45. No More Mind-Numbing Number Slides

1. The presenter starts each slide by saying, “Now I’d like to talk about...” forcing the audience to restart the presentation with each slide.

2. The presenter reads the words on the slide verbatim, causing the audience to feel patronized and become resentful, thinking “I can read it myself!” (Just remember that the first time anyone read to you was to put you to sleep, and thus you are forever programmed.)

3. The presenter discusses the general subject of the slide without referencing the specifics on the slide, splitting what the audience sees and what they hear, forcing them to dart back and forth between the screen and the presenter, causing complete confusion.

4. The presenter recites only the data on the slides, adding no value.

Therefore, the problem is in the presenter’s narration more than in the design of the slide itself. Of course, it is important to wield a sharp razor in the graphic design, slashing and trashing extraneous data, Keeping It Simple, Stupid. But even the most minimal design must be accompanied by a clear and consistent narrative.

Here then is a simple solution for each of the four common errors, one for each error, plus one bonus solution, linking your slides into a fluid story narrative.

1. Title Plus. To avoid the restart effect, start each slide with a Title Plus, a single statement that captures the overview of the entire image by referencing the title of the slide plus the other elements on the slide. For a financial slide with 5 bars, say, “Here you see our revenues for the past five years.” Or for a financial slide with 20 bars, say, “Here are those same annual revenues in quarterly increments.” For a pie chart say, “This slide represents the percentage of our revenues by region.”

You can also use the Title Plus to describe other than number slides. For a bullet slide say, “These are the four steps we intend to take on our path to profitability.” For a complex technology diagram say, “This is our comprehensive technology architecture.”

2. Paraphrase. To avoid the verbatim reading effect, paraphrase or juxtapose the words on the slide, or use synonyms. For instance, if the slide title reads Significant Revenue Growth, say, “Our revenues have grown impressively.” Or if the slide title reads Multiple Market Drivers, say, “These are the many forces driving our market.” If the slide title reads Broad Patent Portfolio, say, “We have strong Intellectual Property protection.” Your audience can easily make the interpolation—and not feel patronized.

3. Navigate. To avoid the split perception effect, describe the images on the slide by navigating the audience’s attention with your spoken words. For a pie chart, say, “The largest wedge is the green with 55 percent, moving clockwise, the middle wedge, in yellow, is 38 percent, and the smallest, in blue, is 7 percent.” For a table, say, “The Y-axis represents speed from low up to high, and the X-axis represents costs from low out to high.”

In addition to making it easy for your audience to follow and understand, this navigation technique has an extra benefit: It displaces the ubiquitous pointer. For some inconceivable reason, pointers, whether the retractable fixed type or the frenetic red dot laser model, have become standard equipment in presentation environments around the world. Presenters then pick up the pointers and brandish them as threatening weapons.

Verbal navigation is user- and audience-friendly.

4. Add value. To avoid the recitation trap, add value, dimension, and depth to your narrative by referencing information that does not appear on the slide, such as data, examples, quotations, or analogies. Add brief discussions to add value.

Financial prospectuses have a boilerplate section called “Management’s Discussion and Analysis.” Make this the theme for every presentation, especially number slides. Discuss and analyze, don’t recite.

5. Bonus: Linking words. You can create continuity from slide-to-slide with a technique that skilled writers use to create continuity in their narratives. They chose a word or a phrase from one paragraph and repeat that word or phrase in the subsequent paragraph, thus connecting the two paragraphs. The same technique can be applied to two consecutive slides. Let’s say you have one titled Significant Revenue Growth and another titled Margin Improvement. When you click to the margin slide, say, “Our impressive revenue growth has helped us improve our margins.” Or if one slide is titled Broad Product Line and the next is titled Leading Market Share. When you click to the market share slide, say, “Our state-of-the-art products have made us the market leader.”

Contrast this linking technique with the conventional rote transition that maddeningly starts each slide, “Now I’d like to...” which provides no link at all.

The linking words technique, along with the other four solutions, brings logic and continuity to what is essentially a disparate and interchangeable laundry list of data. It also brings vitality to your number slides—as well as to all your slides—and to your audience.