4. Text Content

The slide in Figure 4.1 showcases several common pitfalls with text content.

• Slide title should be written in sentence case
• Slide titles run over one line of text
• Font size is 10.8 points for subheadings and 9.5 points for body text
• The content of the slides contains too much information

There are a few simple design strategies that will help mitigate the pitfalls shown in Figure 4.1

Slide and chart titles

Keep slide titles brief and to one line of text. Titles should be written in sentence case. This improves the readability of the text. Avoid capitalizing each word of slide titles. For instance, instead of writing:

“Key Takeaways and Tips”,

Title the slide:

“Key takeaways and tips”.

If the slide presents a chart, slide titles should be action-oriented. With a slide title, the chart title may be unnecessary or redundant.

Body text content

The text below the slide title should follow Seth Godin’s 6 x 6 rule. Keep the text to no more than six words per line and six lines per slide.

See Figure 4.2 for a redesigned version of Figure 4.1.