TJ Walker (from a 2016 live-stream) advises that projected PowerPoint slides shown to a live audience should contain zero bullet points—images or very simple charts that convey a single idea are far more memorable. He contrasts this with emailed or printed handouts, where any number of bullets is acceptable as readers can study them. Walker recommends empirically testing slides with a small group beforehand and notes an exception for academic settings where students take notes.
Chapters
So how many bullet points should you put on a slide for a PowerPoint presentation? There are two answers. If you are creating a PowerPoint presentation that you're emailing to people or using as a handout, then by all means, use as many as you want. Use 10. 20. Use 30. Use 60. If I can read this document because you've emailed it to me or you've printed it out and I've now left the convention, or I've left your office and I can now read it on a plane, a train, or an office, then I've got all the time in the world. If I'm interested to immerse myself in all your bullet points, use 100. Just make sure the font isn't too small and I won't have trouble reading it. Now, if you are projecting the slide up on a screen in front of people in a room, and it's not a venue like a webinar, where only the PowerPoint is showing, the correct answer is, Are you ready for this? Drum roll. The correct answer is zero. Zero. It's not three, it's zero. Why do I say that? It's because I test audiences all over the world, and in my experience, audiences, regardless of the industry, regardless of their IQ or education levels, audiences do not remember bullet points with text attached. They remember images. They remember a chart or a graph if it's really simple and focuses on one main idea and one main variable. But don't take my word for it. Test. You can use as many bullet points as you want if you have proof that they work. So I again, in my theory that I advance the training techniques I use with my clients. You're giving a PowerPoint presentation on Friday to 50, 100 colleagues or prospects or clients. Find two or three colleagues Wednesday. Give them your presentation. When you're done, ask them every slide they remember and the messages associated with it. If you have a slide with bullet points, ask them every bullet point they remember. If they remember 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 bullet points, then keep them. It works. Now, I've been around the block a few times and I've tested this, and I can tell you I've never found an audience that remembers bullet points, or at most maybe one. And that's because they were insiders and working on the same project. People don't remember bullet points. That's just not how the human brain processes things in an adult business setting. If it's an academic environment and students are writing it all down for a test, fine. Use bullet points. This podcast is not for the academic environment. It's for the adult, business, political, public affairs world for the rest of us who are not in an academic environment. So test if you can get your test audience to remember bullet points, put as many as you like. If you can't get them to remember them, eliminate the bullet points. My recommendation? Don't even bother using bullet points and what you project. Leave your bullet points and text for the handouts and the PDF or the PowerPoint document that you email to people later.
