Six Rules for Slides (and PowerPoint's Bad Defaults)

The software is actively working against you

Open PowerPoint or Google Slides and it hands you a template: a title box, and under it, a box that says "Click to add text" with bullet points already waiting.

That default is the problem. It's not neutral — it's a shape, and the shape it pushes you toward is a title with a list of bullet points, which is close to the worst possible way to support a spoken talk. The tool is quietly designing your slides for you, badly, before you've made a single decision.

Every rule below is really one rule: stop letting the default template think for you. A good slide is not a document you read off; it's a visual that makes your spoken point land harder. Once you see what the software is nudging you toward and refuse it, better slides get easy.

This lesson assumes PS-01 — you already have a message and three claims, and you're building the slides last, for a purpose. Now: how each one should look.

What you'll have at the end

• Six rules that override the software's defaults
• One real slide of yours, redesigned before/after
• The single principle underneath all six

The principle underneath all six: the slide is not your notes

Before the rules, the idea they all serve.

There are two things in a presentation: what you say and what's on screen. The near-universal mistake is making them the same — putting your script on the slide and reading it aloud.

This fails for a reason with a name. When identical words are spoken and written, they don't reinforce — they interfere. People read faster than you talk, so they finish the slide, disengage, and wait for you to catch up. You've made yourself the slower, redundant version of your own slide. (Mayer calls this the redundancy effect, and it's one of the best-established findings in how people learn from presentations.)

So the governing rule: your words carry the argument; the slide carries the evidence. They do different jobs. Your speaker notes hold your sentences. The slide holds the picture, the number, the one phrase — the thing words alone can't deliver. Everything below follows from that split.

Rule 1 — One idea per slide

Each slide makes one point. If a slide has two ideas, it's two slides.

The instinct is to cram, because it feels efficient and because making a new slide feels like "more work." It's the opposite. Slides are free, attention isn't. A slide with three ideas gets none of them across; three slides with one idea each get all three.

The test: can you say what a slide is for in one short phrase? "This shows revenue grew." "This is the one photo that makes it real." If you can't — if the honest answer is "it's got a few things on it" — split it.

Rule 2 — Kill the bullet points (mostly)

The default's signature move, and the thing to resist hardest.

Bullet points are a format for listing, and a talk is not a list — it's an argument with a shape. Worse, a wall of bullets is exactly the redundancy trap: you read them, the audience reads them faster, everyone loses.

What to do instead:

• A full-bleed image with a few spoken words over it.
• One number, huge, and you explain it.
• One short phrase — the headline of the point — not a sentence, not a list.
• If you genuinely have a list (three options, four steps), reveal them one at a time so attention stays with you, not racing ahead down the page.

Not an absolute ban — occasionally a short, deliberate list is the right slide. But the default should be "no bullets", and every bullet list should have to justify itself. When in doubt, the point becomes a headline and the detail goes in your mouth.

Rule 3 — Headlines, not labels

Give each slide a headline that states the point, not a label that names the topic.

A label makes the audience work out why they're looking at the slide. A headline tells them, so the rest of the slide becomes evidence for a claim they already understand. This is the single highest-leverage change you can make to a deck — and it's the same move as the chart headline in PS-04.

Rule 4 — More space than you're comfortable with

The default template fills the slide edge to edge. Fight it. Empty space is not wasted space — it's what makes the one thing that is there impossible to miss.

• Big margins. Let the content breathe.
• One focal point per slide, with room around it.
• Resist the urge to "use the space" by adding more. The space is the design.

A slide with one number and a lot of emptiness around it is powerful. The same number buried among a logo, a footer, three bullets and a clip-art icon is invisible. Coherence — Mayer's term — means removing everything that isn't the point, because every extra element competes with the point for the same limited attention.

Rule 5 — Readable from the back, in one glance

If the person at the back can't read it, or if reading it takes more than a couple of seconds, it's failed — as a slide. (It might be a fine handout; those are different objects.)

• Big text. If you're fitting a lot of words in, that's the smell of too many words, not too-small a font. Make the text big and watch the word count fall out naturally.
• High contrast. Dark on light or light on dark. Not grey on white, not colour on colour.
• A couple of seconds, max. A slide is glanced at, not studied. If it needs studying, it's a document — send it after, and put something glanceable on screen.

The forcing function: stand back from your screen at double the normal distance. If you can't read it or get it instantly, neither can the back row.

Rule 6 — One visual system, decided once

Consistency reads as competence; inconsistency reads as carelessness before a word is spoken.

• Two fonts maximum, ideally one. Two or three colours, used consistently (a main, a text, one accent). Decide once, apply everywhere.
• No transitions and animations for their own sake — no spinning, flying, bouncing text. They date instantly and distract always. The one legitimate use is revealing content step by step (Rule 2), so attention lands where you want it.
• No clip-art, no stock "business people shaking hands", no decorative junk. If an image isn't carrying meaning, it's carrying noise. (This is the brand's "real thing, not a metaphor" instinct, applied to slides.)

Set a simple system at the start and every subsequent slide is easier, because the design decisions are already made.

The redesign, in practice

Take the default-template slide everyone makes:

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Q3 Marketing Results               │   ← label
│                                     │
│  • Revenue was up 12% this quarter  │   ← bullets you'll read aloud
│  • Social media engagement grew     │
│  • Email open rates improved        │
│  • However, costs also increased    │
│  • Overall a positive quarter       │
│              [clip-art chart icon]  │   ← decorative junk
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Apply the rules and it becomes several slides, each one idea, each a headline over one piece of evidence:

Slide A:  "Revenue grew 12% in Q3"        + the real revenue chart
Slide B:  "But costs grew faster"          + the one number that shows it
Slide C:  "So we grew, and got thinner"    + the two lines together

The bullets became spoken sentences (in your notes). The label became headlines that make points. One crowded slide became three clear ones — and slides, remember, are free.

✅ Check: you've taken one crowded slide and split it into single-idea, headlined slides with the detail moved to your mouth.

Six common mistakes

1. Reading your slides aloud. The redundancy trap — you become the slow version of your own text.
2. Accepting the bullet template. The default is a bad shape. Refuse it by default.
3. Labels instead of headlines. "Q3 Results" makes the audience do the work. State the point.
4. Cramming to save slides. Slides are free; attention isn't. Split, don't cram.
5. Decorative animation and clip-art. Noise dressed as effort. If it isn't carrying meaning, cut it.
6. Too-small text. The tell of too many words. Big text forces few words.

Exercise (35 min, verifiable output)

1. Take a real slide you've made (coursework, a club, anything) — ideally a crowded one.
2. Identify how many separate ideas are on it. Split it into one-idea slides.
3. For each, write a headline that makes the point, not a label.
4. Move every full sentence off the slide and into your speaker notes. Replace bullets with an image, a number, or one phrase.
5. Apply space, contrast, and one visual system.
6. The back-row test: stand at double distance from your screen. Can you get each slide in two seconds?
7. Put the before and after side by side.

✅ Finish check: a before/after of one real slide — the "before" crowded and label-titled, the "after" split into single-idea, headlined, glanceable slides with the detail moved to your notes.

Summary card

• The software's default (title + bullets) is a bad shape. Every rule is "refuse the default."
• The slide is not your notes. Your words carry the argument; the slide carries the evidence. Same words spoken and written interfere.
• One idea per slide. Two ideas = two slides. Slides are free; attention isn't.
• Kill the bullets (mostly). A talk is an argument, not a list. Image, number, or one phrase — detail goes in your mouth.
• Headlines, not labels. "Q3 revenue grew, margin didn't" beats "Q3 Results". Highest-leverage change.
• More empty space than feels comfortable. Space makes the one thing unmissable. Remove everything that isn't the point.
• Readable from the back in two seconds. Big text, high contrast. Small text = too many words.
• One visual system, decided once. Two fonts, three colours, no gratuitous animation, no clip-art.

Sources

1. Reynolds, G. — Presentation Zen, 2008
2. Duarte, N. — slide:ology, 2008
3. Mayer, R. — Multimedia Learning, 2001 (redundancy and coherence)
4. Tufte, E. — The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, 2003

Next lesson: PS-03 — Narrative Structure (L2) Related: PS-01 The Skeleton of a Talk · PS-04 Presenting Data · PS-05 Stage Mechanics · PS-08 Selling an Idea in Three Minutes Path: Stage Ready — 2/6