Deck Design Research

Two tracks: the skills that already exist here, and what the presentation-design field teaches. Both point at the same weakness in draft one.

Skills inventory

What exists, and the verdict on each

Skill	Verdict for deck work
pptx (Anthropic)	Adopt its design rules — every slide needs a visual element; one color dominates (60–70%); dark/light "sandwich" structure; vary layouts. Its PPTX machinery also becomes our export path if a client ever needs .pptx.
frontend-design	Adopt its method — the "signature element" discipline (spend boldness in ONE place), structure-is-information (kill decorative devices), self-critique against the three AI-default looks. This is also your own recorded fix for AI-slop design.
dataviz	Adopt when charts appear — the chart discipline decks.md already points to; no data slides in this deck yet.
canvas-design (Anthropic)	Wrong tool — builds abstract art objects, not claims-disciplined decks. One idea travels: craft density that rewards a second look.
design (Claude Design canvas)	Not now — visual click-to-edit surface, but early preview; our artifact deck already gives you+Stacy in-browser copy editing with the claims machinery intact.
Marketplace search	No deck-specific skills exist beyond these — nothing to install.

Field research

Assertion–evidence (Penn State research): a slide is a declarative headline + graphic evidence — measurably better comprehension than headline + text lists. My headlines already assert; my evidence is all text. This is draft one's real gap.
Signal-to-noise (Duarte, Reynolds): every element earns its place or goes. The decorative foot dash on every slide is noise; the mono receipt lines are signal — they're literally the product argument.
One focal point per slide, contrast does the work; slides read like road signs — 3 seconds.
Dark/light sandwich: dark opener and closer bracket light content slides.

Iteration 2 — the plan

1 · The highlighter becomes the signature. One yellow marker sweep per slide, on the single load-bearing phrase — it literally performs hi!'s thesis: human judgment marking what matters. Everything else quiets down around it.
2 · Assertion–evidence layouts. Each slide gains real graphic evidence: the Bench drawn as a diagram (two chairs above, agent layer beneath); the ladder as three rising steps with credits flowing up; the sprint as a two-week calendar strip with your 7 hours marked; capacity as five seats, drawn and capped; the chairs slide led by the big numerals 35 / 15.
3 · Sandwich structure. Title slide goes ink-dark (the marker pops hardest there), content stays paper, closer stays yellow.
4 · Noise cut. The decorative foot dash dies; receipts stay.
5 · Focal discipline. One dominant element per slide — e.g. slide 3's "0 of ~20" becomes the hero at twice the size of its neighbours, because it's the whole argument.

Afterwards, the lessons that survived the build get written into Cairo's decks.md — that's the training-run loop closing.