Tutorials Design

Visual Hierarchy for Slides and Explainer Graphics

Beginner · ~16 min

Overview

A slide or explainer graphic works when the viewer looks at things in the order you intended. That ordering is created by a small set of tools (size, weight, colour, position, and space) and most weak slides fail because every element competes at the same level, leaving the eye to choose. This guide covers how to build a deliberate reading order, why progressive disclosure matters more on video than in a live talk, and the specific habits that make explainer graphics legible.

What You Need

Whatever tool you build slides or graphics in
A clear statement of the one thing each slide is for
Your brand type and colour decisions, so hierarchy is consistent
A phone, to check legibility at real viewing size
The colour-blindness simulator, if colour carries any meaning
Willingness to remove things, which is most of the work

Steps

Decide the one thing each graphic is for

A slide with three messages has no hierarchy problem to solve. It has a scope problem. Split it. Every graphic should have a single primary message, and everything on it either supports that message or should not be there. This decision does more for clarity than any visual technique.

Establish the primary element unmistakably

Whatever you want seen first should be clearly dominant: substantially larger, heavier, or more contrasting than everything else. Slight differences do not create hierarchy. They create ambiguity. If two elements look similarly important, the viewer picks one at random and you have lost control of the order.

Use size and weight before colour

Size and weight are the most reliable hierarchy tools because they work in greyscale, at small sizes, and for colour-blind viewers. Colour is a useful secondary signal and a poor primary one. A red heading and a black heading at the same size read as equally important to a substantial number of people.

Use space to group and separate

Elements close together read as related. Elements with space between them read as separate. This is frequently more effective than boxes, lines, and dividers, which add visual clutter to do a job that empty space does silently. Increase the space between groups before adding anything to separate them.

Reveal progressively in video

In a live talk a viewer can wait for you to reach a point. In video, a fully-populated slide invites reading ahead, and attention goes to the text rather than to what you are saying. Build elements in as you reach them. This is the single biggest difference between slides that work on camera and slides that do not.

Remove everything that is not doing work

Logos on every slide, decorative shapes, redundant labels, chart gridlines and borders, and full sentences where a phrase would do all compete with the message. Take things away until removing anything more would damage the point, then stop.

Pro Tips

If everything is emphasised, nothing is. Bold used everywhere is the same as bold used nowhere.
Check the graphic in greyscale. If the hierarchy survives, it works for everyone. If it collapses, it was carried by colour alone.
Full sentences on slides get read instead of listened to. Use phrases.
Charts need one message. Strip gridlines, borders, and unused labels until the conclusion is visible.
View it at the size and distance your audience will. Hierarchy that only works at full screen is not hierarchy.

Knowledge Base

What You'll Learn

Hierarchy is about controlling attention, and attention is a limited resource you are spending on the viewer's behalf. Below: the tools ranked by reliability, and why video changes the rules.

The Hierarchy Tools, Ranked by Reliability

Several signals can establish importance, and they are not equally dependable.

Size is the strongest and most universal. A substantially larger element is seen first, in every context, by everyone.

Weight and contrast come next. Heavy text on a light background, or a high-contrast element among low-contrast ones, draws the eye reliably and survives greyscale.

Position matters because reading order creates expectation, top and left carry more weight in left-to-right reading cultures, and the optical centre slightly above true centre reads as the focal point.

Space is underused and powerful. An element surrounded by emptiness reads as important without being large or loud.

Colour is the weakest as a primary signal, despite being reached for first. It fails in greyscale, fails for colour-blind viewers, and competes with itself when several colours are present. Use it to reinforce a hierarchy established by the tools above, not to create one.

Why Video Changes the Rules

Slide design conventions come mostly from live presentation, and two things differ on video.

The viewer controls the pace. They can pause, rewind, and read ahead, and they will read ahead if the whole slide is present, which means they stop listening. Progressive disclosure is not a stylistic preference here. It is what keeps attention aligned with narration.

The screen is small and the viewing distance is unpredictable. A slide legible in a room on a projector may be unreadable on a phone. Text sizes that feel comfortably large in the editor are frequently too small in practice, which is why checking on a phone matters.

There is also a compression consideration: fine lines, small text, and subtle gradients degrade on upload, so explainer graphics benefit from being bolder and flatter than print or live-presentation instinct suggests.

Where This Fits

This guide covers one specific part of colour and design. The wider picture, how colour relationships work on screen, why colour meaning is cultural, and building a palette in production rather than the grade, is in Color Theory for Visual Storytellers, which frames the discipline as a whole and links out to the detailed guides underneath it, including this one. If you are starting from scratch rather than solving a specific problem, read that first and come back here.

FAQ

Q: How much text should a slide have?
A: Far less than feels natural: phrases rather than sentences, and one primary message per slide. Full sentences get read instead of listened to, which puts the viewer ahead of the narration and competing with it. If a slide needs a paragraph, it probably needs to be several slides or to be said rather than shown.

Q: Should I use colour to show importance?
A: Only as a secondary signal. Colour fails in greyscale, fails for colour-blind viewers, and competes with itself when several colours are present. Establish hierarchy with size, weight, and space first, then use colour to reinforce it. A useful test is whether the hierarchy survives in greyscale.

Q: Why do my slides feel cluttered even after simplifying?
A: Usually because separation is being done with lines, boxes, and borders rather than with space. Those additions are themselves clutter. Try removing every divider and increasing the space between groups instead, grouping by proximity is silent and generally more effective.

Q: Do I need to animate slides in video?
A: Not elaborately, but revealing elements as you reach them makes a real difference. A fully populated slide invites the viewer to read ahead and stop listening. Simple builds that match your narration keep attention where you want it, and they do not need to be more than a fade or a position change.