Read Only the Headlines

Another technique I picked up in training, a simple test to gauge to clarity the message of a presentation.

Read the heading on each slide one. Ignore everything else on the slides and read them from beginning to end. Do they tell you a story?

Too often, slide headings are simply labels:

Sales Performance

Customer Satisfaction

Market Growth

Employee Engagement

They tell the audience what the slide is about, but not what they should take from it.

So instead of: Customer Satisfaction

Try: Customer satisfaction has fallen for the third consecutive quarter.

Instead of: Market Growth

Try: Almost all our growth is now coming from Asia.

The principle is simple: use the heading to make the point, then use the data to support it.

If someone could read nothing but your headings and still follow the argument you’re making, you probably have a story rather than a collection of slides. And as AI gets better at creating polished layouts, charts and presentations, that distinction matters even more.

Putting information on a slide is becoming easier. Helping people understand what that information means is still the work.

TL/DR: Headings tell the story. Data makes the case.