The Great British Boredom Epidemic
Let’s be honest: most technical CPDs in the UK are an exercise in endurance rather than education. We’ve all sat in a dimly lit room in a Clerkenwell practice, nursing a lukewarm coffee, while a manufacturer reads a slide that looks like the “Terms and Conditions” of a mid-range washing machine.
It is a bizarre ritual. We have a highly intelligent human being standing in front of a room of highly creative professionals, and yet we decide to spend forty-five minutes reading aloud. It’s the pedagogical equivalent of buying a Ferrari and using it solely to tow a caravan.
The question isn’t just “how much text is too much?” The real question is: “Why are you using text at all when you have a mouth?”
The Biology of the “Read-Listen” Conflict
To understand why text-heavy slides are a disaster, we have to look at the “Choice Architecture” of the human brain. We are evolved to prioritise visual movement and spoken narrative. However, when you put text on a screen, you trigger a deep-seated evolutionary reflex: the need to decode symbols.
Here is the kicker: you cannot read and listen at the same time. You think you can, but you’re actually just “task-switching” rapidly, and doing a mediocre job of both. It’s called Cognitive Load Theory. If your slide has eighty words on it, the architect’s brain instantly calculates the energy cost of reading it versus the social cost of ignoring you. Usually, they’ll skim the slide in ten seconds, realise it’s boring, and then spend the next five minutes thinking about what they want for dinner.
You haven’t just lost their attention; you’ve effectively paid for the privilege of being ignored.
Perception is the Reality
We value things based on the “signalling” they provide. A slide full of text signals that you don’t trust your own memory, or worse, that you haven’t put in the effort to curate the information.
If you provide a slide that is just a single, beautiful, high-resolution photo of a perfectly executed facade detail with the words “0.15 U-Value” in the corner, that is high-status communication. It says, “I know my stuff, and I know you’re smart enough to get the point.”
Conversely, listing every British Standard your product meets in 10-point Arial font is low-status communication. It’s defensive. It’s the visual equivalent of a nervous cough.
The “Redundancy Effect” and the UK Architect
In the UK, the RIBA CPD Core Curriculum requires “structural integrity” in learning. But manufacturers often confuse “integrity” with “density.”
When you present to a London firm, you are talking to people who spend their lives looking at whitespace, proportions, and visual hierarchy. If your slide lacks these things, you are inadvertently telling them, “I don’t speak your language.”
The Data on Information Retention
Research into educational psychology shows that retention rates drop by over 50% when the visual and auditory channels are in conflict. If you want an architect to remember that your insulation is non-combustible, don’t write a paragraph about the Building Safety Act. Show a 10-second clip of a torch test.
The brain loves a story. It hates a list.
The FRAKT Method: Reducing Cognitive Friction
We need to stop thinking of slides as “information delivery devices” and start thinking of them as “attentional anchors.”
- The One-Idea Rule: Every slide should have one job. If you’re talking about acoustic performance and thermal bridges, that’s two slides. Not one.
- The “Squint Test”: If you squint at your slide from the back of the room and you can’t tell what the main point is, it’s a failed design.
- The Script Divorce: Your slide should never, ever contain the words you are saying. If they are the same, one of you is redundant. And spoiler alert: it’s usually the slide.
The Future is Minimal
The most successful manufacturers of the next decade won’t be the ones with the longest brochures. They’ll be the ones who can explain complex carbon-sequestration data through a single, elegant infographic.
We are moving into an era of “asymmetric payoff” in communication. A small reduction in slide text leads to a massive increase in audience engagement. It is the ultimate “low-hanging fruit” of business development.
A Final Thought on Human Irrationality
We include too much text because it makes us feel safe. It’s a security blanket for the presenter. We’re afraid we’ll forget a key fact, so we put it on the screen. But your comfort is the audience’s prison.
Take a risk. Delete the bullets. Kill the paragraphs. Trust that if you know your product, the conversation will follow the cues. If you want to be specified, you have to be understood. And if you want to be understood, you have to shut up and let the visuals do the heavy lifting.
Go through your CPD deck right now and delete 50% of the words; your audience’s brains—and your conversion rates—will thank you for the sudden influx of oxygen.