On presentation slides, one of the main layout errors is having too many details. When a slide has too many details, the listeners are intimidated; they feel that they do not have time both to decipher the slide and to continue listening to the speaker. Specifically, what intimidates audiences are slides with large blocks of text (more than two lines per block), slides with long lists (more than four items per list), and slides that do not contain enough white space.

A second layout error that causes slides not to communicate effectively is an illogical arrangement of information. When a slide is projected, the audience turns from the speaker and looks at the screen. At this point, the audience's attention is divided between the speaker and the slide. For this situation, it is important that the audience members quickly grasp the purpose of the slide and that they know how to read it: what to read first, what to read second, and so on. In poorly designed slides, the audience does not know on what to focus first.

Given in this section are guidelines for limiting the amount of information so that the audience is not overwhelmed. Also given here are guidelines for arranging the information so that the audience is quickly oriented.

1. For all slides except for the title slide, use a sentence headline to state the slide's purpose. When you place a presentation slide before the audience, the audience immediately turns to it and...