Your slides are a visual aid for the audience. I have only just begun to really move away from this in my presentation style, and it is both liberating and scary at the same time.

It’s liberating because you now have the audience’s full attention and can really tell them the story you want to. It’s scary because you now have the audience’s full attention, and no slides from which to just read your content.

Slides on the screen behind you whilst you talk are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from those that you want people to download and peruse and marvel at later.

People feel this itch that more content is better, that it gives them a safety blanket of things to say and talk about and remember to mention. But it’s not, it’s a distraction and a hindrance.

Bullet lists are great for takeaways slides, for things that you want people to access and understand afterwards without needing commentary. But that’s a different type of material that you’re preparing that presentation slides. I’ve seen the advice written to prepare two versions of a deck; one for presenting, one for download. I’ve yet to do that but whether you do or not be very conscious in building your deck of which type it is.

A common mistake is when it comes to code. I see people putting the complete code extract or configuration syntax on a slide. Invariably it is introduced with "you probably can’t read this at the back". Don’t do that. Quote just the relevant bit of code that’s under discussion.