Ever said this to a learner who missed your training?
“No worries! I’ll just send you the slide deck. You’ll get all the info you need.”
If that’s the case, I hate to say it, but your slides are probably way too cluttered, copy heavy, and complicated.
Slides aren’t supposed to BE the content.
They’re supposed to illustrate and reinforce the ideas that you as the trainer are talking about (seemingly) extemporaneously.
So how do you create slides that do just that?
Here are 9 tips for creating eye-catching slides…
1. Build in white slides for writing
Design slides with a quick headline, prompt or directions at the top, and white space below the copy so that learners can type, stamp, draw, etc. on the screen.
2. Draft on paper first
This doesn’t necessarily mean sketch out your designs.
It just means start with an outline containing your headline/topic for each slide before you go through the effort of designing the slides.
3. Insert images that are relevant
Make sure they’re illustrating or reinforcing the topic of your slide.
And use stock imagery and iconography that doesn’t violate copyright law.
Resources like Canva and Unsplash are great for this.
4. Use dark slides with light words
It’s OK to have white slides for annotating.
But to help reduce eye strain for your learners and add visual variety, mix in dark slides with reversed-out light copy.
5. Post the page number on your slide
This helps your learners follow along in their handout.
One caveat though: If you need to change the order of your handout pages, you’ll need to update those handout page numbers in your slides as well.
6. Insert pre-made questions, directions, openers, and closers
Add directional slides that give instructions for how to do the activities you’re facilitating.
It’s especially valuable if you’re giving a number of steps that learners need to complete on their own.
And it’s always good to have an action step at the end of those directions that you can observe visually.
This will help you know when learners are finished with the task.
7. Pre-make black slides as place holders for lecturettes
Need to remember to do an object lesson, tell a story, or hold a mini lecture?
A black slide can be a subtle hint to you to begin these segments.
Just make sure those mini-lectures never go longer than 5 minutes without involving your learners in some way.
8. Complex content belong in a handout, not a slide
(See the hypothetical scenario at the beginning of this blog.)
9. Make statistics visual
Use charts, graphs, etc.
And express scale using real-life images that provide context.
For example, if your stat suggests that 80,000 people drop out of school every X months in the U.S., you could show a photo of a college football stadium.
Which of those tips will be the biggest game changer for you?
