The Table Nobody Can Read
You must put a 6-column, 9-row pricing table on one slide. Columns are Plan, Monthly price, Annual price, Seats included, Support tier, and Notes. The Notes column contains 15-25 word sentences. On the projector the table text is unreadable from the back, and the Notes column forces the other columns to squeeze. The audience needs to compare plans during a live discussion.
1. Diagnose why the table fails and propose a restructuring that keeps it on one slide.
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The failure is density and uneven column weighting: a long free-text column steals width from the columns people actually compare (price, seats, support). Restructure by moving Notes out of the table into speaker notes or a short footnote, and reduce Notes to a two- or three-word tag if it must stay. Then set sensible column widths so numeric columns are narrow and aligned, keep only the columns needed for comparison, and increase font size. If rows must shrink, drop the least-compared column rather than shrinking text. The goal is a table the back row can scan, not a complete data dump.
2. What formatting choices improve readability of the remaining table, and what should you verify on the venue equipment?
Read the worked answer
Use a clear header row with distinct shading, consistent alignment (numbers right-aligned, text left-aligned), adequate row height, and banded rows or light gridlines for tracking across. Avoid heavy borders and centred body text. Keep a single font and a body size you can actually read at distance. On the venue equipment, check that the table fits without scrolling or overflow, that shading and text contrast hold on the projector (projectors wash out light greys), and that no row wraps unexpectedly. If it still does not fit, split into two slides by plan tier rather than shrinking further.