Assess the Slide-Making Skills of Your Team

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Assess the Slide-Making Skills of Your Team?

If you wrangle others to create presentations, most persuasive presentations make the story stick with visual design. There are 5 essential design elements every slide should have that are critical to the visual impact a presentation has.??

Pro-tip: if you want to give feedback to an executive, just whip out this great tool and you’ll get them to change too!?

Design decisions you make on a slide either amplify the signal and yet other decisions might create noise. The Glance Test? is a tool for you to rate your signal to noise ratio.??

Does Your Slide Pass the Glance Test???

After you evaluate every slide for its critical design elements, use the Glance Test to ensure that it is comprehensible and digestible for everyone sitting in your audience.?

The Glance Test is a powerful method used to ensure that slides can be easily understood and taken in by people who are sitting far away from the presentation screen and who only have a brief moment to look at the slide (while they are simultaneously listening to you talk).?

Here’s how to use the Glance Test:?

1. Look at a slide for 3 seconds, then look away from the slide.?
2. Determine whether you can remember and communicate the information or message that was included in the slide.?
3. If, after three seconds, you are wondering what the slide was about, or can’t quite convey the message you saw, the slide has too much information for your audience to process.?
4. If the slide doesn’t pass the glance test, return to it to pare it down or redesign it.?

Learn what these elements are that you can control so you pass the Glance Test, then refer to each when you evaluate the visual quality of a presentation. Make sure you carefully consider each element when you look at a slide, then determine whether it is executed to effectively communicate your message.?

Here’s the definition of some of the terms in the test so you’ll know it when you see them.

Contrast?

Contrast between design elements (in color, size, etc.) helps focus attention, create drama, and establish hierarchy. Viewers immediately perceive the difference between the attributes of two or more things. When you look at a presentation slide, consider the contrast in the design and ask yourself: Is the prioritization clear, or is it indistinct??

Here are some examples:?

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Whitespace?

Whitespace drives focus and is like the oxygen of a slide: it must exist so that all other elements can function the way they are supposed to. When you consider the whitespace on a slide, ask yourself: Is the space open, or cluttered? Generally, any slide that needs to sacrifice whitespace to make room for content is packed too tightly. When a slide is expected to present more information than it can comfortably hold, it is no longer the right tool for the job.???

This slide has the lack of whitespace. The information requires effort to process.

By distributing the elements across multiple sides, the audience can better understand each concept.?

Hierarchy?

An audience processes hierarchy almost as fast as contrast. Consider the most and least important elements on a slide when evaluating. If you can’t tell the most important takeaway, make changes so that what’s essential is highlighted.?

With text, size and location can be used together to indicate significance.??

Unity?

Consistency and cohesiveness are vital for delivering one clear visual message idea. Unity is achieved through consistent look and feel, image treatment, and placement of elements. As you go through each of your presentation slides, decide: does the presentation look structured or unstructured? Having text and graphics show up in the same place, anchored to the same points, helps an audience anticipate where content will appear. Make changes to ensure every slide looks like it’s coming from the same brand and presenter.?

Flow

Flow is what directs the eye along certain, pre-determined paths of a slide to areas of focus. Consider: is there a clear path for the eye to follow on this slide or is that path unclear? Make sure people are looking at what you need them to.?Western reading patterns are from left to right and top to bottom. Readers read content in a Z-shape.??

You can also use symbols or scale your elements to mark your starting point or ending point.?

At a glance, you should be able to determine how to read a data chart. Can you tell what chart should be read horizontally or vertically below??

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Don’t Just Identify Problems, Propose Solutions?

It’s easy to identify problems, it’s more valuable to help solve them.?

By approaching a deck with an understanding of what makes a slide work—or fail—you can easily understand which elements should be tweaked, and how they can be changed to better fit effective slide design criteria.?

Proposing solutions during a critique for a colleague can also help boost a presenter’s confidence and make them clearer on their big idea.?

Allow for a Dialogue about the Design Choices?

When critiquing someone else's design, let them defend their choices and see if they align with effective slide design principles. If you disagree about a slide, ask them to explain how it makes a lasting impact in under 3 seconds. If you dislike a color, ask if it provides enough contrast for the text. The process can teach both parties about slide design principles.?

There’s an art and science to creating great presentation slides. Content from this newsletter was pulled from Slide:ology?.

Thanks for reading,?

Want to know more about storytelling in business? The expert communication consultants, creatives, trainers, and coaches at Duarte, Inc. are here to help. Whether you choose to learn from us or work with us, we’ll transform how you and your teams communicate using the Duarte Method?. Contact us to speak with a representative – we look forward to hearing from you!?