It’s fun to find new ways to convey messages. This chart employs the children’s game of connect the dots to illustrate a tricky concept: creating a network from seemingly unrelated objects. Other concepts a connect-the-dot graphic can illustrate are assembling random points to make something meaningful, revealing hidden structure in chaos, transforming confusion into something meaningful, etc. The dots can represent people, ideas, functions, and so on. The lines represent an
infrastructure, relationship, network, or any other type of connection. Any image can be used in place of the Mona Lisa: graphic, photograph, proprietary material, a logo, etc. There are lots of ways to make this slide appear fresh and relevant.

To build this chart, start with your image and work backward.

• Place your image on the slide.
• Draw lines over the defining edges of the object (use the polygon tool instead of lots of individual lines). You will probably need to use several polygons. Once you have the lines you need to outline your object, group all of the polygon lines together.
• Place dots (use a graphic circle, not a text element) wherever a line changes direction. Group the dots when you have all you need. If you think that the dot configuration is too revealing, add dots that will make the shape more obscure and then fade the those unnecessary dots out on the next click as you bring in the connecting lines.
  
• Decide whether you want a boundary around the picture. We used a frame in the example because it helped convey the concept of a masterpiece painting, but boundaries are optional.
• Animate with your text message. Group your text and corresponding graphic group (dots, lines, image, etc.) and animate the reveals on clicks.

This chart never fails to engage the audience, but don’t overuse or it will become gimmicky.

List conversions can be “puzzling” and fun – let your imagination come out to play. Here’s a simple three-point bulleted list. It does the job, but it doesn’t excite or engage. So what can you do with this? The concept is simple: a question is posed along with three different answers.

Adding photographs and frameworks intensify a message. Frameworks themselves tell their own story apart from the text – nonverbal/nonwritten communication. For example, the puzzle frameworks in the slide below are icons representing a department.

More nonverbal message delivery:

• Top puzzle: puzzle pieces fit perfectly together because the person has the desired skill set.
• Middle puzzle: the empty space is being filled with a puzzle piece that is too small, implying that it will not be a perfect fit until training occurs and experience is gained.
• Bottom puzzle: the puzzle changes from seven pieces to six pieces (the six get bigger), implying that the department reduces in size and the remaining employees’ workloads increase to fill the gap.
  

The text in the slide is exactly the same as the bulleted list, but a wealth of additional information is being conveyed.

Puzzles can be metaphors for many concepts: segments of a non-data-driven whole (qualitative whole), complete or incomplete efforts, interdependence, achievement through effort, diligence, trial and error, individual or team efforts, etc. They could and should be used more often.

So often the text field in the slide master starts out with a bullet point. This is not really the most efficient starting point. The highest level of text is always a heading. Do you want your headings to be bulleted? Probably not.

Start your text hierarchy with left-aligned text with no hanging indent. The next level can begin the indented bullets, dashes, etc. This default hierarchy will compliment the levels you use when building your messages. You’ll also find that if you use this type of hierarchy, text will come in more cleanly when importing pages or text strings from other templates.

The second best practice about text hierarchy is font size. So many times subordinate text (lower-level indented and bulleted text) is in a smaller font. Because it is subordinate to the main point above does not mean that it should be less readable. Refrain from using a smaller font size for subordinate text – if text is important enough to be on a slide, it’s important enough to be readable.