You can’t help but produce good slides if you follow these five rules

You won’t necessarily have beautiful slides (that may take a bit more work), but they will communicate much better than the average slide that’s out there now.

Only five rules. You can count them on the fingers of one hand.

A slide should say the same as you, but in a different way. It strengthens your message and gives wings to your words. It shouldn’t compete for attention; it’s there to help

Illustrate your words with an image, or put only the most important keyword(s) in big letters on the slide. Write the technical term on the slide and say it in layman’s terms.

A slide should convey one thing, and one thing only

If it’s trying to say more than one thing then move each onto its own slide. You’ll have more slides but they’ll be much more effective.

A slide should take only a very few seconds to absorb so people don’t miss what you’re saying

Images or diagrams are best, but as communication not decoration. Words should be few and large and images crisp and clear.

A slide should tell you immediately, in the title, what the point is. Clear and concise

The title should stand alone as a complete message and, if needed, the content under the title explains, or provides proof. Think of newspaper headlines.

A slide should not need a single bullet point

Bullet points are not evil in themselves, they’re just black dots. The problem is that bullet points = lists. Lists greater than three items are BAD. But, don’t panic, you can still create beautiful super-clear, three-point lists – like this one…

So there you go. Just five rules for good slides. It can’t be much simpler!