The presentations standard

What any presentation shares, as far as the evidence goes: the rules for a talk given to a room, with slides or without. It extends reader-ergonomics, the standard for any reader: read that one first. This page adds only what a talk changes, since a listener cannot set the pace or read again.

A talk in two weeks

Five rules carry most of the evidence; the full list is below, with the figure rules last.

Show key terms, say the rest: words on screen do not repeat the voice (no script on screen, measured).
Headline the claim: each slide's headline is a sentence stating its claim, with the evidence below it (claim headline with evidence).
Reveal as you speak: points appear when you say them, not a whole slide at once (reveal with the voice).
Read from the back: dark text on a light ground, in large type (legible in the room).
Point first, point last: say the point and the plan early, and end on the point (a talk is not a paper).

Then start from the talk shape and its example deck.

How to use it

Four steps: ask who listens and open their context, or keep the base alone; start from the talk shape; build the deck to the principles; run the checks, then fix each error, fix or explain each warning, and answer each judgment.

Graphviz source

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Name the audience. A context overrides the base for its room: academic audience (a conference, a seminar, a defence), business decision maker or casual audience (a meetup, a club, friends).
Start from the talk shape, or from its example deck, example-talk.html.
Build to the principles below, and to those of reader-ergonomics, which still hold.
Check: the deck checks of checks/local/ run with the standard's own, on every HTML deck named in checks/config.toml.

Grades mean what they mean in reader-ergonomics: measured, supported with caveat, convention, not supported. Each principle states its grade and never claims more.

Principles

Pace: the listener cannot reread

Principle	Claim	Grade
Motion adds, never replaces	animation, video and live demos are added to an explanation, never in place of it.	supported with caveat
No script on screen	words on screen do not repeat the voice: show key terms and the evidence, and say the rest.	measured
Reveal with the voice	points appear as they are spoken, not a whole slide at once.	supported with caveat (recorded narration only)

Slide: what the room sees

Principle	Claim	Grade
Claim headline with evidence	each slide's headline is a sentence stating its claim, and the slide shows the evidence.	supported with caveat (one controlled study of a bundle)
Colour as a signal	colour links what belongs together and is never the only cue; data colour maps are perceptually ordered.	measured for colour coding and for colour maps
Legible in the room	text is readable from the back of the room: dark on light, high contrast, large type.	measured for polarity; the minimum size is a convention

Talk: the speaker and the hour

Principle	Claim	Grade
A talk is not a paper	a talk is its own genre: it says its point and plan early, returns to them, and ends on the point.	supported with caveat (descriptive genre research)
Gesture with the words	the speaker gestures at what is said; a visible face adds nothing consistent.	measured
Plan the questions	the questions are part of the talk: the likely ones are prepared, with backup slides.	convention (the research is descriptive)

Figure: how a figure is drawn

Principle	Claim	Grade
Appeal after clarity	decoration stays only when it carries the message and alters no quantity; polish comes after the other figure rules hold, and never replaces them.	supported with caveat (the meta-analyses are measured, for interfaces)
Drawn from source	a figure drawn as reader-ergonomics' draw relations asks is written in Graphviz: its `.dot` sits beside the SVG and the page that embeds it, folded under the image. Text figures stay only in files read in a terminal or by a model.	convention, untested. The reasons are access and drift, not faster reading
Few crossings	in a node-link diagram, links cross as little as possible, and crossings that remain meet near a right angle.	supported with caveat (small samples; one study against)
Group by region	what belongs together is shown by a bounded region or a joining line, with colour as a second cue and never the only one.	supported with caveat (laboratory evidence)
Label in place	each node and link is labelled where it sits; a legend is used only when direct labels do not fit.	supported with caveat; for direct labels, mainly convention
One message	a figure has one message, and its title or caption states it.	supported with caveat
Position for quantities	a figure that shows a quantity shows it by position on a common scale, or by length, before angle or area.	measured, for charts
Text alternative	beyond the alt text of reader-ergonomics' figure next to its text, a figure of more than a few nodes has a long description of its parts and their relations. Its alt text reads each arrow in the direction the figure defines.	convention (a standard), untested with readers of documentation

Where the evidence is

Every principle links to the review in evidence/presentations/, and every work cited is listed once in the bibliography.