While working on a new presentation this week, I’m reminded of a comment a former boss of mine made while I was creating PowerPoint slides for her presentation. As we were discussing the project she asked me to help her avoid “death by acute PowerPoint poisoning.” After we both briefly chuckled, she explained to me that there was nothing more embarrassing she’d witnessed than someone literally drowning in their own slides.
Before I proceed, let me define the symptoms of Acute PowerPoint Poisoning.
- The text of some laborious Congressional bill pales in comparison to the information contained on your slides (i.e., if you need paragraph delineations on any one slide, you have too much information).
- If the graphs or charts on your slides cause people to grimace and squint as they’re trying to decipher their meaning.
- You end up just reading off the slides because you could not possibly provide as much in-depth information verbally.
- Not one member of your audience is looking at you. They are looking solely at your slides.
- You cannot possibly finish this presentation in the time alloted.
When my boss expressed her disdain for this type of information overload I understood what she meant, as both Jon and I have always agreed that when dealing with information processing and design, less is more.
There is only so much information our brains can process at any one point. If you overload an audience with vast quantities of information, what you will ultimately find is not that you look smarter or more informed, but that your message has been totally lost.
The Law of Parsimony
What this all boils down to is what I will call the Law of Parsimony. If you want to get a message across visually or verbally, keeping it simple works best. You want people to digest the information you provide and the visual design standing behind it as a whole package.
It you overload any one audience with a library’s worth of information backed by a jam-packed set of design heavy slides, chances are that the message will not be conveyed as you intended.
Keep it simple, keep it clean. Allow the information you use to support the personal appeal of your presentation. Bear in mind the Law of Parsimony and you will never risk an untimely death by acute PowerPoint poisoning.