PowerPoint:

avoiding death by bullet point

Adam Warren

a.j.warren@soton.ac.uk
02380 594486

Learning and Teaching

Enhancement Unit
Edward Tufte

"Particularly disturbing is the

adoption of the PowerPoint
cognitive style in our schools.
Rather than learning to write a
report using sentences, children
are being taught how to
formulate client pitches and
infomercials.”
emergent properties

• deep hierarchy
– slide headings
simplisic
• bullet points thinking

enforced linear sequence

and also…

a crutch for presenters instead of a

a crutch for scaffold for learners
presenters instead
of a scaffold for
learners
• too many slides
• bad slide design
• unreadable text
a seductive technology • poor use of colour
that encourages style • plain text only
over content
• distracting effects
Why use PowerPoint?

• Provide structure
• Emphasise key points
• Show visual information
• Integrate multimedia
• Look professional
• Assist delivery
• Create handouts
How many slides?

• One slide = two minutes

• Plus Title and End slide
• Too many slides = ?
Too much text!

• One slide = two minutes talking

– this is a guideline, not a rule – but having 20
slides for a 20 minute talk:
• increases the risk that your ‘talk’ is reduced to
you reading out a list of bullet points
• increases the risk that you talk too long about
the earlier slides and run out of time
• increases the risk that you have to skip over
some slides to reach your conclusions
Keep it simple

• Six points per slide

• Six words per point

• Don’t overload slides

– use more, simple slides
Keep it readable

• Font size = 28 points

– 24 points is OK
– 18 point is too small

• Use easy-to-read fonts:

– Serif fonts like Palatino or Georgia
– Sans Serif fonts like Arial or Verdana
– Cursive fonts like Comic Sans
Keep it clear

• Use high-contrast colours

– mid-tones do not show up well
– avoid bright red
– colour-blind people
confuse red and green

• Use colour or bold or italic for emphasis

– CAPITALS and underline are hard to read
Black on white

• Very high contrast

• Visual stress
• Glare with data projectors
Off-white background

• Reduces contrast
• Reduces glare
• Gradients look good
White on blue

• Classic choice
• Minimal glare
• Yellow text also good
Be consistent

• Backgrounds
• Fonts
• Colours
• Transitions
• Less is More
Use strong images

You don’t need

to be an artist to
create simple
graphics – this
is just circles
and rectangles 75% of the world’s people

6% of the world health expenditure

Use photographs

Make sure they are

relevant to your talk and
are not simply decoration

This sculpture on the

Highfield campus is
Two Figures by
Barbara Hepworth
(Bronze, 1968)
 Show trends, not data
e-Learning Techniques
% of tutors who use e-learning
0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0

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