Slides: Exposing Ideas Without the Common Crimes
Winston distinguishes slides for exposing ideas from boards for teaching, then catalogs recurring slide crimes: too many slides and words, reading aloud, tiny fonts, clutter, and wandering laser pointers. Fixes include cutting words, logos and titles, keeping air and imagery, and allowing exactly one 'hapax legomenon' slide.
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Too Many Slides, Too Many Words: Making Slides Support the Speaker
Winston's recurring slide critique in practice: there are always too many slides and always too many words. Reading slides aloud annoys audiences, and a distant screen forces a 'tennis match' of shifting attention. Slides should be condiments to the talk, not the main event. The fixes: strip background junk, cut words, drop logos and titles, and remember the single language processor - audiences either read or listen, and a study found they remember what they read, not what the speaker said.
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Losing the Laser Pointer: Air, Arrows, and the One Hapax Legomenon
Continuing the slide crimes: laser pointers force the speaker to turn away from the audience, trading eye contact for a beam, so Winston recommends a small inline arrow instead. 'Too heavy' slides can be diagnosed by laying a deck out on a table and checking for air, white space and imagery; several text slides are fine if the speaker gives the audience time to read them. He introduces the 'hapax legomenon' - a single deliberately dense slide you may use exactly once per talk.
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Slides: Exposing Ideas Without the Common Crimes
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