The following is a satirical research summary. All statistics are invented for comedic purposes.
Abstract
The MyOfficeTools Research Lab has confirmed a statistically significant inverse relationship between the number of slides in a workplace presentation and the amount of meaningful information conveyed per slide. As slide count increases, information density decreases, while the use of stock photography, decorative bullet points, and the word "transformation" increases proportionally.
The slide count distribution
Analysis of a representative sample of workplace presentations reveals the following distribution:
- 1–10 slides: High information density. Clear purpose. Presenter knows what they want to say. Rare.
- 11–20 slides: Moderate information density. Some padding. Presenter has more to say than strictly necessary. Common.
- 21–40 slides: Low information density. Significant padding. Multiple slides contain the same information in different formats. Very common.
- 41+ slides: Minimal information density. The presentation has become a document. The presenter will not reach the last slide. The audience will not remember the first. Disturbingly common.
The title slide phenomenon
Presentations with more than 40 slides are significantly more likely to include a title slide, an agenda slide, a "thank you" slide, and multiple transition slides that contain only a section heading. These slides contain no information but contribute to the slide count, which is used as a proxy for thoroughness.
The meaning-per-slide metric
The Research Lab proposes the Meaning-Per-Slide (MPS) metric as a more useful measure of presentation quality than slide count. A presentation with 10 slides and 10 meaningful points has an MPS of 1.0. A presentation with 50 slides and 10 meaningful points has an MPS of 0.2. The target MPS for any presentation is 0.8 or above.
The recommendation: Before finalizing any presentation, ask: "What are the three things I need the audience to remember?" If the answer requires more than ten slides to support, the presentation may benefit from editing.