A presentation slide has 3 levels:
The basic information: what it is that you want to say
Some sort of visual organisation of that information that makes it comprehensible
The design production quality
It is hard to get all 3 right. Most people are stuck at 1, a list of bullets of the speaker notes of what the slide should say. People realise this, and jump to 3. Either “spicing things up” themselves or hiring a professional designer to make that slide look great with awesome illustrations and spectacular animations.
They key is number 2: what do you show, what don’t you show, and how do you organise it on the page. Yes, you need some design knowledge to do this correctly, but only 20%. The other 80% is understanding of the substance.
Most designers lack the understanding of the substance
Most presenters lack the understanding of design.
And this lack of design understanding is about very basic things: how to layout something quickly with a few boxes that line up. Adding a dimension, removing an option.
The SlideMagic app is working on making you confident enough to take on level 2.
Photo by Blake Weyland on Unsplash