Light & Heavy

One of the ways you hold your audience’s attention in a presentation is by varying your slides. Although it’s easy to build your presentation with a format of sameness, in the case of a presentation, sameness can lead to sleepiness.

A better approach is to have a mix of slide types, some that are light & some that are heavy.

Light slides are those that have just a word or two on them. Or there’s a picture. Or, maybe a headline and a picture. They’re simple, the kind that you and the audience just glance at.

Heavy slides are the go-to slides preferred by many technology professionals. They are chalk-full of multiple bullets or very detailed charts or graphics. There’s a lot on these slides. They’re meaty. Not a lot of white space.

But, no matter how technical the attendees are, no matter how much they want the detail, you have to mix it up. You can’t just batter them with technical, heavy slides.

Think about scary movies or those with a lot of action. The good ones all have some lighter scenes in them between the edge-of-your-seat suspense or the chase scenes and battles. There has to be time for the viewer to catch their breath or they become exhausted halfway through the movie. So the writers lighten it up. They slow it down.

It’s the same with presentations.

Here’s a simple example. Let’s say you want to talk about one of your differentiators, speed. You start with a simple, light slide. It might just have the word “speed” on it. Or a picture of a Ferrari. Or, both. Then you show a picture of the engine. Then you show a close up of the engine with callouts of 3 things that make that engine faster than competitors, a little heavier slide. You’ve used the Ferrari engine as your speed analogy, which sets you up to explain how your solution achieves speed superior to the competition with a combination of light & heavier slides.

Light and heavy. Simple and more complex slides. Short messages and detailed explanations. The more you bounce between those kinds of slides instead of having a presentation that leans too much on heavy, detailed slides, the more your audience will enjoy it, receive the message, and hang with you until the end.

Play around with this on your next presentation and let me know how you did.

Good luck!

Bob