Slide Design

Replace bullet sentences with the assertion-evidence model: write the slide title as a full-sentence claim and support it with one visual. Keep bullets under six words, limit to three per slide, and use white space to separate ideas.

Use bar charts for comparisons, line charts for trends over time, stacked bars or treemaps for part-of-whole, scatter plots for relationships, and histograms for distributions. Avoid 3D pies and stacked bars for trend data.

Use 32-44pt for titles and 24-28pt for body text, with 18pt as the absolute minimum even for source notes. Stick to sans-serif fonts like Calibri or Arial and limit the deck to two font families.

Write the chart title as the insight itself, color the key data point differently while greying out the rest, and add annotations pointing to the takeaway. Remove gridlines, borders, 3D effects, and unnecessary legends.

Assertion-evidence works poorly when slides must serve as standalone reference documents read without a speaker, since minimal text removes context. In those cases, use a detailed written report instead of a presentation deck.