Read an interesting article the other day when putting together my MP presentation: Check it out.

It brings up some very interesting points about what makes a good power point presentation – specifically good slide craft.   By focusing on several key cognitive principles (having to do with mental processes and how we intake and process information), the article  reduces concept to execution by outlining several ways to obey the principles when creating slides.

My personal favorites have to do with using visual queues to trigger the brain to ingest information in specific ways.  When discussing ranked information, by maintaining color schemes and orderings across slides, it is possible to increase memory retention in the audience.  Or by making important information visible different from the other contents of the slide, it signals the brain that the visually different information is potentially more important that the rest on the slide.

I highly recommend that you run through the first 6 pages at least and compare the cognitive corollaries listed with slides you’ve done or seen in the past.