Slides
Slide design can drastically affect how much an audience understands and remembers the content you present. Use these resources to explore the importance of slide design and learn effective strategies for crafting and assessing slides for scientific presentations.
After reviewing these sections, you will be able to:
- Describe the role that slide design can play to communicate science in clear and engaged ways,
- Explain how principles of cognitive psychology influence ways that audiences learn and affect slide design,
- Recognize qualities of good slide design,
- Describe slide design strategies and techniques to maximize the quality of scientific presentations, and
- Assess the quality and effectiveness of your slide design.
What is Slide Design?
“Make your slides do something for you that words cannot. You are giving a talk, so the word part is mostly covered by what you are saying…It is much more powerful to make your slides primarily visual so that they convey information in a more memorable, engaging, and understandable way.” – Melissa Marshall
Slide design, including visuals, colors, typography, and layout, visually highlights key points of your presentation, enhancing both comprehension and retention. It complements your research and plays a crucial role in how your audience understands your content.
Slide design strategies that thoughtfully consider and prioritize the experience of the audience can result in stronger presentations. Melissa Marshall, an expert in understanding how technical presentations can be transformed, advocates for an innovative approach to slide design. We recommend her strategy as she utilizes well-researched methods that have been successful in the scientific community. In an article on how to transform your technical talks, Marshall discusses the science behind the impact of slide design and how the overuse of text on slides, while engaging in verbal communication, during presentations increases the chances of cognitive overload for audience members. Marshall advocates for an “audience-centered speaker” approach, a technique in which you shift your focus from yourself as speaker to the audience.
To learn more about creating strong visual representations of your data and the importance of forming a mutual exchange between you and your audience, visit our pages on Data Visualization, along with Consider Your Audience which is part of the section on how to Deliver Authentically.
For additional resources on organizing and framing your talk, visit Deliver Authentically and Prepare for Any Talk.
Toolkit
Template: Assertion Evidence Slides
Assertion-evidence slides are key to engaging your audience and ensuring an effective presentation. This approach utilizes concise headlines with clear assertions, supported by visuals such as charts and graphs, while minimizing text on slides. See examples below of effective assertion-evidence slides, as well as a self-assessment checklist and template to help you implement this design strategy.
Put it into Practice
There are techniques and tools that can be utilized to strengthen the design of your slides in order to enhance the quality of your presentation. The list below provides tips and best practices for creating strong slides. Review the list, and try them out in your next presentation.
- Begin each slide (with the exception of title slide) with a strong headline.
- Incorporate strong visual evidence, such as photographs, drawings, graphs, films, or words and equations arranged visually to support your headlines and credit sources. (Images should be high-resolution with no clip art.)
- Include clear captions/labels/symbols to make the slides easier to follow.
- Minimize the use of bullet points.
- Keep animations, special effects, and sounds to a minimum.
- Use an appropriate number of slides for the length of the presentation (e.g. typically around one slide per minute).
- Use slides that have a consistent look and feel.
- Create slides that are readable from a distance.
- Include images and language that are inclusive and accessible for all learners.
Inclusive Slide Design
Creating slides that are inclusive and accessible for different learners is a critical part of the design process. Consider the implications of your design on the viewer’s interpretation, including visual representation, language, and color choice. As you engage in this process, explore the role of slide design in creating an inclusive environment that considers multiple perspectives, values, beliefs, identities, disciplines, abilities, experiences, and backgrounds. To learn more about what it means and looks like to design visuals that are inclusive, visit Visual Storytelling as part of the section on Data Visualization and Inclusive Language and Community Names from the NC Department of Commerce, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Create and Assess Your Slides
Prior to delivering a talk, it is important to prepare and set yourself up for success with a impactful slide deck. Depending on the nature of your presentation, the type of speaking engagement, your institution, and other factors and considerations, there are many approaches and priorities when it comes to slide design. This section includes tips to assist you in this process.
Slides drive home the main ideas of your research and play an important role to deliver a strong presentation. After reviewing the this page, use these resources to create and assess your slides to ensure that you have considered and included important components that make for an effective presentation.
Toolkit
Self-Assessment Checklist: Slide Design (PDF)
Use this self-assessment checklist to design and review your slides. Check all boxes that incorporate key qualities of strong slide design. In addition to focusing on the style, typography, and layout, consider your use of visuals and color along with other elements to enhance the design.
Handout: Tips for Creating Assertion-Evidence Slides (PDF)
The assertion-evidence slide structure is one effective technique to designing effective slides. In conjunction with the webinar on “Better Than Bullets: Transforming Slide Design” by Melissa Marshall, this checklist was developed as a resource for assertion-evidence slides but can be applied more generally to other types of slide designs. Consider the style, typography, and layout of your slides and what it might look like to incorporate these elements with an assertion-evidence slide structure in mind.
Rubric: Research Presentation (PDF)
Use this rubric to identify and assess elements of research presentations, including delivery strategies and slide design. This resource focuses on research presentations but may be useful beyond.
Templates and Examples: Assertion-Evidence Slides
Check out tips, templates, layout suggestions, and other examples of assertion-evidence slides on Rethinking Presentations in Science and Engineering by Michael Alley, MS, MFA, from Pennsylvania State University. Download the Assertion Evidence Presentation template for Microsoft PowerPoint.
Create and Deliver Standout Technical Presentations
Melissa Marshall leads a comprehensive course on LinkedIn Learning about creating strong scientific and technical presentations in ways that are not only clear and understandable, but also memorable and compelling.
Present Your Science
Melissa Marshall’s website explores how speakers can transform the way they present their research.
“The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Avoid”
By distinguishing what makes a presenter successful, this book by Michael Alley aims to improve your presentation skills.
Visit our Deliver Authentically webpage to learn more about how to strengthen your presentation skills.