75. Presentation Graphics Meet Linguistics: Symmetry in Graphics Design

Matt Vasey, the Director of the American Distribution Channel at Microsoft Corporation, was a participant in a Power Presentations program held at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, campus. During the session on graphics design, one of his colleagues showed a bullet slide arranged in the format shown in Figure 75.1. Matt gave his commentary about the content and then concluded, “I’m not crazy about that glottal stop.”

Figure 75.1. Unattractive spacing in bulleted lines

His words brought me up short.

A glottal stop is an esoteric phonetics term that refers to an action of the vocal cords snapping shut over the glottis, the space between the cords, during speech. The action produces a sharp, unattractive sound, and Matt was clearly referring to the unattractive spacing in the bullet lines.

I asked, “How do you know about glottal stops?”

Matt replied, “I took a linguistics course in college.”

While Matt was using the term analogously to make a point about design (bullet lines should be spaced evenly), he was also inadvertently making another point about the relationship between graphics design and narration.

Unfortunately, in common presentation practice, these elements are often treated as two distinct entities. This separation results in dissociation between what the presenter shows and what the presenter says. The split forces the audience to stop listening while they try to understand the graphic. As a result, the disruption to the presentation is even greater than irregular spacing on a slide or the sound of a glottal stop.

You can bring your design and your words together in a very simple way. Whenever you display a slide, use your narration to help your audience understand what they are seeing. Use a Title Plus to describe your slide. A Title Plus is a succinct statement that captures the entire content of the slide.

Design each slide with a single-line title that conveys the main point. Each slide also has additional material below the title—bullets, graphs, icons, pictures, tables; that is the plus. Every time you click to a new slide, tell your audience what you’ve shown them using the Title Plus:

• “Here you see five years of annual revenues.”

• “This table compares our product to all others.”

• “These are the many benefits of our product.”

State the Title Plus the instant the new slide appears, or your audience will stop listening and try to understand what they are seeing. After the Title Plus, you can go on to discuss your slide in greater detail and add value.

Synchronize your graphics with your linguistics and you with your audience.