Presentation Design Patterns

Patterns drawn from the Presentation Patterns framework by Neal Ford, Matthew McCullough, and Nathaniel Schutta. Apply them when structuring slides for conference talks and technical presentations.

Structure and Storytelling

Narrative Arc — Structure every talk as a story: setup (the problem), confrontation (the complexity), resolution (the solution). This is the single most important pattern. Use <!-- pause --> and incremental reveals to build tension before the resolution slide.

Triad — Refine the arc into three acts. The "gloomy end of the second act" creates maximum tension before your solution/insight arrives.

Foreshadowing — Plant hints early: "We'll see later why this choice matters." Creates forward momentum. Add these as brief text lines before <!-- pause -->.

The Big Why — Establish in the first two minutes why the audience should care. Developer audiences are practical — they check out without clear motivation. Make your second slide answer "why should I care about this?"

Bookends — Match opening and closing slides with the same visual treatment and core message. Open with the problem; close by revisiting it with the solution in place.

Building Slides

Gradual Consistency — Build information step by step rather than showing the finished version immediately. For architecture diagrams, reveal components incrementally across multiple slides. Use <!-- pause --> between diagram stages or create a series of slides where each adds one more component.

Charred Trail — When walking through a list, highlight the current item while graying out previous ones. Use dynamic code highlighting ({1-3|5-7|all}) for code, and <span> color tags for prose lists.

Emergence — Let the solution materialize before the audience's eyes rather than lecturing. Build up to the "aha" moment using pauses and progressive reveal.

Expansion Joints — Mark sections as cuttable in advance so you can adapt to time constraints. Use <!-- speaker_note: CUTTABLE --> on optional slides.

Intermezzi — Use clear visual dividers between major sections. The <!-- jump_to_middle --> + setext title pattern is perfect for this in presenterm.

Context Keeper / Breadcrumbs — Show a visual overview highlighting the current position within a complex multi-topic talk. Create a "roadmap" slide and revisit it between sections with the current section highlighted.

Code Demos

Cave Painting — Script every demo step in advance like a storyboard. Know exactly what you'll type, click, and show. Use <!-- speaker_note: ... --> to script each step.

Traveling Highlights — Direct attention to the relevant 3 lines out of 50. Use dynamic highlighting ({1-3|5-7|all}) and selective highlighting to walk through code step by step. Never show a wall of code all at once.

Crawling Code — Reveal code line by line or block by block with narration. Combine +exec with dynamic highlighting for live execution at each stage.

Lipsync — Pre-record the demo while narrating live, eliminating failure risk. Export key frames as screenshots and embed as images with ![](frame.png).

Audience Engagement

Brain Breaks — Insert mental pauses every 10-15 minutes of dense content. A story, a joke, a change in visual rhythm. In presenterm, this can be an image slide, a quote, or a section divider.

Breathing Room — After showing a complex architecture diagram, stop talking for 3-5 seconds. Let it sink in. Add <!-- pause --> after diagram slides.

Seeding the First Question — Have a colleague ready to break the Q&A silence. Add <!-- speaker_note: SEED: ask about scaling --> as a reminder.

Antipatterns to Avoid

Bullet-Riddled Corpse — Every slide as a bullet list read aloud. The #1 antipattern. Use visual slides with the presenter supplying the verbal channel. Use images, diagrams, and progressive reveal instead.

Ant Fonts — Unreadable tiny text, especially code. If it can't be read from the back of the room, remove it. In presenterm, keep code blocks under 15 lines and use <!-- font_size: 2 --> in kitty.

Dead Demo — Wasting time on environment setup and tool proficiency. If the demo is mostly boilerplate, put it on slides instead. Only go live when genuine interaction matters.

Slideuments — Trying to make slides serve as both a presentation and a standalone document. This always fails. Make a presentation OR a document.

Cookie Cutter — Forcing every idea into exactly one slide. Some ideas need multiple slides; some slides can hold multiple related points.

Going Meta — "On this next slide I'm going to show you..." Just show it.

Fontaholic — Too many fonts. Stick to 2-3 complementary fonts maximum. In presenterm, the terminal font is your primary — keep it consistent.

Floodmarks — Logos and branding consuming valuable slide real estate. Use footer for minimal branding, keep the slide body for content.