How to create better slides for your public talk

The vast majority of public talks come with slides these days. That's the fact. Another fact is that the vast majority of those slides are inappropriate for public talks they are used at.

From this article you will learn how to create a presentation that helps you during your public speech. Here I explain the way professionals use slides and give you a step-by-step guide for preparing.

So it begins!

The dark side of slides

I’m not aware of exact reasons, but somehow most speakers think that? there should always be slides at a public talk. For me it feels like mechanical behavior. This superficial approach leads to a situation when listeners receive either slides not linked with the speech, or slides crammed with tons of info. Some speakers even use slides as cheat sheets for themselves and read them during a public talk (they forget that cheat sheets must be hidden).

It may seem that there is nothing terrible in slides, which are shown without specific reasons - they say “it’s not nonsense written there, it’s not superfluous”. However it’s a mistake, because it does lead to bad results. The problem is that slides have a drawback - they are able to steal listeners’ attention from you. When speakers make slides too attractive or cram them with too much info, they give a dangerous choice to listeners - listen to a speaker or read a presentation. If the audience chooses the presentation, then that’s the game over for a speaker, because there's no point in his presence any more. Listeners can’t do both listening and reading at the same time, their attention simply can’t handle such a task and only mess is left in their heads as a result.

Let me give you a couple of examples of slides which can easily make a speaker their shadow. They do more harm than good onstage.

Here we have the first conclusion: don’t create slides for no reason. Before you start creating a presentation, you should decide whether you really need slides or not. Sometimes it’s better to create only 1-2 slides or even not to use slides at all, like TED-speakers do it

How to use slides effectively

I suggest the next approach: presentation is a visual tool that supports your speech. This is the way you should treat the presentation in order to use it effectively. There are two main points in that definition.

Presentation supports your speech

That means that the presentation shouldn’t become the second speaker on the stage. The audience gathers to listen to speakers, not just to read slides - so a speaker should be the focal point, not the slides. The presentation should support or additionally explain ideas which a speaker tries to share. That’s the whole idea.

When you show statistics/graphs - you explain their meaning, reveal the details. When you show photos, you tell the story behind them. If you are saying something from the heart, it should be your words, not the text written on the slide (a small reminder of thanks-for-your-attention-slides). And it should be this way as long as you are standing on the stage. If the presentation tells everything itself, then the speaker is no longer needed. In this case it is better to send the presentation by mail and not to organize a performance.

Presentation is a visual tool

The strength of the presentation is that it provides you with an additional way of sharing your ideas - now you have not only words, but also pictures, photos, diagrams and even videos. That is what an effective presentation is about.

Visual tools work because listeners understand general meaning of a picture and its emotional message from the first glance. This is something that is difficult to do with mere words and abstract descriptions. Sometimes it’s impossible at all. The ideal combination most of the time is a picture and a short phrase that directs the focus of attention.?

Spoiler: the text in slides is not a visual tool. And once again: text is not a visual tool! The text in the slides is a mere duplication of information, not its visualization. It doesn't work that way - it doesn’t strengthen your ideas, but simply risks losing listeners. When there is a lot of text in slides, your audience tries to read it and listen to you simultaneously, and as a result, only mess remains in their heads.

Here is an example of how a speaker can use slides successfully - most of the time the speaker talks to listeners and slides visualize his ideas behind him

Additional examples of slides which are suitable onstage:

The only exception is probably slides with lists, like step-by-step guides, checklists, etc. But, again, it must have a specific practical need. This may be useful, for example, when you are sure that the audience needs your list and that they will use it (remember: people often take photos of slides, but they rarely use it - so we don't count on this). Another possible use is at the beginning of a long talk, when you show a plan for that talk.

The second conclusion: a presentation is a visual tool that supports your speech. That is how it needs to be treated to make it effective. When you finish creating your slides, check it, whether it’s a visualization of your ideas or a mere text duplication!

How to create a presentation: a step-by-step guide

I meet a lot of speakers who have a “slides-centric mindset” - from the very beginning of preparation, they think about how many slides they will have and how the slides will look. Only after making slides they think how to tie their speech with the presentation. As a result, both their presentation and public speech look like a big mess, built with separated parts. The format of separate slides forces us to think with separate ideas. But the public talk is one consistent narrative, so the approach should be different.

Step 1: Write your speech

An important feature of a presentation at a public talk is that it should match perfectly with your speech. Slides should not be created and used separately from your words. That is why we first write the speech, and only then we make slides for it.

Step 2: Decide which parts of the speech need to be visualized?

Not all the information needs to be supported with visual tools, only the parts which are difficult to understand without visualization.

But here comes a practical question: “What if my presentation is for an hour, and I have only 4 slides. I don’t want them to hang stupidly behind me when they are no longer needed. What to do about that?” Right, you can't leave it like that.

There are two solutions:

• Hide the slides when they are not needed. You can insert empty slides between the required ones, approximately matching the color of the room where you will speak. During the talk after using a desired slide, you can switch to the next empty slide, and the empty slide will not take viewers away from you.
• Use a flipchart, not a presentation.

Step 3: Write texts in slides using formula "5+10"

The main question here is “Where is the line between the normal amount of text and when there is too much of it?”.

The professional community even has a formula for this: “5 +10”. It means that on a public talk the title of the slide should be no more than 5 words on average, and additional text no more than 10 words. This length will be comfortable for the listeners and will help you share the meaning.

It may seem like an impossible task to fit in just 15 words. But, first of all, remember that you are a speaker and you should explain the rest. And secondly, it’s realistic to keep within 15 words if you organize the content of the slide according to the principle “one slide - one idea” and write the main idea of the slide in the very title. Practice and you will start to succeed in it!

It’s important to mention that as a result of this stage you should get just written text on blank slides, with no design. It’s vital to do so in order not to get mess in your points while designing.

Step 4: Design slides

Working with photos, pictures, graphs and other visual elements is the last step. Design is impossible until you have decided on concrete ideas and text blocks in slides.

Design tips, even basic ones, are a topic for another whole article. I’m planning to write such an article for you. For now, you can follow the next advice: if you have an ordinary presentation, corporate or educational, then you don’t need an outstanding super design. You need simple and clear slides which will help you to communicate ideas. If you have an investment presentation, or a presentation for an exhibition, then yes, you need a professional design. In this case it is better to reach specialists instead of trying to do it by yourself.

Let's summarize

Use slides as a visual tool to support your ideas where there’s need for it. Therefore, first you need to write a speech and only then create slides for it. Check your slides after everything is done, whether it's the visualization of your ideas or just a text duplication.

If you have an important speech soon and you feel like you need help, contact me directly and I'll guide you towards a cool public talk!