If it’s on the slide, it gets written down

Over the years, I’ve tried to make the slides for talks that I give have fewer and fewer words on them. Generally speaking, that’s a good thing to do. For example, here is a slide from a typical Apple presentation:

Or Google:

Or someone like Seth Godin:

Funny enough, one of Seth’s talking points about presentations is: “ No more than six words on a slide. Ever. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken “. I didn’t intend to, but the example I used for him above has 10 words on it. 🙂

Reinforcement via slides

Slides are intended to reinforce the point you’re trying to make, not to explain it all. In the book “ Outsmart Your Brain “, author Daniel Willingham shares this as well:

On the subject of slides, remember that listeners will likely write whatever is on a slide, probably verbatim. They use “presence on a slide” as a rough measure of importance. Generally, that…