I'm working on a MOOC that uses slides for screencasts and I realised it's so important that we create slides that creates a good learner experience. The expectation that learners download slides to view on their large computer or laptop screen is no longer the norm. More and more learners are using smaller devices, like their phones and tablets to view slides. This means we have to consider designing more accessible slides for these devices. We need the font to be readable, the images to be big enough and the colours to be easy on the eyes. These tips are especially important when designing slides that you plan on using in a video.
Keep these tips in mind when you are designing slides, especially with video in mind. I've seen slides so awful that it completely disregards the learner. We need to progress to a point where we consider how the learner learns and that includes well-designed slides.
Readable Fonts
Don't use decorative fonts that are unreadable. Use a simple sans or sans-serif font such as Calibri or Tahoma. Although they may seem "boring", they are effective and easy on the eyes. Let's leave decorative fonts for the kids.
Colours
When choosing colours for your slides keep accessibility in mind. We want learners that are colour blind to still able to clearly understand what is going on in the slides. Colour blindness means that learners will see colours at a decreased quality or won't be able to tell some colours apart. The popular form of colour blindness, is the inability to distinguish between red and green. This means you should avoid relying solely on colour coding to distinguish between elements. To help learners along, try using bold fonts and patterns as a secondary way of identifying differences. Here is an example of a slideshare presentation by Laura Czerniewics and Sukaina Walji on the Mystery of MOOCs. You can see that both red and green appears the same to colour blind learners, but the main element in focus has a thicker border and is bolded. Try using Vischeck to test how colour-blind learners will view your images and webpages.
We also need to make sure that the colours we choose just works. This example of a blue background with red text is very hard on the eyes. Your eyes are hurting already hey?
We also need to make sure that the colours we choose just works. This example of a blue background with red text is very hard on the eyes. Your eyes are hurting already hey?
Try this tool by WebAIM to check the accessibility of colour contrast if you are unsure your colours work.
Minimal Text
Do not drown your learner with paragraphs on your slides. Keep text concise and to the point.
Text size
A good slide has a heading and body font that is readable. I would keep the side heading font between 36pt and 44pt.
For body font I recommend 26pt to 34pt.
Of course these sizes differ among fonts, so there is no strict size.
This is a 44pt Heading
This is a 36pt Heading
For body font I recommend 26pt to 34pt.
This is a 34pt body font
This is a 28pt body font
This is a 26pt body font
This is a 28pt body font
This is a 26pt body font
Of course these sizes differ among fonts, so there is no strict size.
Space for subtitles
When designing your slides keep in mind that subtitles is likely to take one or two lines at the bottom. Ideally you should keep this space blank or avoid putting important information at the bottom.
16:9 aspect ratio
With widescreens becoming the new standard, the ratio for slides his moving away from 4:3 to 16;9. For MOOC platforms such as Futurelearn and Coursera, they require 16:9 for their videos. If you're using Powerpoint 2013, 16:9 is the default ratio for your slides. It is easy to convert your slides, but be weary that your images may become stretched. In this example, you'll see black borders on the first image, this is because I'm viewing my 4:3 slides on a widscreen. I converted my presentation to 16:9 and you'll see it automatically makes my text and image bigger, but the image appears to be stretched.
Smart phone readability
As more people access learning materials from their phone, we have to keep those who watch MOOC videos from their phones. While it's difficult to make slides 100% readable for smartphones, make sure important points are big enough to see on a smartphone. I decided to test the same slideshare example from earlier on my Samsung S4. We can see that some of the slides are still readable at this size, which is great.
Keep these tips in mind when you are designing slides, especially with video in mind. I've seen slides so awful that it completely disregards the learner. We need to progress to a point where we consider how the learner learns and that includes well-designed slides.
