Note
Every Slide Should Tell a Story
A strong deck tells a story across slides. A strong slide tells a story within itself.
Previously, the story of the deck at the macro level was discussed in Your Deck Isn’t a Collection of Slides. It’s a Story.
But storytelling in a deck does not stop at the sequence of slides.
It must also exist within each individual slide.
If the deck is the narrative arc, then each slide is a scene within that story—communicating something specific.
The Micro-Level Story
At the micro level, every slide should deliver one clear message.
Not a collection of unrelated observations.
Not a display of details for their own sake.
A message.
Once the message is defined, the components—titles, charts, annotations, supporting text, and other elements—should unfold logically, guiding the reader through the reasoning.
In other words, the slide itself should behave like a small narrative.
When this happens, the design of the slide becomes intentional rather than decorative.
What Happens When a Slide Has No Story?
Many slides fail not because they are unpolished, but because the elements are assembled without narrative structure.
You might see:
- A chart with several lines but no indication of what matters
- Multiple unrelated visuals placed together
- Data presented without a clear interpretation
The audience is forced to perform the analysis themselves.
Some will try to infer the point.
Others will simply move on.
In both cases, the slide fails to communicate efficiently.
A Simple Example
Imagine a slide meant to explain how marketing performance has changed over time.
A common approach is to place several charts on the slide:
- Traffic growth
- Conversion rates
- Campaign spend
But without structure, the audience must guess what they are meant to conclude.
A more intentional slide might guide the reader through a sequence:
- Trend – Show the trajectory of marketing performance over time.
- Observation – Highlight where performance began to change.
- Explanation – Introduce the campaign or initiative that influenced the shift.
- Implication – Explain what this means for future strategy.
Now the slide behaves like a small narrative.
Instead of displaying information, it leads the audience through reasoning.
How Slides Are Scanned
Designing this micro-level story also requires understanding how people visually scan slides.
In How Executives Actually Read Your Deck, two common scanning patterns were discussed:
- The Z pattern, where the eye moves across the top, diagonally downward, then across again.
- The F pattern, where readers scan the top line and then move down the left side.
These patterns reveal that people rarely read slides in a perfectly linear way.
They scan for meaning.
If the elements on the slide are arranged without narrative logic, the reader encounters fragments rather than a coherent idea.
But when the elements are arranged deliberately, the scanning process naturally reinforces the message.
The slide begins to guide the reader’s thinking.
Designing for the Reader’s Questions
One practical way to structure a slide is to anticipate the questions a reader might ask.
For example:
- What happened?
- Why did it happen?
- Why does it matter?
When a slide answers these questions in sequence, the audience can follow the reasoning without confusion.
The elements begin to feel like steps in an argument rather than isolated pieces of information.
The Key Principle
A strong deck tells a story across slides.
A strong slide tells a story within itself.
When both layers are intentional, the audience does not need to search for meaning.
The reasoning becomes visible.