Slide Design for Academic Presentations

Slides are a visual aid, not a script. Good slide design helps your audience:

• follow your key points easily
• focus on what you are saying, rather than trying to read a wall of text
• understand data, diagrams and key visuals clearly
• stay engaged without being overwhelmed

Poor slide design can:

• make your presentation harder to follow
• cause accessibility problems, for example text that is too small to read
• look unprofessional and reduce the clarity of your work

• Too much text. Filling slides with full sentences or paragraphs makes them hard to read and encourages you to read from the slide instead of presenting.
• Tiny text. If your audience can’t read it, it’s not useful. Body text should usually be at least 24pt, and headings even larger.
• Poor contrast. Using pale text on a pale background, or dark on dark, makes content hard to read, especially for visually impaired audiences.
• No slide titles. Slides without clear titles make it harder for your audience to follow and harder for you to stay organised.
• Inconsistent formatting. Changing fonts, sizes or colours between slides makes your presentation look messy and unprofessional.
• Cluttered slides. Too many images, diagrams or blocks of text can overwhelm the audience.
• Low-quality images. Blurry or pixelated images look unprofessional and distract from your message.
• Distracting animations or transitions. Overusing flashy effects can distract from your key points.

Check that:

• text is brief and easy to scan
• font sizes are large enough to read clearly
• colour contrast is strong enough throughout
• slide titles are clear and descriptive
• slides follow a logical order
• visuals are clear and support your message
• slides are not overcrowded