One of the biggest complaints from presentation ‘experts’ and audiences is that most presentation slides contain far too much text. Full sentences and sometimes even full paragraphs.
Now think about your audience for a moment. Most audience members take notes during a presentation. They have their sheets of paper, iPads or laptop computers and they are desperately trying to capture all the important stuff you give during your presentation. If your presentation slides contain long sentences and paragraphs, then there is no chance your audience can capture the important elements of your presentation. Quite often, your audience just gives up and ultimately, they stop listening.
The same goes for the charts and graphs you may put into your presentation. The more complex your chart or graph, the more difficult it is for your audience to quicky sketch out the important parts of the information you are giving. If your audience is unable to get down into their notes the important information from your presentation, your presentation is going to fail. Your audience are unlikely to remember anything you said 20 minutes after you finish. That is not success. That is a huge fail.
Look at the following example:
So perhaps you should apply a simple test to your presentation slides:
Are my slides simple enough for my audience to capture the key information into their notes within twenty seconds?
That should be your goal when designing your slides. Putting the convenience of your audience first.