Create clear presentation slides that keep the focus on your science
Turn your science slides into clear visual support for your talk with this free, practical checklist.
When preparing a presentation, it can be difficult to decide what belongs on your slides and what to leave out.
This checklist helps you review each slide with your audience in mind.
Five principles to guide your slide design
📖 Content: each slide has one key message
✏️ Typography: someone at the back of the room can read the text
🎨Colour: helps people understand what matters
🔵 Simplicity: breathing room for the most important information
🖼️ Visuals: support your explanation and key message
Keep the checklist handy as you prepare your next conference talk, lab meeting or outreach presentation. Work through it one slide at a time to make your message easier to follow.
A note from Sarah
Hi, I’m Sarah, a microbiologist-turned science communicator and coach. I’ve given seminars, talks and workshops with one goal in mind: helping my audience understand what matters.
That means thinking carefully about what belongs on a slide and how it supports my explanation. This checklist combines what I learned in years of preparing slides for workshop and talk in an audience-first approach.
Get your free checklist
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