Do's and Don'ts
True or False?
Quantity is BETTER than quality. Many images on a slide help illustrate the main point of a particular idea.
False. A slide should not contain more than 3 images.
What is the minimum and maximum number of images that should be displayed on one slide?
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 3
Rita is using her laptop to create her Google Slides presentation for her students. She decides that font size 15 fits her design specifications perfectly. What problems may arise in the classroom?
Rita did not consider people sitting far away from the board.
Why should each slide focus on one main idea?
- Clarity for the audience
- Too many ideas = a reduction in interest to follow along
True or False: Knowing how to make a slide presentation is only useful for higher education (CEGEP and/or university). Explain your rationale.
FALSE, this is a useful skill in
High school classes
Workplace
Workshops
Community organizations
Online content
Personal projects
Name one font type that is recommended for a slide.
Possible answers:
- Arial
- Calibri
- Verdana
What is the point of incorporating visuals/infographics in a slide?
- Audience engagement
- Multi-modal ways of understanding content
Adam uses a tennis reference to support the main idea of his slide, but many presentation viewers cannot relate to this example. How does this affect the impact of the presentation?
- Interest in presentation decreases.
- Pick a more relevant example or explain the reference clearly
Nina places important words in the bottom corner of the slide to prioritize the image. How does this affect the impact of this slide?
- The audience may not realize it’s there.
- If it’s key, we must see!
Why might a slide be an effective tool to use during an oral presentation?
- Organizes information
- Keeps the audience’s focus in mind
- Logical flow
- Overpowering
- Lack of clarity
- Main ideas are hard to pinpoint
Amy includes a line chart on her slide but forgets to draw attention to it during her presentation. Why is this a missed opportunity?
- Difficulty linking research with data.
- Lack of credibility in findings.
Frank incorporates advanced vocabulary on his slides. His goal is to sound like an academic, but the words confuse the audience. How does this weaken the presentation?
- Key ideas are jumbled.
- If Frank does not explain, he loses credibility.
- Meaning is indirect.
A slide contains only two images, with no titles or mini-explanations. Why is this confusing?
- Context behind the chosen images
- Connections should be made to illustrate meaning
During a presentation about healthy foods, a member of the audience asks a question that covers a topic you wanted to speak about towards the end of your presentation. How does your prior experience creating these slides equip you in this moment?
- Flexible thinking
- Dynamic communication skills
- Can use information planned ahead and rework the slide for the current discussion.
A slide uses a dark green font on an orange background. What is the problem? How would you fix it?
Use high-contrast colours (ones that complement each other)
Jack uses images that are aesthetic but misleading/irrelevant to the main message. What are the potential consequences?
- Interpretation time disengages the audience
- Reduction of impact
- Double meaning
Martha is worried about forgetting the information she wants to share during the presentation. She decides to fill the slide with many words to jog her memory. What problems does this create for the audience?
- Too much text
- Focus is on reading as opposed to listening
- Support over script
A history teacher uses a map to illustrate regions from two different time periods; the legend (visual explanation of symbols) is omitted. Why is this a problem? What is the solution?
Problem: The audience cannot understand how words and symbols create meaning.
Solution: Add a clear legend with the crucial details that you want the audience to remember.
A student learns about the power of editing and re-editing slides for their school presentations. How does this long-term habit help them beyond school?
- Builds attention to detail
- Practice of revising work
Scenario: A student creates a presentation about the correlation between study time and grades. Given their limited time, they decide to cram all the information into one slide. Their slide contains 3 scatter plot graphs, each showing many different facets of the study, and they chunk all their thinking into a blobby paragraph. The student thinks that this is efficient because the audience will have everything they need in one slide. What problems might the audience experience during this presentation? What should change?
Change?
- Chart: One per slide
- Make each graph clear and relevant
- Replace paragraphs with keywords
Lenny has prepared a project about climate change over the last two centuries. Given the intensity of this issue, his goal is to dramatize the situation by overloading the slide with information. He includes:
Before and after images of rising sea levels
Charts demonstrating animal extinctions
Weather reports about natural disasters
Map of forced migrations
Why is this design flawed? What do you think can be improved?
- Quantity of quality was implemented.
- Too many visuals are competing for attention.
- Improvement: Prioritize one visual at a time.
Scenario: Samantha is a neurosurgeon. She was invited as a guest lecturer at a university to speak to first-year medical students. She recycles (reuses) an old slide presentation from a medical conference. The problem? These slides were created for fellow doctors, not students. Why is it a mistake to present information based on the presenter’s advanced understanding without considering the beginner level of the audience?
- The presenter must never assume equal comprehension of terminology and facts.
- Assumption = skips over useful information
Scenario: A slide uses 6 arrows to demonstrate the sequence between rainfall and flooding patterns. The goal is to demonstrate cause and effect artistically, but the shapes are too overbearing because they overlap. How might the audience react to this, and what is the solution?
- Too difficult to follow
- Improvement: Reduce the arrows by at least half to show the most crucial cause and effect/why it is relevant.
Scenario: Lina learned how to create effective slides in high school. She is the leader of the food bank in her community and has been asked to give an oral presentation without slides to secure more funding for next year. How does her training still benefit her presentation skills?
- Skills in organizing and prioritizing information
- Training in flow/structure
- Critical thinking develops