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96 slide:ology
A typical Western reading pattern runs from left to right and
top to bottom. Readers are conditioned to start at the top
left and scan back and forth across content in a Z-shaped
path until they’ve processed the information.
Jerry Weissman, author of Presenting to Win, calls this the
conditioned carriage return, as it mimics the movement of
the carriage on an old fashioned typewriter.
Readers move their eyes back and forth across a slide until
they feel they have identified everything on the slide. They
then will assign meaning to the information. If, to make your
point, your graphic needs to flow in a direction that’s counter-
intuitive to natural eye movement, build it over time, with
discrete elements appearing in the order you want your
audience to process it. Alternately, use a symbol or arrow
that clearly marks a starting point. The audience should be
able to understand the intended order in which to process
the information, without ever feeling lost or overwhelmed.
Flow: Ordering How the Information Is Processed
Using an arrow to mark the
starting point draws attention
to it where to begin.
Size and perspective indicate
the bottom left as the starting
point here.
Arranging Elements 97
You should organize slides to guide the audience’s eyes through the content
in an obvious way. This principle applies not only to text, but to diagrams
and images as well.
T!P
• Avoid more than three layers of
information on a single plane.
• Create points of interest (one main
point and up to two sub-points).
• Develop flow within the slide
intentionally.
• Choose images and diagrams with
clear directional flow.
• Select images that flow toward the
focal point on the slide or toward
the next slide.
At a glance, the audience should be able to determine whether to read data charts
horizontally or vertically.
When using images of people, make sure that they’re looking at the content instead
of looking away, or fleeing it.
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