Before you even fill out the Single-Slide and Total Visual Checklists at the end of this chapter, make sure your slides have not broken any of the following guidelines:

1. Don't use a gradient template with any type of image, for example, with an image of a building, when you are showing charts and graphs. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to read words and see charts superimposed over the images.
2. Don't make your whole presentation a series of builds.
3. Don't use so many colors that the presentation carries no consistency.
4. Don't use so many different models and diagrams that your audience never has an opportunity to fix one or two models in their minds.
5. Don't include so many words that you don't have anything to say besides what is written on the slides.
6. Don't use photos that take up too much memory for the size of your computer. Your computer will take a long time to bring them up on the screen.
7. Don't use a black background.
8. Don't use sounds unless they are relevant to your topic.
9. Don't put so many numbers on a chart that your audience can't figure out the point of the chart.
10. Don't include so many slides that you know you will be short of time even before you start the presentation.

Point, Click & Wow! by Claudyne Wilder and Jennifer Rotondo
Copyright 2002 by Claudyne Wilder and Jennifer Rotondo