Media Tip #3: Keep it simple!

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (Leonardo da Vinci). The best slides may have no text at all. Show slides and NOT speaker notes! Slides are visual aids, not “text aids”! If your slides show what you say, the issue is: Why are you there? Here we come back to John Sweller and his Cognitive Load Theory: “If the information on the screen is the same as that which is verbalized, Power-point presentations can backfire because the audience’s attention will split between the speaker and the screen.”
Slides need to reinforce your words, not repeat them (adapted from Seth Godin).
You often here about the “3X4 rule” which says that you should have three bullets per visual and four words to a bullet. I actually do not like this rule since it enforces using bullets which is only in some instances a good idea, but in most it is not. Think about how to create a visual slide without text.