tons of animations again, and here we have a presentation that tells sensibility to take a long walk off a short pier. Regardless, the slides fit the talk, and they entertain while they reinforce.

I would never suggest this approach with talks about serious subjects, but, occasionally, topics lend themselves to fun. Remember, though: quality still counts, and whimsy is no excuse for a sloppy job. Creating fun slides is serious business and takes as much work as any other presentation. If done well, though, fun presentations can be every bit as engaging and effective as more professional ones.

Tags: conventions

Conventional wisdom places quite a bit of text on slides. Even I catch myself transferring my outlined notes to my slides pretty much word for word occasionally. The result is mundane slides that contain walls of text. Your audience ends up reading more than listening. This is standard practice, I believe, for two big reasons:

• We don't want to leave anything important out of our slides.
• It makes printing a handout simple.

Sometimes, though, too much text can get in the way and take away from your message. Look at these two slides below. They are virtually identical, but they use their text very differently to get the point across:

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Which slide stirs your curiosity more? Which feels more impacting? The same important statistic is represented on each slide. In the first, it is surrounded by a bunch of other stuff making a complete sentence. Furthermore, it is likely that two or three additional points will accompany this point, relegating it to near obscurity by the time the clicking is done.

In the second, the stat is naked and unhidden. No one will question the point of this slide. Additionally, the second slide requires you to fill in the context and additional information. You have not relegated yourself to unimportance with this slide, nor will your audience be able to skim the information and zone out. This slide provides a fact, and you are there to fill in the rest of the information.

In general, I advise against using complete sentences on your slides. Sometimes it is necessary, but look for those cases when single words or short phrases can get the point across more concisely. Along this same vein, avoid paragraphs of text. The proverbial "Wall of Words" does not make for good slide layout and may become frustrating for those trying to pay attention to you while taking in all the information on your slides. In the case of text, less is more, and simpler is smarter.

Tags: conventions, readability, text

Expressionist painter Vincent van Gogh is not considered a great artist because he adhered strictly to rules of perspective, texture, or color balance. His bold, provocative works are the result of creativity usurping the rules or art classes everywhere. Van Goh didn't just break rules in his paintings randomly, however. He seemed to have a intuitive grasp of knowing just when and how to defy convention in order to gain maximum effect.

This same principle carries over to effective presentation design. Most good presenters are aware of Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint – that is your presentation should be no more than 10 slides, 20 minutes long, and contain no font smaller than size 30. By and large, I can say I closely adhere to two of those three rules most of the time. Most presentations I have made for church have been 10-15 slides. My fonts tend to size in the high twenties to low thirties (the rule I'm not so good at), and, when rehearsed, most last twenty to thirty minutes.

In contrast to these, my presentation at ICE 2006 was 37 slides long. Why did I so fragrantly break the 10-slide rule? Quite frankly, the rule did not fit the situation. In this circumstance, it was appropriate to break a rule for the sake of impact. Was the presentation overly long? Not counting the Q & A section, I talked and demonstrated for roughly 30 minutes, and I had a 45-minute budget. Many slides flashed by in seconds to demonstrate an effect, and, in all, the entire presentation (in its final form) has only eleven "bullet points" (though no bullets are used).


Photo by Mylerdude on Flickr

Take one of my favorite presenters for example – Apple CEO Steve Jobs. A typical Seve Jobs Keynote (aka Stevenote) will last around two hours and contain roughly 150 slides. In fact, Kawasaki says Steve follows a 125+/90/60 Rule. Despite this, Mr. Jobs is practically the paradigm of good tradeshow presentation. His visuals are effective. Most of his demonstrations are carried out flawlessly – no BSODs here – and he uses text minimally but effectively. The 10/20/30 Rule is not entirely applicable to the situations he typically presents in, and he breaks the rule in a way that has an impact on his audience.

Even Guy Kawasaki, proponent of 10/20/30 used around 50 slides in his recent Art of the Start presentation at TieCon 2006. Why? The situation and style of presentation merited the additional slides. Despite the rather large deck of slides, at no point does Mr. Kawasaki feel longwinded or drawn-out in his speech. Even Garr Reynolds has a story of a time he used 285(!) slides in a presentation he gave about the Art of Presentations. If you are using your visuals effectively, your audience will not be aware of the number of your slides or how many or few of them remain. They will simply be engaged.

In this post, I've specifically tackled one rule of presentation design, and that is intentional. To go beyond this would create far too long of a post, but I may revisit this idea of rule breaking in the future. However, in order to break rules, we must first understand and respect the rules. I recommend reading Presentation Zen and the Presenting & Speaking category of Guy Kawasaki's blog for more tips. Additionally, you can see a small sampling of Steve Jobs' presentations right here. Anything worth presenting at all is worth presenting well, so take the time to learn some guidelines for creating your presentations. After that, you can find creative and meaningful ways to break those rules.

Tags: conventions, slide count, guy kawasaki, garr reynolds