Slide And Visual Design

Purpose

This skill guides the design of slides and presentation visuals. It checks that slides show what the mouth cannot rather than carrying the speaker's words, that each slide reveals one core idea, that the signal-to-noise ratio is maximized by removing clutter, that presentation features are used only when they aid learning, and that the audience, purpose, and desired action are clarified first — with all assets legally cleared and tested on real equipment.

When to use

• A slide deck carries the speaker's words as bullet text and must be redesigned to reveal rather than read.
• Visual clutter, gratuitous effects, or ambiguous labels are lowering comprehension.
• The audience, context, purpose, and desired action must be clarified before designing.
• Photos, video, music, or fonts must be legally cleared and the deck tested on the actual equipment.

Procedure

1. Do not put your spoken words on slides: text-and-bullet decks lose the audience because they read ahead of the speaker; instead make each slide's purpose to show what your mouth cannot (photos, video, data), tease curiosity with a question rather than giving the answer, highlight the exact point a chart makes, and show images generously without over-explaining every one (P009).
2. Design slides to reveal, not to carry, words: set context and then reveal an image full-screen, limit each slide to one core idea (extra slides cost nothing, so split rather than crowd), cut to black once you are done with an image, manage the two parallel cognitive streams of image/data and speech so a heavy slide does not compete with your words, and remember that a single well-chosen reframing of data can sharpen the audience's worldview (P013).
3. Maximize the signal-to-noise ratio to reduce cognitive strain: remove or minimize any element that can go — grid lines, footers, logos, ambiguous labels — keep the distinctions you do keep as subtle as they can be while staying effective, and let clean data graphics stand alone, because on-screen clutter measurably reduces comprehension (P023).
4. Use presentation features only when they improve learning or delivery, prioritizing legibility, simplicity, and relevance over whatever effects the software happens to make available (P045).
5. Secure legal rights to every photo, video, music track, and font you use (or use your own or free/cleared assets), and test the presentation twice before presenting: once on non-expert friends to check comprehension, and once technically on the actual equipment it will run on (P114).
6. Before designing any slide, clarify the audience, context, purpose, and desired action the talk should produce, and be able to state plainly what your point is and why it matters to this particular audience (P141).
7. Do not use slides as crutches — a laboriously read text slide carries zero punch — but a single well-built image per step can nudge memory, and teasing the arrival of a slide before revealing it sustains attention (P144).

Inputs

• The slides or visuals under review, the one idea each must serve, and the audience and setting they will run in.
• The reasoning offered for the decision under review: the goal, the audience and venue, the draft or plan in place, and any claim of clarity, rigor, or readiness made.

Output

Per finding: name the gap and the principle it engages, give the correction, state the residual trade-off or the referral to make, and end with a concrete next step. Order findings highest-impact first. This skill advises on research writing and presentation; it does not write the paper, section, slides, or talk for the caller, guarantee acceptance or publication, or rule on the domain-science correctness of the research.

Anti-patterns to flag

• Slide text duplicates, near-verbatim, what the speaker is about to say aloud, so the audience reads ahead and disengages before the point is spoken (P009).
• A single slide is asked to carry two or more ideas at once, or an image lingers on screen well past the point it was making instead of cutting to black before the next beat (P013).
• Slides still carry grid lines, footers, logos, or ambiguous axis/legend labels that add no information, so a chart's real point is buried under decoration (P023).
• Transitions, builds, or animation effects appear because the software offers them, not because they make anything more legible, simpler, or more relevant to the point being made (P045).
• An asset — a photo, video clip, music track, or font — has no traceable rights clearance, or the deck has been checked only on the author's own laptop and never run on the actual venue equipment before the talk (P114).
• Slide design starts before the audience, context, purpose, and desired action have been named, so the speaker cannot state plainly what the point is or why it matters to this particular audience (P141).
• The speaker reads a dense text slide aloud line by line instead of letting a single built image carry the moment, or a slide is fully revealed before its point is introduced, killing the tease (P144).

References

Consult ../../references/research-writing-principles-index.md only when a finding's principle needs its full source-grounded statement, or when the issue may belong to a sibling skill and you need to confirm which skill owns it. Consult ../../references/research-writing-evidence-notes.md only when the caller disputes a finding's grounding and you need its source basis.

Provenance

Derived from P009, P013, P023, P045, P114, P141, P144, grounded in the nine distillation-only sources (The Craft of Research; Writing for Computer Science; Writing Science; English for Writing Research Papers; Science Research Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English; How to Write a Lot; How to Take Smart Notes; Presentation Zen Design; and TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking). The frontmatter provenance block lists the exact principle and claim ids, which resolve into principles/principles.yaml and analysis/claims.jsonl.