Slides Without The Bullets

Google got some attention from an Inc article that describes their recent approach with slides that are light on text and bullets.

“Think of your slides as billboards,” says Duarte. “When people drive, they only briefly take their eyes off their main focus, which is the road, to process a billboard of information. Similarly, your audience should focus intently on what you’re saying, looking only briefly at your slides when you display them.”

I’ve been going down this approach for a while with mixed results. I’ve found that the heavy-visuals/light-text approach works really well when presenting in person because I can be more engaged with the audience. However, it’s a lot tougher when presenting remotely like on a WebEx. I think we need a bit more text to help engage the audience and keep them on track, but we we shouldn’t go overboard with the information.