Make sure they have clear visual hierarchy
Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2024 7:22 am
Take this guide with a pinch of salt. It’s always a good idea to test your slides on the screen you’ll be presenting on to make sure your font is legible, even from the back of the room!
Whichever font you chose, it’s also best practice to avoid using all caps or italics for blocks of text, and instead use bold to highlight information.
Avoid big blocks of text
Cutting down text is for everyone’s benefit, especially yours!
Large blocks of text may be indecipherable for dyslexic audience members and audience members with certain visual impairments may take longer to read the text than you anticipate. Your audience is likely to end up feeling excluded and frustrated if you move on too quickly. What’s more, they’ll be working so hard straining their eyes to read what’s on the screen that they’ll ignore you entirely. Instead, minimise the amount of text you use and opt for more compelling and visually engaging ways to tell your story to make sure you have your audience’s attention from start to finish.
When your slides do include text, with larger and/or bolder headings and subheadings.
It’s also important to have plenty of white phone code for romania space around text as it makes it easier to read. To create this whitespace, break up blocks of text into small chunks and use shorter line lengths rather than running sentences across the whole slide. You can also create space between lines of text – we recommend setting line spacing between 1 and 1.5. Don’t be shy – Split your text up over multiple slides if you have to!
Two slides sit next to each other. On the first, long bars in grey represent text filling the slide, from left to right. On the right the slide has much left text, shorter lines and a graphic of a graph takes up half the slide.
Our final text formatting tip is to left align your text to prevent unnecessary eye jumps. Only use centre alignment for very short snippets of text, such as labels, and completely avoid justifying text.
Explore PowerPoint’s Accessibility tab
PowerPoint has some native accessibility tools that you can use to make your slides more accessible. These are particularly helpful if you plan on sharing the file itself.
To open the Accessibility tab, select Review then select the drop-down menu under Check Accessibility. Here’s a whistle stop tour of your options:
Check Accessibility: Inspects your presentation and lists accessibility issues (PowerPoint checks a range of things including reading order, alt text, slide titles). When issues are identified you’ll see a warning and a recommended action to help you fix it.
Whichever font you chose, it’s also best practice to avoid using all caps or italics for blocks of text, and instead use bold to highlight information.
Avoid big blocks of text
Cutting down text is for everyone’s benefit, especially yours!
Large blocks of text may be indecipherable for dyslexic audience members and audience members with certain visual impairments may take longer to read the text than you anticipate. Your audience is likely to end up feeling excluded and frustrated if you move on too quickly. What’s more, they’ll be working so hard straining their eyes to read what’s on the screen that they’ll ignore you entirely. Instead, minimise the amount of text you use and opt for more compelling and visually engaging ways to tell your story to make sure you have your audience’s attention from start to finish.
When your slides do include text, with larger and/or bolder headings and subheadings.
It’s also important to have plenty of white phone code for romania space around text as it makes it easier to read. To create this whitespace, break up blocks of text into small chunks and use shorter line lengths rather than running sentences across the whole slide. You can also create space between lines of text – we recommend setting line spacing between 1 and 1.5. Don’t be shy – Split your text up over multiple slides if you have to!
Two slides sit next to each other. On the first, long bars in grey represent text filling the slide, from left to right. On the right the slide has much left text, shorter lines and a graphic of a graph takes up half the slide.
Our final text formatting tip is to left align your text to prevent unnecessary eye jumps. Only use centre alignment for very short snippets of text, such as labels, and completely avoid justifying text.
Explore PowerPoint’s Accessibility tab
PowerPoint has some native accessibility tools that you can use to make your slides more accessible. These are particularly helpful if you plan on sharing the file itself.
To open the Accessibility tab, select Review then select the drop-down menu under Check Accessibility. Here’s a whistle stop tour of your options:
Check Accessibility: Inspects your presentation and lists accessibility issues (PowerPoint checks a range of things including reading order, alt text, slide titles). When issues are identified you’ll see a warning and a recommended action to help you fix it.