TL;DR: This article explains how to make impactful presentations by applying proven principles from cognitive science and brain research. It’s written for anyone who uses PowerPoint or slide-based presentations at work and shows how to reduce cognitive overload, align visuals with how the brain processes information, and design slides that actually improve learning, retention, and understanding instead of sabotaging them.
Your presentations are making it harder for people to understand and remember what you're saying, even when your content is solid.
We’ve all experienced it: Death by PowerPoint, a slide packed with tiny text and random images, and a presenter reading every word like it’s a script. It’s not just boring; it actively works against the principles of learning and retention. Unfortunately, most slide decks are designed for what looks complete rather than how the brain actually takes in, processes, and remembers information.
That's why the most impactful presentations reduce unnecessary noise, manage what the brain can realistically handle in the moment, and help people do the deeper work of making meaning.
In this article, I'll break down four scientifically based tips that I use every day (and teach my clients) that will help you build presentations that help you sell your ideas instead of sabotaging them.
Stop Drowning the Audience with Clutter
People learn better when you remove everything that isn't absolutely essential. It's called the Coherence Principle, and it says humans learn more effectively when extraneous, distracting, or unnecessary material is eliminated. Too often, presenters feel compelled to add cool designs, humorous graphics, conceptual images, or flashy animations to keep their audience engaged.
I get it, but cognitive science shows this instinct is not only wrong but actively harmful. Researchers call this noise "seductive illustrations" because they are often remembered at the expense of the presenter's key points.
I saw this firsthand during a Perfect Pitch™ workshop with a client last year. One of their salespeople told the story of a competitor's slide deck featuring a really cool animation sequence that was "super cool" (his words), and that the pitch deck we designed for them (the client) was very simple, devoid of anything really cool like the competitor's deck.
I asked him what the point of the competitor's slide or sequence was. He answered, "I don't remember." Then I thanked him for making my point. 😊
Every element on a slide competes for the brain's limited cognitive resources. Each irrelevant graphic or flashy animation requires extra processing, squandering the fixed mental energy your audience has available to understand your message. If something on your slide doesn't directly support helping the audience understand and retain your message, delete it.
Don't Forget the Rule of Fours - the Limits of Working Memory
Research shows that the brain's working memory can hold only about four new concepts at a time. When a slide is crammed with text, sub-bullets, and dense paragraphs, it creates an unmanageable cognitive load that overloads the brain's processing capacity, resulting in poor information retention. And if they can't remember what you said, the chances of advancing your ideas drop significantly.
If you're presenting textual information, limit yourself to a title and three, or no more than four, bullet points. If it's possible to use an image or chart to convey the same information, do it. Text and images are processed in different brain regions. So that reduces the cognitive load slightly.
The bottom line: your slides should be instructional tools for the audience, not memory aids for you. If you need detailed notes to remember what to say, use your presentation software's notes feature and practice more.
I Never Felt So Confident Presenting My Ideas
I had the pleasure of working with Tom recently, and I cannot recommend his expertise highly enough. His ability to distill complex ideas into clear, concise messaging is unparalleled. With his guidance, my presentation was engaging and easy to follow, thanks to his ability to weave storytelling throughout. I've never felt so confident presenting my ideas.
- Becky Gustafson
President, Gustafson Wealth Management
You're More Memorable Than Your Slides
People learn more effectively from graphics and spoken narration than from graphics and on-screen text. It's called the Modality Principle, and it states that your audience can better understand and retain your message if you distribute cognitive load across the brain’s two information-processing channels: visual and verbal.
When you put a visual and a ton of words on a slide, you force the audience to process all of that through the visual processing portion of their brain. But if you show a visual, chart, or process image and then verbally walk them through it, you distribute the information-processing load across both visual and verbal processing circuits. That's a more efficient way for the brain to learn.
This isn't to say that you should simply include pictures and charts and then speak all the textual information. I've written before about the power of the Telling Details approach to pitching, which at first blush seems to contradict the Modality Principle, but it doesn't IF you manage the presentation of the text on the screen appropriately.
Control and Direct Your Audience's Attention
Controlling both what your audience sees and hears, and when they see or hear it, is critical to imprinting your message exactly as you intended. The brain works hard to connect related pieces of information, and poor timing can dramatically increase this cognitive load. As a presenter, your job is to make that process as easy as possible.
Two related design principles govern this synchronization:
- Spatial Contiguity: People learn better when corresponding words (like labels) and graphics are placed near each other on the screen. This reduces the mental effort needed to link them. When I review presentations and pitch decks, charts and graphs are always the biggest offenders. But once I show a client how to fix their spatial issues, the charts and graphs not only work harder for the presenter, it actually makes presenting the material easier!
- Temporal Contiguity: People learn better when corresponding narration and graphics are presented at the same time. Make objects appear on your slide only when you mention them. Use simple entrance effects, like appearing or fading in, to introduce each bullet point or image as you begin discussing it.
The corollary to this is just as important: Visually de-emphasize or dim objects after they have been discussed. This provides a clear visual cue to your audience, controlling and directing their attention to what is currently most important. This technique reduces cognitive load by signaling exactly what to focus on at any given moment, maximizing the brain's ability to integrate what it sees and hears.
Crush Your Next Presentation
Let me teach you the science of creating a Perfect Presentation™.
Our latest presentation design webinar will transform the way you build presentations. You'll learn to leverage the latest neuroscience, cognitive load theory, and behavioral economics to create presentations that move your ideas forward instead of dragging them down.
Don't just deliver a talk. Own the room.
The Best Presentation Decks Are Invisible
Because when the deck is doing its job, nobody is thinking about the deck. They’re focusing on the idea. Effective presentations aren’t built by polishing slides until they look fancy; they’re built by respecting how people actually process information.
If you want to deliver effective presentations, strip out the noise, keep the cognitive load manageable, and control and direct your audience's attention moment by moment. That's how you create the conditions for understanding and retention.
So next time you finish a deck, don’t just ask, “Does this look good?”
Ask, “Is this helping the audience's brain, or getting in the way?”
And if you need help with that, give me a call.
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This post was originally published on Painless Prospecting, the weekly sales and marketing blog created by the fine folks at Converse Digital. If you want to learn how to create, engage in, and convert conversations into new clients and customers, give them a call.
