A teal book cover labeled "Academic Slide Design: Visual Communication for Teaching and Learning

Book Review: Academic Slide Design by Ann E. Fandrey

A teal book cover labeled "Academic Slide Design: Visual Communication for Teaching and Learning

This book says “Academic”, but it’s also an excellent resource for the person writing technical/software presentations. We often face the problem of trying to convey really important concepts in a way that serves people who are primarily listening to us as well as people who are reading the slides, either because they don’t speak the same language, or because that’s how they absorb information best.

This book is full of actionable, clear, and research-based suggestions for how to design your slides for both clarity and impact. I highly recommend it to other people trying to design a talk deck or webinar materials.

The more quickly students can apprehend the meaning of the slide, the more quickly they can return their attention to you.

Read if: You want something a bit more scientific than “This is what my TED talk looked like”.

Skip if: You feel like you already have a good grasp of visual information design and you don’t like learning new things.