transforming slide titles
Words and graphs pair well. The words we use together with data help make the numbers we want to communicate understandable to others. In this article, I’ll concentrate on a specific set of words used frequently when communicating with data—slide titles—and illustrate through examples and tips how we can make them more impactful.
Cole’s latest book, Let’s Practice!, includes an exercise that emphasizes the power of slide titles (it’s one of my personal favorites). Exercise 6.1, titled simply, “use takeaway titles,” contains a straightforward line chart on a slide. For illustrative purposes, four distinct takeaway titles are proposed without any changes to the graph. It’s shocking to see how a title wording change drastically impacts the interpretation and focal point of the slide. I won’t ruin the specific example for you (be sure to check it out!), but let’s take a look at a similar scenario.
Consider the following slide, which summarizes how customer sentiment for a software product has changed over time across five topics.
This line graph is pretty clean and well-designed—however, it lacks focus. I’ll use this example to show how words can help you make sense of this data and help direct your attention (without using other visual cues). I should caveat that there are other changes we could make to this chart; in this case, I’ll explore four options related solely to the slide title. After you read each title, take note of how you process the chart.
Option 1: Let’s start by highlighting the topic with the lowest customer sentiment.
Option 2: We could focus on a specific point in time.
Option 3: Adding onto the previous option, we could think about the tone and convey urgency.
Option 4: We could share a more positive story.
Notice how each title drives you to focus on different sections of the graph. The first two options prompt you to search for Customer Service and Q1 2019, respectively, whereas the last two provide additional context that sets a notion for how to feel about the data. This highlights how the words we place around our data are critically important and influence our audience’s understanding.
Exercise 6.1 is simple and powerful, yet also practical. When I first started getting into data visualization, I wanted to redo every presentation that crossed my desk. While my intentions were good, this was unrealistic given time constraints, so my alternative solution involved focusing on the title of each slide—a big impact move that didn’t require as much time. This had the added benefit of forcing me to get really clear and concise on the overall message I wanted to share (which meant that I was more prepared to talk through my presentation). Takeaway titles are simple, but like many things related to communication, there is an art to it. Here are a few tips I rely on to transform my slides titles:
Be action-oriented. Too often, the top of a slide is used for descriptive statements as opposed to action-oriented titles. Think back to the original example above, where the title was Customer Sentiment. This title works well for an axis label, but when it comes to a slide title, you want to use this space more strategically. Think about introducing the topic while also stating the main point or takeaway to have an immediate impact on your audience.
Swap your slide and graph title. Adding onto the previous tip, a common titling scenario I see is when the slide title is descriptive, and the graph title contains the primary point. Whenever I encounter this, I swap them. I like the main takeaway to be the first thing my audience sees and not the second. (This leads me to a common related question: do you need both a slide and a graph title? My preference is to include both, where the slide title is actionable and the graph title is descriptive. I find a descriptive graph title helps clarify what data is visualized for less familiar audiences.)
Use sentence case. Cole explains her preference for sentence case in the exercise solution (sentence case is when the first letter is capitalized, and the rest is lowercase). It’s useful for reinforcing the notion that titles should be complete thoughts and actions rather than descriptive labels. It’s also just more comfortable to read, which is a nice benefit when we think about communicating effectively!
Aim for one line. Be concise. Your audience scans the top of each slide to get a sense of what’s to come on the rest of the page. Studies have shown that perceived effort impacts behavior, so a long title may deter your audience from continuing to consume what’s in front of them.
The colon is your friend! Sometimes we have to introduce the plot before we can launch into the main point. In that case, leverage the colon—or other punctuation. Imagine you’re designing a slide for a specific point in time, a month, or a quarter. You could say something like November: sales increased by 10% or Q1 2020: performance looks strong. Or in the above example, if we wanted to emphasize the topic of our data, we could say something like Customer sentiment—mixed, but generally stable. A slide title has limited space, so adding punctuation is a nice trick to cut down on the number of prepositions or words needed.
Emphasize the what. Even though your title is prominently located at the top of the page, you can make it even more clear to your audience where they should focus by highlighting the what. Notice how, in the above options one, three, and four, I leverage boldface to make it clear what topic or trend the reader should identify in the graph. I think boldface looks slick, but you could also italicize, capitalize, use color, or leverage other tactics to draw attention. I should point out that I did not bold Q1 2019 in the second option. By listing the quarter first, I’m already emphasizing where my audience should look and boldface might be excessive.
Consider the tone. Because titles are the first thing your audience sees, this is a chance to set the underlying spirit of your message. How do you want your audience to interpret the data? Is it good or bad? Think about the title that you use and see if you can frame it to set your audience up for how they should feel about what follows on the slide.
Words are one of the simplest things we can do to make our data communications effective and also one of the most important. In a presentation, the slide title will be the first thing your audience sees, and if they only spend a few moments scanning your slide, make it easy for them to understand the primary point. I should also mention that using words words well isn’t the only step we can take. Imagine incorporating additional visual cues to emphasize where your audience should look in the data to reinforce the takeaway (data markers, annotations, color). Do you have other tips and strategies for writing slide titles? Let me know in the comments.
If you are interested in learning more about the importance of words when communicating data, check out past articles for additional examples: a few words go a long way and so what? Or if you’d like to practice combining a compelling takeaway title and effective chart, check this community exercise to design your own one-page slide.