Ressources Powerpoint

6. Formatting Follows Function

The architectural maxim ‘form follows function’ has been an important influence on product design for over 100 years.  Applying it to design of slides can help make slides clearer and more effective – you should think about your slide’s layout in terms of the central message you want it to convey.

In practice, this means that we want the formatting and layout of our slides to emphasise the content which is most important.   This could mean anything from formatting key words in bold

…to structuring the whole slide in a way that supports your message…

Putting this principle into practice usually just means thinking carefully before you launch into your slide.  Beware of accepting the default formatting and layout options offered by PowerPoint – they might be right for your message, or they might not.  Here are a few examples where forethought can improve a slide:

• Order tables of numbers or charts in descending size order (e.g. largest cost item at the top, smallest at the bottom).
• Again, in tables of quantities or charts, think about grouping insignificant categories as ‘other’ so as not to swamp the slide.
• Order bullet points so the order is logical (e.g. most important point first; last bullet leads on to next slide).

Less can be more

Important features of slides can be made to stand out by de-emphasising less important features.  This approach can lead to clean slides because it reduces overall the amount of detail in the slide, so there is less for the eye and brain to process.

In this example we are thinking of including a graph in a slide

The grid is very dominant, and the thick line through the points of data makes them hard to see.  By de-emphasising the grid, and replacing the thick line through the points with a thin trend line[1] we can make the data clearer.