Effective PowerPoint slides

It is interesting how wrong we can get something as seemingly simple as creating a PowerPoint slide deck. A slide deck is - in my opinion - a bit like a fish bone diagram (Ishikawa, 1968; image accompanying this post, FabianLange, 2008). A root cause analysis process, if we will.

When creating a slide deck, we begin with what we are aiming to deliver (our 'problem'), create slides with the bare bones of what we want to communicate on each slide of the deck: replacing equipment, process, people, material, environment and management with our own rough headings. We should think of what story we want to tell, and collect our evidence to support that story. We may do this using a story board; we may write this out long-hand; we may type up our headings in a Word document or in PowerPoint itself. Then, under each heading, we add anchors for each point that we want to work through, relating to that slide. Some say no more than 20 words/slide (Nguyen et al., 2016); some say no more than 40 words/slide (Tufte, 2003). But JUST enough to frame the fish. 

We don't use full sentences on slides: "A cluttered or overwhelming data slide can derail even the most compelling speaker, so only show data in your presentation if the data helps you better illustrate your conclusions" (Duarte, 2016, p. 65). What goes on the slide is an audience-cue for what we are about to say: "Just use key words that serve as a visual and support your message. Check each slide to see how you can make the text more compact. Scrap as much as you can" (Gruwez, 2014, p. 179). Less is definitely more, as "Text-heavy slides are boring.  Minimize text on slides", and even better; "Sometimes no text is the best option" (Karia, 2013, p. 46). To check that our deck and presentation will be clear, we need to: "Get to the point; Pick the right tool [i.e. graphic, diagram, image] for the job; Highlight what’s important [for the audience]; Keep it simple" (Duarte, 2016, p. 65). 

Our script, what we will SAY to our audience, goes in the notes area of each slide. With citations. We can including side-trips we can explore if we have time, or jettison if we are running late. We need to practice the presentation aloud. Duarte suggests roughly 3 hours (2016), but that depends on if you are presenting for TED, or for an assignment. But practice is how we know roughly where we should be at what time as we deliver, so we know whether there is time for a side-trip or not.

So the steps are:

1. Delivery aim/story
2. Draft slide deck headings (check fit with the story)
3. Slide audience anchors (very few words which tell the story)
4. Script (telling the entire story in the notes area, with citations)

The audience sees a slide. The presenter sees the slide and their notes (and possibly the presenter view, if they have a screen they can see during the presentation). We may give the audience a handout afterwards; example below (Reynolds, 2020, p. 71):

We can see from the example above that the slide is relatively simple, with the script packed into the notes area. The one thing this example lacks, for academic purposes, is a multiple works citation on the slide.

I hope this helps!

Sam

References:

Duarte, N. (2016). slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. O'Reilly Media.

FabianLange. (2008). Ishikawa fishbone diagram (Creative Commons 3.0) [image]. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ishikawa_Fishbone_Diagram.svg

Gruwez, E. (2014). Presentation Thinking and Design: Create Better Presentations, Quicker. FT Publishing International.

Ishikawa, K. (1968). Guide to Quality Control. Asian Productivity Organization.

Karia, A. (2013). How to Design TED Worthy Presentation Slides: Presentation Design Principles from the Best TED Talks (How to Give a TED Talk). Author.

Nguyen, K., Murillo, G., Killeen, R., & Jones, L. (2016). The Big Fish Experience: Create memorable presentations that reel in your audience McGraw-Hill Education.

Reynolds, G. (2020). Presentation Zen 3: Simple ideas on presentation design and delivery (3rd ed.). New Riders.

Tufte, E. R. (2003). The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within. Graphics Press LLC.