There\'s something wrong with the common use of bullet points

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There\'s something wrong with the common use of bullet points
Authored by: Dirk on Wednesday, October 05 2011 @ 22:05 pm CEST

Sometimes, you have to exaggerate somewhat to make a point (no pun intended ;-).

As you said, there's nothing wrong with making a short list using bullet points. But that's not how bullet points are used most of the time. Too many people seem to just open their favourite presentation software and then go "Hmm, what should I be talking about?". And everything that comes to mind gets a bullet point. At least that's the best explanation I can come up with how all these "bullet point hell" presentations come into existence.

As I said (see the slide example): One idea per slide. An idea (or "thought" if you prefer) is an item that you would be talking about for a while. Something important or essential, that needs a moment to explain.

If you have a list of things to check off or mention like, say, that your company's new phone comes in 16, 32, and 64 GB variants, then by all means use bullet points. That's a short list, you won't be talking about the individual items much and it's information that does belong together on the same slide.

So, I guess we're actually mostly in agreement. I just decided to be somewhat provocative and, for this short(!) presentation, concentrate on the wide-spread misuse of bullet points (and completely ignore the much less common valid use cases).

There\\\'s something wrong with the common use of bullet points
Authored by: RNKLN on Sunday, December 18 2011 @ 10:02 am CET

Even if you decide to use a number of keywords, one below another, on a slide, there's no need to actually use bullets. Simply enter the keywords, give them enough (but not too much) vertical distance, and you have something that looks already much better than a standard bulleted list.

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