Academic Slide Design: Visual Communication for Teaching and Learning

by Fandrey, Ann E,

This book is for you, the busy teacher or instructional designer. You already know that too much text on a slide is counterproductive to teaching and learning. But what to put there instead? Academic Slide Design offers a new vision and a new method for building more effective slides, starting with the lecture itself. Inside you’ll find practical advice on white space, graphics, colors, fonts, composition, and more. Liberally illustrated with before and after examples, and enhanced with exercises you can work through on your own, this book is your companion for learning (or re -learning) visual techniques that will help students understand and remember content delivered during live lectures. Based on research in multimedia learning, universal design, visual perception, and graphic design, this book is not just about slides, it’s about effective visual communication for teaching and learning in the twenty-first century.

266 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 27, 2017

Reviews

[heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

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.

[Maureen Aitken · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book on course design, with strong visuals and a great sensibility. I loved it.

[Stephanie Midler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so helpful, well-written and practically useful.