5 ms·

I've become "that guy" in presentations who constantly tells people "fonts too small", "can't read cause the contrast isn't enough", etc... My hope over time is

I've become "that guy" in presentations who constantly tells people "fonts too small", "can't read cause the contrast isn't enough", etc... My hope over time is that I stop being invited to meetings or people actually take the time to fix their presentations before it is presented to a wider audience.

MandieD 4y ago
I had the old MS Surface Pro 2 (11" screen, I think) as my daily driver for awhile, and found that designing PowerPoints and conference sessions - including code demos - to be legible on that screen led to better presentations.
thwarted 4y ago
For presentations, I've observed that constraints on number of slides encourage people to try to stuff a bunch of information at small font sizes on a single slide, often big blocks of text. And they are laying it out on a high dpi screen that ultimately gets scaled down when presenting (especially with screen sharing). They'll have two data points in a small font and massive amount of empty space on the slide. Very few people know how to use presentation tools effectively and most are terrible at information design.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  I went through a phase of making sales presentations aimed at C-levels at big co's and was trained to pack the information on two slides into one slide and then consolidate two of those slides into one slide... And do it all without big blocks of texts or small fonts but rather well-planned complex diagrams that would draw people in and provide a great foil for spoken explanation, answering questions, etc. In the hands of a lot of people though Powerpoint is a tool for insulting the intelligence of the whole room.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    If you know what the presentation is about from reading the slides then those are bad slides. Slides exist to support a presentation and should not make sense without someone explaining it. If you want to understand without attending a presentation then what you want is a paper, or book. Those are very different formats.
    - btmcnellis 4y ago
      This is true if the slides are for a presentation, but unfortunately, many people in business (coughconsultantscough) use the deck as their deliverable and cram all the information in there. A memo or report would be better in most cases, but the culture is what it is, and at the end of the day, if the CEO expects a deck, the CEO is going to get a deck.
    - dwheeler 4y ago
      In many organizations this is bad advice. I've given many presentations where I has to provide the slides, which were then repeatedly emailed as samizdat. Easy 10x as many people only read the slides, but a document would not have reached them at all. It all depends on your audience.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        Do not confuse documents written in power point with slides written in power point. Power point is a tool, it is often abused to write documents even though that isn't why the tool exists it does work. Many people prefer power point documents because it makes you think about bulleted lists which is what they want to see, but those are documents not slides.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    My first PPT presentation was a single graph on a slide with large axis titles and labels. It summarized the output of a model we were building. Manager wanted to add a ton of content that they felt would be helpful. I said sure, and added it to an appendix with arrows, callouts, additional definitions, etc. I then presented it to the CxO group -- we only discussed that first slide. I emailed the deck, and got comments back saying that the appendix was confusing but they loved how simple and clear the single non-appendix slide was. I've always tried to follow the 4x4 rule: no more than 4 lines, and no more than 4 words per line. I've found icons and occasionally diagrams can be helpful in explaining more abstract concepts. Also, slide notes are used liberally. One place I worked was veeery similar to what you describe here. PPT was considered docs of record since no one wanted to make formal memos and have those enter the control system. My approach had friction, since I would be extremely concise and direct people to the slide notes if they had questions. In this org, people were notorious for lifting slides from others decks for their own presentations (hence I would distribute as PDF to discourage this) since people would not field questions those slides might raise.
mmcnl 4y ago
I'm very critical of that as well. Stop wasting whitespace, and stop using miniscule fonts.
polotics 4y ago
A simple rule: Minimum font size >= Age of oldest attendee
- upwardbound 4y ago
  This doesn't make much sense to me. I have coworkers who are 50+ years old, so are you saying everything should be size 50 font? That seems pretty ridiculous and kind of like mocking them.
- pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
  I think 20 years olds can read fonts smaller than 20 light years just fine. In facts, font that big may in fact be rather troublesome…
  - account42 4y ago
    Depends, if those fonts are used in a galaxy far, far away the angular size will still be small.
- ludamad 4y ago
  I think if you applied this literally it'd be pretty patronizing ;)
  - Phrenzy 4y ago
    Relax. He works at a day care center.
- agust 4y ago
  What about giving websites and web apps the ability to detect the font size preference of the user to automatically adjust the font size? Just like native apps do...?
  - detaro 4y ago
    Websites have that ability, both in CSS with types that are defined relative to the users set font size, and to detect it in JS. The platforms capability is not the problem here.
WalterBright 4y ago
My presentations use the defaults on Impact - big fonts, black on white, no border, no decoration. From time to time people complain and say I need to "get with it", but not a single person has complained they couldn't read them from the back of the room!

MandieD 4y ago

I had the old MS Surface Pro 2 (11" screen, I think) as my daily driver for awhile, and found that designing PowerPoints and conference sessions - including code demos - to be legible on that screen led to better presentations.

thwarted 4y ago

For presentations, I've observed that constraints on number of slides encourage people to try to stuff a bunch of information at small font sizes on a single slide, often big blocks of text. And they are laying it out on a high dpi screen that ultimately gets scaled down when presenting (especially with screen sharing). They'll have two data points in a small font and massive amount of empty space on the slide. Very few people know how to use presentation tools effectively and most are terrible at information design.

PaulHoule 4y ago
I went through a phase of making sales presentations aimed at C-levels at big co's and was trained to pack the information on two slides into one slide and then consolidate two of those slides into one slide... And do it all without big blocks of texts or small fonts but rather well-planned complex diagrams that would draw people in and provide a great foil for spoken explanation, answering questions, etc. In the hands of a lot of people though Powerpoint is a tool for insulting the intelligence of the whole room.
- bluGill 4y ago
  If you know what the presentation is about from reading the slides then those are bad slides. Slides exist to support a presentation and should not make sense without someone explaining it. If you want to understand without attending a presentation then what you want is a paper, or book. Those are very different formats.
  - btmcnellis 4y ago
    This is true if the slides are for a presentation, but unfortunately, many people in business (coughconsultantscough) use the deck as their deliverable and cram all the information in there. A memo or report would be better in most cases, but the culture is what it is, and at the end of the day, if the CEO expects a deck, the CEO is going to get a deck.
  - dwheeler 4y ago
    In many organizations this is bad advice. I've given many presentations where I has to provide the slides, which were then repeatedly emailed as samizdat. Easy 10x as many people only read the slides, but a document would not have reached them at all. It all depends on your audience.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      Do not confuse documents written in power point with slides written in power point. Power point is a tool, it is often abused to write documents even though that isn't why the tool exists it does work. Many people prefer power point documents because it makes you think about bulleted lists which is what they want to see, but those are documents not slides.
- tomrod 4y ago
  My first PPT presentation was a single graph on a slide with large axis titles and labels. It summarized the output of a model we were building. Manager wanted to add a ton of content that they felt would be helpful. I said sure, and added it to an appendix with arrows, callouts, additional definitions, etc. I then presented it to the CxO group -- we only discussed that first slide. I emailed the deck, and got comments back saying that the appendix was confusing but they loved how simple and clear the single non-appendix slide was. I've always tried to follow the 4x4 rule: no more than 4 lines, and no more than 4 words per line. I've found icons and occasionally diagrams can be helpful in explaining more abstract concepts. Also, slide notes are used liberally. One place I worked was veeery similar to what you describe here. PPT was considered docs of record since no one wanted to make formal memos and have those enter the control system. My approach had friction, since I would be extremely concise and direct people to the slide notes if they had questions. In this org, people were notorious for lifting slides from others decks for their own presentations (hence I would distribute as PDF to discourage this) since people would not field questions those slides might raise.

mmcnl 4y ago

I'm very critical of that as well. Stop wasting whitespace, and stop using miniscule fonts.

polotics 4y ago

A simple rule: Minimum font size >= Age of oldest attendee

upwardbound 4y ago
This doesn't make much sense to me. I have coworkers who are 50+ years old, so are you saying everything should be size 50 font? That seems pretty ridiculous and kind of like mocking them.
pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
I think 20 years olds can read fonts smaller than 20 light years just fine. In facts, font that big may in fact be rather troublesome…
- account42 4y ago
  Depends, if those fonts are used in a galaxy far, far away the angular size will still be small.
ludamad 4y ago
I think if you applied this literally it'd be pretty patronizing ;)
- Phrenzy 4y ago
  Relax. He works at a day care center.
agust 4y ago
What about giving websites and web apps the ability to detect the font size preference of the user to automatically adjust the font size? Just like native apps do...?
- detaro 4y ago
  Websites have that ability, both in CSS with types that are defined relative to the users set font size, and to detect it in JS. The platforms capability is not the problem here.

WalterBright 4y ago

My presentations use the defaults on Impact - big fonts, black on white, no border, no decoration. From time to time people complain and say I need to "get with it", but not a single person has complained they couldn't read them from the back of the room!