by Dr Pandula Siribaddana

Created on: July 19, 2010   Last Updated: July 20, 2010

When it comes to actual design of a slide using either ‘Microsoft Power Point’ or else printing on a transparent sheet for overhead projectors, there are several principles that has shown to be useful in relation to the way the content appear in the slides. Following are some of these basic principles as depicted in many literatures (Wynn 1995) describing on how to design an effective slide presentation.

Typography

This refers to the text that appears on the slide and as fundamental principles the following are recommended.

Use lower case text for improved readability

Use bolding or italics to emphasize than underlying a text

Do not use continuous capitalizations

Use sans-serif fonts instead of serif fonts for better readability of the slide

Font size

In general, it is recommended that a text should be not less than size 18 whereas 24 and 28 sizes are preferable.

Effects

Although we are enticed to use various effects that are present in the slide developing software, too much effects can be distracting as well as annoying for the audience. As such, use of text effects such as shadows, outlining, embossing…etc as well as slide transitions should be used sparingly and only when it seems necessary.

Use of colors

Following concepts are rather useful in tackling mishaps when excessive or mismatching colors are used.

Use a maximum of five colors plus or minus two

Avoid use of too much bright colors

Use colors in the middle of the light spectrum as the focus colors and those at the extreme edges of the spectrum as peripheral or background colors

Choose colors that work well together

Screen layout

When placing text and graphics in the screen, following principles will be rather useful.

Place the most important messages and images in the top half of the slide Rest in the bottom 2/3 rd in a ‘z’ pattern

Graphics

As there are many graphical objects available for the slide developers, it is easier for them to make presentations which are graphic intensive. But, this does not necessarily mean that the presentation would be effective and following principles would be useful in negotiating with such graphical objects.

More than 75% of the slide should be text

Graphics can break the monotonous nature of a slide

Use meaningful images

Finally, there are other contributors towards a successful presentation apart from the slide design. The presenters' skills would be one aspect that can make the audience overlook any deficiencies in the part of slide design and would be more important than the slide design itself in most occasions.

References:

Wynn, S 1995, ‘Design principles for slides and overheads’. In Summers, L. (Ed), A Focus on Learning, pp. 287-291.

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