A Black person types out copy for a slide on their laptop.

Persuasion presentation training

Convert your ideas into effective visuals and slides with Slide:ology®

In this workshop, you’ll learn to apply visual thinking and design principles to convert your ideas into persuasive and effective visual presentations.

Upcoming course dates and details

Most of us aren’t designers, yet we create presentations all the time

When we design slides, we can fall into classic traps — from overusing bullet points and cramming multiple ideas on one slide, to using lots of colors, shapes, and fonts. When presenting to an audience, these slides often fail to convey what we most need the audience to know.

We blame PowerPoint, Slides, or Keynote when we wind up with cluttered unattractive slides, but presentation software is just a vehicle for our communication. We forget that it’s our job to communicate our ideas, yet our visuals can obscure those ideas, because visual expression isn’t easy or intuitive. We may not have learned it in school but thinking visually is crucial in persuasive communication and public speaking.

Bringing together compelling content with engaging visuals is a powerful way to move an audience. The Slide:ology® workshop helps you get better at the visual part. It’s not about pretty pictures, it’s about persuasive visual communication.

Please accept marketing-cookies to view this video.
Please accept marketing-cookies to view this video.
9 9 .5/10

Average Duarte facilitator score

Will I like the instructor? The big question, right? We’re proud to say Duarte instructors consistently rank high with workshop learners.

9 9 /10

Immediately apply Slide:ology® principles

Nearly all attendees report that they are able to apply the principles they learned in their Slide:ology® training immediately to improve their communication.

9 9 .2/10

Attendees recommend Duarte

Not only do they recommend — they say the workshop will help them do their job better — which is truly on point.

Ways to learn

Learning formats for your presentation design training

Whether in person or live online, these workshops provide facilitated discussion, small group collaboration, and hands-on practice to hone your persuasive presentation skills.

A person on a laptop checks their slides before a presentation.

Live online workshop

$990.00

  • Spread over two days, with two 90-minute sessions each day
  • One 30-minute break per day
  • Physical or digital kit

Dates: October 24-25 or December 3-4

A team of people sit in a conference room and make plans on their laptops.

In-person workshop

$990.00

  • One day, packed with four 90-minute sessions
  • Three 15-minute breaks and a 45-minute lunch
  • Physical kit

Dates: Coming soon
Location: Duarte HQ in Santa Clara, CA

10 or more on your team?

Schedule a chat on our Training Concierge’s calendar, we can answer questions, build packages, and set up trainings based on your team’s availability.

Course overview

Learn principles of design and transform your presentations

  • Think, speak, and work like a designer
  • Identify the characteristics of a great slide in your own or others’ presentations
  • Apply expert design theory when sketching your slide layouts
  • Use The S.P.A.C.E. Method™ to overcome common slide design challenges

Download course overview PDF

The cover of the Slide:ology book, notebook, and course overview.

Workshop agenda

Four sections to help you design persuasive presentations

Module one

Think like a designer

Learn the basics of how to think like a designer to help you transform your slide planning.

  • Why design?
  • Sketching basics
  • Identify signal vs noise
  • Use critique language
Module two

Work like a designer

Discover methods and tips used by designers to simplify information and captivate your target audience.

  • The S.P.A.C.E. Method™
  • Understand slide types
  • Simplify information overload slides
Module three

Create engaging visuals

Continue to conceptualize your ideas and practice turning them into diagrams, wordmaps, and other design methods.

  • Visualize information
  • Visualize wordy slides
  • Turn text into diagrams
  • Wordmap novel concepts
  • Combine visualization techniques
Module four

Finalizing your work

Show off your new skills by transforming dense information into readable, persuasive presentation design concepts.

  • Clarify complexity
  • Clarify dense data slides
  • Add structure to disorganized slides

Train yourself or your whole team with scalable workshop options

For individuals

Enroll in our public Duarte courses. Perfect for individual marketers, product managers, and others looking to improve their visual design and presentation capabilities.

Upcoming dates and details

Kevin Friesen

Instructor highlight

Kevin Friesen, Academy Training Director and Master Facilitator​

For over 13 years, Kevin has led more than 800 workshops with over 200 brands across the world. As a Master Facilitator and Academy Training Director, he has taught thousands of individuals, and loves to help awaken natural talents, build confidence, and drive influence in speakers and communicators of all experience levels. He leads and trains the Duarte Facilitation Team of over 20 facilitators.

Hear from previous Slide:ology® learners

Here’s what past participants had to say about this workshop.

“The concepts I learned in this class are directly applicable to the work I do. Implementing what I learned will help me be more strategic in planning and creating my presentations, so I can better communicate what I actually want my audience to hear.”

“Duarte’s Slide:ology was an eye opener to me as a designer. Even though I knew some of the concepts, the session provided a structure to those and how I can apply them in my work. … Great value for the time which I had spent in this session.”

“Slideology was a fun learning experience that will help our team be more intentional with presentation design. We walked away with a shared focus on simplicity and a shared language for critiquing our work.”

“The tools and tips I’ve learned in this course are 100% effective at helping me create meaningful slides. As a result, I am more productive and efficient with slide communications.”

“Duarte’s Slide:ology gave me, someone who is not a visual designer, the tools and confidence to create slides that pack a visual punch. I always knew they were missing the final touch, and now I’m sure I’ll continue to make slides I am proud to share!”

“Instead of reading all the information and then losing the enthusiasm or trial energy in a busy work life, you can directly use what you learn and get answers for your questions and feedback on what you do, interactively at this workshop!.”

“The highly curated, action-oriented training materials and approach have super-charged my slide creation skills. I can now take ANY slide and critically analyze it for what can be removed, what should be added, [and] how to make it memorable.”

“It became very clear while working through this training that my existing presentations could [be] simplified to get the exact message across, rather than displaying a lot of unnecessary information. Had a lot of fun and would definitely recommend.”

“I could not have been more satisfied with the training. We learned countless concepts and skills that will improve every presentation slide I make from now onward. The training itself was engaging, fun, and insightful.”

Get updates on workshops and upcoming dates!

Notify me about the next Slide:ology® training.

Secure your professional growth with persuasion presentation design training

Advance your career by learning to craft visual stories that can level up your presentations.

Enroll for live online

Book a time to discuss team enrollment