Professional Presentation Slides: Four Alternatives to Bullet Points

You’ve heard it over and over again: No More Bullet Points! They are killing your presentation! We definitely agree that if you’re giving a live presentation, you should reduce the words on your slides as much as possible.

But it’s also true that professional presentation slides are used for much more than live presentations. Are bullet points OK for stand-alone presentations? What about when you need more text to accurately express your information?

We’d argue that bullets are still avoidable. Here are four design solutions to increase the visual interest of your stand-alone slides.

Icons

A simple way for any non-designer to add visual interest to a bulleted list is to include icons. Icons are wonderful memory and comprehension triggers for the audience. To further increase visual interest, layout your list items in an unexpected way and consider adding a full bleed image background.

Here’s what some simple icons can do for a boring bulleted list:

Chunking

“Chunking” your bullets into shorter width blurbs makes them easier to read. The shorter width chunks also allow for more creative layout options. Using text emphasis to indicate the most important words or phrases will help your audience understand your content more quickly.

An example of chunking text and using text emphasis:

Data Display

If the content is a list of stats, turn it into simple data display. The 100% bars give the audience a quick visual reference and make it easier for them to compare and understand the stats.

Here’s a simple data display tune-up:

Infographic Design

By combining the above tips, bullet slides can become infographic pieces. Combine icons with chunked/emphasized text and simple data display to create visually interesting and informative slides.

Which of the below can you understand the fastest?

Sure, bullet points are easy. They are also boring. There are many ways to increase visual interest without losing information. Next time you see bullets sneaking into your professional presentation slides, try out one of these alternative approaches.

Need help eradicating bullets from your slides? Drop us a line!