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Designing presentation slides: Clear instead of cluttered

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tagsglossar, praesentation, ihk

2 min read

Designing presentation slides: Clear instead of cluttered

In short: Good slides support the talk: one thought per slide, little text, large type, clear images and charts instead of bullet-point deserts.

In more detail: Slides are accompaniment, not the script to read from. Whoever reads text off slides loses the audience. Good design helps understanding and remembering, especially in IHK presentations and school talks.

In Depth

Basic rules

  • One thought per slide; the heading states the message (“Switching saves 40 % time” instead of “Results”).
  • Little text: keywords instead of sentences, at most 5 to 6 lines.
  • Large type: from 24 pt (body text), headings 32 to 40 pt; one legible typeface (sans serif), at most two.
  • High contrast: dark type on light ground or vice versa; colours sparingly (2 to 3), not colour alone as information (colour-vision deficiency).
  • Images and charts instead of text: own screenshots, diagrams (flow, architecture), charts with labels and a clear message.
  • Consistent layout (slide master), page numbers, sources small at the bottom.

Structure of a presentation

  1. Title (name, topic, date).
  2. Outline/agenda (short).
  3. Starting point and goal.
  4. Main part: a few slides per section.
  5. Result/demo, conclusion, outlook.
  6. Sources, questions. Count on about 1 to 2 minutes per slide: for 15 minutes 8 to 12 slides are enough. Less is often better.

Typical mistakes

  • Walls of text and bullet lists with sub-points.
  • Animations and transitions in excess.
  • Hard-to-read charts, unreadable code (show code as an excerpt, highlight lines).
  • Others’ images without licence (copyright!), misusing logos.
  • Too many numbers; pick the most important three.
  • No plan B: PDF export, USB stick, offline version; demo only with a fallback (screenshots/video).

Tools and accessibility

PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, LibreOffice Impress; web: Reveal.js, Marp, Slidev (Markdown). Alt texts for images, reading order, sufficient contrast and type size help everyone. Rehearse the talk (time, technology, transitions) and get feedback. Slides are a tool: the most important things are said by you.

See also: PowerPoint, Technical discussion and presentation in the IHK exam, WCAG and colour contrast

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