There's a contest going on over at the Tech Republic site that requests a simple slide redesign. Straight out of the book of what not to do when designing a slide, the contest slide is filled from top to bottom with text on top of a hideous background and no imagery.
This isn't a contest necessarily geared at presentation designers, so many of those taking part are those still under the false impression that bullet points are okay in PowerPoint. As I've said before, it's not their fault - there's simply not enough education about effective presentation design techniques, so the masses will follow what they're familiar with.
Instead of breaking the three bullet points into three different slides, many people are suggesting solutions to the problem by simply having the bullet points appear one after the other using transitions. While better than the initial slide, it's still a flawed theory. Let me explain.
Let's pretend a bachelorette has the opportunity to go on a date with three bachelors. This isn't just for fun - she is serious about finding a proper mate. She has three hours in one evening to do it, but can approach the dates in any way she'd like - all at once, one after the other, or separate the dates into three one-hour segments. Let's see how these situations pan out.
All at Once
Our bachelorette meets all three bachelors at a restaurant and they begin the date. She tries to give proper attention to each bachelor to get to know him better, so she starts a conversation with bachelor #1. However, the other two bachelors are vying for her attention and begin to talk about themselves. Now she's got all three bachelors talking at once. Of course, she can't keep any of it straight nor can she remember anything they said. Needless to say, the date is a disaster and she hasn't really gotten to know any of them. By the next morning she can't even remember one important fact. This is a bad way to approach the date.
One After the Other
The bachelorette begins the first hour with bachelor #1. They have great conversation and she learns a lot about him. At the beginning of the second hour, bachelor #2 shows up. The bachelorette starts getting to know him but notices that bachelor #1 hasn't left yet. He's still sitting at the table and still vying for her attention. She has already heard everything he has to say so she's trying to ignore him, however it's not easy and ultimately she can't properly get to know bachelor #2. As the second hour ends, bachelor #3 shows up, but of course, bachelors #1 and #2 don't leave. Now she's spending the third hour with all three of them, all vying for her attention. She knows she wants to focus on bachelor #3 for this third hour, but she's missing some of what he's saying because #1 and #2 are being annoying. She wishes they'd just leave. This approach ends in disaster as well.
Individual Hours
The bachelorette spends the first hour with bachelor #1. It's a pleasant hour and she gets some great information about him. As the second hour begins, bachelor #1 leaves and bachelor #2 arrives. She is able to learn about bachelor #2 without any competition or interruption, and has a nice time. As the second hour ends, she has the same opportunity with bachelor #3 as bachelor #2 has left. By the end of the three hours she has had ample time with each bachelor INDIVIDUALLY, and is able to make an educated decision as to whom she'd like to pursue.
Filling a slide with multiple bullet points follows the first approach to the group date. With so many bullet points, the audience member can't pay attention to the specific piece of information being presented. They will ultimately read ahead, or read behind, and the vast amount of text will create so much noise in their brain that the slide is rendered useless and the audience member retains no information.
Transitioning in bullet points one after the other is a slight improvement, but there are still flaws. Because the bullet points don't leave, as the number of bullet points grows, so does the noise. Even though the information has already been presented, audience members are still distracted by the old bullet points.
The best solution is to give each of the information points (notice I'm not calling them bullet points?) its own time to shine without any noise or competing information. In order to do this, put each idea or bit of information on its own slide with its own appropriate supporting imagery (thus, no need for a bullet). Just as the bachelorette did when she split the date into three one-hour segments, the audience will be able to focus on the information at hand, absorb, and move on without any distraction.
Note that by splitting the date into three smaller increments, the evening wasn't any longer from a time perspective. Still three hours total. I occasionally get pushback when I redesign a presentation and it has "grown" from 10 slides to 30 slides, for example. I haven't made it any longer from a timing perspective. Instead, those slides that were initially presented in 3-minute increments were separated and should now be presented in one-minute increments.
My Social Media for Business presentation is over 80 slides, which seems long at first glance, but a viewer can click through it and appropriately consume the information in less than 4 minutes. Many people have told me that they were surprised how quickly they could move through it. It's simply because I broke the information into very small bites.
I suppose we'll always be fighting the good fight against bullet-point filled slides. I hope this gave you some perspective as to why filling a slide with bullet-points is counterproductive to learning, and adding some dissolving transitions is still a flawed theory. While it may mean more work from a design perspective, separating your main ideas onto multiple slides is the best solution for both the presenter and audience.
Image courtesy of Courtney Carmody on Flickr