Excellent post. One thing which the OP alluded to but I think deserves strengthening - 80% of the quality of your talk is in your talk, not in your slides. The OP helps focus you on your talk by giving you rules of thumb like 'less content'. That's good advice.
Along the same lines, if you're just getting started, it's not a good idea to attempt to make your slides beautiful. Plain old text on solid backgrounds will do just fine. To drive this point home, go watch some TED talks. The slides on those things can get positively ugly, but that hardly detracts from the quality of the talk. That hinges almost solely on the speaker.
Along the same lines, if you're just getting started, it's not a good idea to attempt to make your slides beautiful. Plain old text on solid backgrounds will do just fine. To drive this point home, go watch some TED talks. The slides on those things can get positively ugly, but that hardly detracts from the quality of the talk. That hinges almost solely on the speaker.