Presentation slides are scaffolding, not a script. When we narrate what everyone can already read, we lose their attention.
We’ve all sat through it. The presenter clicks to a slide, turns slightly toward the screen, and begins reading. Word for word. Line by line. As if the room has collectively forgotten why they came.
It’s never done with bad intent. People do it because they are trying to be thorough. Or because the slides have become the safety rail and letting go feels risky.
The audience can read faster than we can speak, and will naturally do so. But when we read the slides aloud, we’re asking them instead to slow down and follow along like they’re back at infant school.
A good description I’ve seen is to think of presentation slides as scaffolding around the building. They help shape the structure, but they’re not the building itself. The building is what we say. The meaning between the bullet points. The presenter’s reaction to the whether the audience appears to need more explanation.
There is a simple test. If a slide could stand alone as a document, it probably wants to be a document. That’s not a failure, it’s just a different format. Write the article. Send it to the audience. Don’t make them wonder what the journey to see us was for.
A slide should be closer to a table of contents than a transcript. A few signposts. A chart that makes one point. Enough to keep the room engaged. If we need a script, it should be in front of us, not the audience.