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Visual aids are essential to helping your audience better understand the key points of your presentation. Visual aids will also help to improve the attention span of audience members during the presentation. However, it is important that presenters use visual aids that do not distract from the overall presentation.
An effective visual aid will include the following attributes:
Presentation aids must be easily understood by the audience, even those sitting at the very back of the room.
Graphic elements in presentation aids must be large enough to be easily seen and read. Similarly, audio elements must be loud enough to hear.
Your presentation aids should be easy to transport. In addition, you should make sure you know how to use presentation equipment ahead of time.
You should seamlessly incorporate presentation aids into your speech. You don’t want your audience to be distracted by these elements.
Your visual aids should not detract from the content of your speech. Keep your presentation simple so people can focus on the content rather than the aesthetics.
The decisions you make when you design your visual aids should be very deliberate. If you add color to a visual aid, use it for a clear purpose.
If your PowerPoint slides or handouts have too much extraneous information, then the audience may not be able to understand the takeaway message of the presentation.
A way to test if your visual aids are addressing the key point is to ask someone who is unfamiliar with your presentation if they can understand what the key point is.
If they cannot determine the key point, it may be a good idea to revise your visual aids to include less nonessential information.
Visual aids are useful to help the audience better understand your topic if they are used as a supplement to, and not a replacement for, your presentation.
EXAMPLE
A visual aid that replaces a presentation could be a PowerPoint that includes big blocks of text that the presenter reads verbatim.While this will be an accurate presentation, it will likely bore the audience members, who will not gain much from the presentation. However, if the visual aid acts as a supplement, it will enhance the audience member's understanding through diagrams, graphs, charts, and summaries.
Visual aids can be effective at enhancing your presentation and helping the audience better understand the key points of your presentation. However, if visual aids do not help your message or are too confusing, they may actually detract from the presentation and hinder understanding.
Some key "don'ts" of using visual aids include:
If your visual aid has inconsistencies in color scheme or theme, the audience may become confused, since color change may indicate a change in topic.
Consistency in theme and color will help coordinate all of the information in your presentation and will help the audience understand the topics in relation to one another.
There are a number of default themes that Microsoft PowerPoint offers that can help unify your color scheme and theme.
Avoiding small fonts is essential to making sure that the audience can read your visual aids.
A general standard is to make sure that all PowerPoint slides use at least 18-point font to ensure that audience members in the back row will be able to read your presentation.
Additionally, you should avoid overwhelming text and graphics as they will distract from the main topics and points of your presentation.
Try to keep the amount of information on each slide to a minimum and use only what is necessary to convey the key point of the visual aid or slide. Additionally, try to keep the number of slides or visual aids in your presentation to a minimum.
A rule of thumb is to use each slide in a PowerPoint for 30 seconds to a minute of your presentation. Remember that the majority of your presentation should come across in what you are speaking about rather than through the text on your visual aids.
Avoid distracting animation and noises. These will take the focus of the audience away from your presentation and shift it toward noise or animation instead.
When properly used, colors should draw attention to the important terms or concepts in your presentation. They can also create emotion. Color should be consistently used throughout the design of the visuals to achieve these goals.
Learners and audiences are more attracted to colors and may find presentations without color to be boring. Some presenters change their color schemes regularly to prevent their presentations from becoming too monotonous. You can also change the shades of your colors.
One disadvantage of using color is that individuals who are colorblind may miss out on some information in certain colors. Using certain shades, and using them consistently, can eliminate this problem.
It may also be useful to apply some color psychology when choosing which colors to use. Back in the 1940s, a study by Faber Birren provided radical insight into human emotional reactions to color.
Something else to consider is that on flip charts, blue, black, and green inks have the best visibility. People say that blue is the most pleasing color to view. Red comes in second, even though it is not the most visible. But too much red can be too strong. Avoid using purple, yellow, pink, and brown, which can be more difficult to see.
When creating graphs, bright colors will bring focus to a small graph, while subtle colors will keep a large graph from overwhelming the audience.
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