Scientific Slide Design Best Practices for Scientists & Researchers
A short skills session to help researchers create clear, effective slides that support their message, not overwhelm it.
A focused 2-hour online workshop on slide design principles for scientific presentations. Your researchers will learn layout, hierarchy, accessibility, and visual clarity, as well as an approach to slide design that focuses on one message per slides.
Scientists, researchers, students, and staff will learn transferable skills that they can apply immediately to conference talks, seminars, teaching, and research project presentations.
Approach: Interactive skill-bulding session, with examples, useful theory and frameworks, individual exercises, peer-sharing, and Q&A
Delivery: 2 hours online (Zoom or your preferred platform)
Group size: up 100 participants
What we cover in 2 hours:
- Layout principles: organising information for clarity and flow
- Visual hierarchy: guiding audience attention to what matters
- Typography basics: choosing fonts and sizes for readability
- Color use: effective color choices and accessibility considerations
- DataViz basics: presenting graphs, charts, and tables clearly
- Common mistakes: what to avoid and how to fix slides that don’t work
- Assertion-evidence: a technique to ensure one message per slide.
Practical work: Researchers will work on their own slides during exercises, refining or creating slides based on the best practices we offer.
Interaction in this Skills Session is designed around guided individual exercises, chat-based reflection, and selected plenary discussion, rather than small-group coaching or personalised feedback.
What this session does NOT cover:
This is a focused session on slide design principles. It does not include:
- Full presentation structure or messaging strategy
- Delivery skills or public speaking techniques
- Software tutorials or creating slides from scratch
Need comprehensive presentation training?
We also offer multi-day, 1-day, and half-day presentation training options.
Perfect for
- PhD programmes preparing students for conference presentations
- Research groups and project teams improving grant presentation materials
- Students and early career researchers who want to create clean, clear slides
- Doctoral schools offering professional development workshops
- R&D Teams who create slides regularly and need practical improvement strategies
Looking for related skills sessions or longer-format training?
Build broader visual communication skills with our SciComm Skills Sessions in:
Alternatively, offer a more comprehensive presentation skills training for scientists and researchers. These take place over 1-2 days and cover all aspects of scientific presentations.
Explore all training topics
Not sure which format or topic you need? Browse our complete catalogue of communication training, organised by category.
Ready to plan a short skills session that focuses on best practices for scientific slide design?
We’d love to help you design the right training approach for your researchers or group.
This 2-hour session can be delivered as:
- A standalone workshop for your researchers, scientists, or staff
- Part of a doctoral training programme
- A mini-workshop or interactive session for a conference
- A component of a custom skills-building series
For more information, or to request a quote, get in touch.
