Center for Health Communication
The Center for Health Communication prepares public health leaders of all kinds to effectively communicate critical health information, influence policy decisions, counter misinformation, and increase the public’s trust in health expertise.
Checklist: Improve Your Slide Design for Clear and Engaging Presentations
Prepared by Samuel Mendez
Summary
The lists below contain guidelines to make clear, engaging presentation slides. Follow the guidelines as you build your presentation. When your slides are done, use this checklist as a self-assessment tool. Keep in mind: this checklist is not a substitute for audience feedback. Even if you follow every guideline, there might still be room to improve how you communicate with your intended audience.
Presentation Structure
- The presentation uses 1 slide per minute.
- Longer presentations use title slides to break up the content into short sections.
- Except for title slides, each slide has a headline in the form of a sentence.
- Visual evidence supports each headline. This includes photographs, drawings, graphs, videos, and more.
- Slides use animations, special effects, and sounds sparingly.
Layout
- Bulleted lists, if necessary, contain only 2 to 4 items.
- Continuous lines of text take up no more than 2 lines.
- Slides use blank space generously.
Text
- Slides use text sparingly.
- Slides use a bold sans serif font, example: Calibri Bold.
- Slides use a 28-point type for the headline.
- Slides use 18- to 24-point type for body text.
- Slide text has line spacing of at least 1.5
- Text and background color combinations have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5
Visuals
- Slides use a consistent color scheme.
- Photos, videos, and illustrations are inclusive of diverse populations.
- Images consist of high-resolution photos or illustrations, not clipart.
- Graphs do not rely on color alone to convey information. They use strategies like shapes and patterns as well.
- The presentation leaves time to describe each visual out loud and summarize main points for accessibility.
This tipsheet was prepared by Samuel R. Mendez. It is based on the work of the Writing and Communication Center at Harvard Catalyst, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, and “Better than Bullets: Transforming Slide Design” by Melissa Marshall. It was reviewed by Amanda Yarnell and Elissa Scherer.