# A Public Speaking Experiment: Blank Slides

DevFeed: [A Public Speaking Experiment: Blank Slides](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/a-public-speaking-experiment-blank-slides-35112.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://upday.github.io/blog/public_speaking_blank_slides/>)

Author: Florina Muntenescu (florina@upday.com)

Published: 2017-03-08T04:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Upday](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/upday.md>)

Topics: [screen](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/screen.md>), [context](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/context.md>)

Tags: [communication](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/communication.md>), [experiment](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/experiment.md>), [presentation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/presentation.md>), [public](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/public.md>), [speaker](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/speaker.md>), [speaking](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/speaking.md>)

## AI overview

The author describes experimenting with blank slides during a public-speaking presentation. Blank slides were used while telling personal stories, while text slides displayed quotes and key takeaways. The author reports that audience attention shifted toward the speaker and that body language, tone, and speech pace became more important, while noting drawbacks such as reduced visual guidance and greater reliance on speaker preparation.

## Source excerpt

My talk at the International Women's Day event, organised by Women Techmakers gave me the chance to share my story about public speaking and also to try something new: using blank slides. Screenshot from my Google Slides The time allocated for my talk was 25min + 5min for Q&A. Since this was a non-tech talk that didn't require much visual support, I decided to combine text slides with blank slides. You can find the final deck here. My strategy was this: Use blank slides for the moments when I'm telling my story. Like this, the focus of the audience is on what I'm saying. Use text slides only for quotes and main take-aways. These would only appear in the key moments of my presentation and the audience should focus on them. The effect of the take-aways is now amplified, since these are the only parts that the audience both hears and sees. Usually in my tech talks, I tend to have one slide per idea. So I kept the same approach now, even if my slides were blank. This also gives me a sign of when I should have a small break in my speaking flow. There are a few possible downsides: The IT audience is used to talks where they always have a visual guidance, so having a black screen all of the sudden can be a surprise. I saw this effect when rehearsing my talk with a friend. But, after the initial surprise, I could see that my strategy is working: he was only looking at the slides when there was something there and the rest of the time, his attention was on what I was saying. If the audience gets distracted by their phone when they're trying to pay attention to the talk again, it will be harder to grasp the context because of the lack of visual aid. To diminish this effect, the time between text slides was only a few minutes. Talk time! How did things go? From a speaker's perspective: Given that the slides are blank, I had no more support for what's coming next in my talk. I had to rely either on the speaker's notes or on knowing the talk really well. The tendency of looking