Clear and to the point: 8 psychological principles for compelling PowerPoint presentations

Making PowerPoint presentations that are clear, compelling, memorable, and even enjoyable is not an obscure art.

In this book, Stephen Kosslyn, a renowned cognitive neuroscientist, presents eight simple principles for constructing a presentation that takes advantage of the information modern science has discovered about perception, memory, and cognition.

Using hundreds of images and sample slides, he shows the common mistakes many people make and the simple ways to fix them.

Forexample, never use underlining to emphasize a word, the line will cut off the bottom of letters that have descending lines (such as p and g), which interferes with the brain's ability to recognize text.

Other tips include why you should state your conclusion at the beginning of a presentation, when touse a line graph versus a bar graph, and how to use color correctly.

By following Kosslyn's principles, anyone will be able to produce a presentation that works!