Using visual aids during a presentation or

training session

JUNE 21, 2018 - GINI BEQIRI - 10 MIN READ

Visual aids can enhance your presentations - they can increase the
audience's understanding of your topic, explain points, make an impact and
create enthusiasm. It has become more important to make information visual:

"Something is happening. We are becoming a visually mediated society. For many,

understanding of the world is being accomplished, not through words, but by reading
images" - (Lester, 2006)

In this article, we discuss how to use visual aids for presentations or training
sessions.

What are visual aids?

Visual aids are items of a visual manner, such as graphs, photographs, video
clips etc used in addition to spoken information. Visual aids are chosen
depending on their purpose, for example, you may want to:

 Summarise information.
 Reduce the amount of spoken words, for example, you may show a graph
of your results rather than reading them out.
 Clarify and show examples.
 Create more of an impact, for example, if your presentation is on the
health risks of smoking, you may show images of the effects of smoking
on the body rather than describing this. You must consider what type of
impact you want to make beforehand - do you want the audience to be
sad, happy, angry etc?
 Emphasise what you're saying.
 Make a point memorable.
 Enhance your credibility.
 Engage the audience and maintain their interest.
  Make something easier for the audience to understand.

Preparation and use of visual aids

Once you have decided that you want to use a visual aid, you must ensure
that the audience is able to quickly understand the image - it must be clear.
They can be used throughout your speech but try to only use visual aids for
essential points as it can be tiring for the audience to skip from one visual to
another.

Preparation

 Think about how can a visual aid can support your message. What do
you want the audience to do?
 Ensure that your visual aid follows what you're saying or this will
confuse the audience.
 Avoid cluttering the image as it may look messy and unclear.
 Visual aids must be clear, concise and of a high quality.
 Keep the style consistent, such as, the same font, colours, positions etc
 Use graphs and charts to present data.
 The audience should not be trying to read and listen at the same time -
use visual aids to highlight your points.
 One message per visual aid, for example, on a slide there should only be
one key point.
 Use visual aids in moderation - they are additions meant to emphasise
and support main points.
 Ensure that your presentation still works without your visual aids in case
of technical problems.
 Practice using the visual aids in advance and ask friends and colleagues
for feedback. Ask them whether they can clearly see the visual aid and
how they interpret it.

During the presentation

 Ensure that the visual aids can be seen by everyone in the audience.
 Face the audience most of the time rather than the image.
 Avoid reading from the visual aid.
 As soon as you show the visual aid the audience's attention will be
drawn to it so you must immediately explain it. You will be ignored if you
talk about something else.
 Make it clear to the audience why you are using it.
  When you no longer need the visual aid ensure that the audience can't
see it.

Tailor to your audience

Choose your visual aids tactically so you appeal to your audience. This means
finding images your audience can relate to, images they will find familiar and
images they will like. Also think about what style of visual aid is suitable for
the audience; is it quite a serious presentation? Can you be humorous? Is it
more formal or informal?

Types of visual aids

There are a variety of different types of visual aids, you must decide which
will suit your presentation and your audience.

PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint is widely used for presentations because it's easy to
create attractive and professional presentations and it's simple to modify and
reorganise content compared to other visual aids. You can insert a range of
visual items into the slides which will improve the audience's focus. Also, the
audience can generally see slideshows better than other visual aids and you
don't have to face away from them. However, your presentation can look
unprofessional if this software is used poorly.

Tips:

1. Have a clear and simple background.

2. Avoid using too many different types of fonts or font sizes.
3. Only use animations for a purpose, such as, to reveal the stages of a
process, otherwise this can be distracting and look amateurish.
4. Use a large font size - a minimum of 24pt.
5. Use bullet points to summarise key points.
6. Consider providing handouts of diagrams because the audience will find
the diagrams easier to read.
7. Avoid putting too much text on a slide.
8. Avoid using red or green text as it's difficult to read.
9. There should only be one key point for each slide.
 10. Always have a back-up plan in case there is a technical issue and
you cannot show the visuals on the day, for example, bring handouts or a
poster.

Whiteboards
Whiteboards are great for providing further explanations, such as, showing
the order of a process, creating diagrams or explaining complex words or
phrases. They're often used to display headings and write down audience
suggestions. Whiteboards are also ideal for displaying important information
for the entire duration of the presentation, such as, key definitions, because
the audience can just glance at the whiteboard for a reminder.

Tips:

 Ensure that enough time has passed for the audience to take notes
before rubbing something off of the whiteboard.
 Write concisely to avoid facing away from the audience for too long.
 Handwriting must be large and legible.
 Practice beforehand as you may feel nervous about writing in front of an
audience at the time.

Handouts
Handouts are papers that contain key information from your presentation or
they may provide further information. They prevent you from overwhelming
the audience as there will be less information on the slides and therefore less
information they need to write down.

Tips:

You must consider when you want to give the audience the handouts:

 If given at the beginning and middle of your presentation the audience

may be reading rather than listening to you or they might not pay
attention to what you're saying as they already have the information.
 If given at the end of your presentation the audience may be trying to
take lots of notes which may reduce the amount of information they are
actually understanding.
To manage this, provide the audience with partially completed handouts so
they will have to listen to what you're saying to be able to fill in the gaps.
Providing the audience with graphs and charts beforehand is also beneficial
because the audience will find them easier to read than, for example, from a
slide.

Video clips
Using videos are a great wait to engage the audience and increase their
interest. Use video to bring motion, images and audio into your presentation.

Tips:

 Ensure that any videos used are relevant to the presentation's content.
 Only show as much of the video as necessary.
 Never show a really long clip.
 Videos can be difficult to fit into the structure of a presentation so
ensure that you tell that audience why you're showing them a clip and
tell them what to look for.
 Inform the audience how long the video will last.

Flip chart
Flip charts offer a low cost and low tech solution to record and convey
information as you speak. They're more beneficial for smaller audiences and
they are favoured for brainstorming sessions as you can gather ideas easily.
Flip charts are also widely used for summarising information and, like with a
whiteboard, you can use them to show permanent background information.

Tips:

 Before your presentation, place the flip chart in a location that you can
easily access.
 Prepare any sheets you can in advance, even if you can only write down
the headings.
 Flip charts can be moved so you can avoid facing away from the
audience - stand next to it and continue to face the audience.
 Have only one main idea per sheet.
 Write legibly, largely and in block capitals so it's more visible.
 Check with the audience that they can read the text - do not use a
flipchart if there is a large audience.
  Only write in black and blue ink. Red ink is good for circling or
underlining.
 Using a pencil write notes to yourself beforehand so you remember what
to include - the audience will not see this writing. Also drawing lines in
pencil beforehand can keep your handwriting straight.
 Flip back through the sheets to consolidate points.
 Practice writing on the flip chart advance as you may feel nervous at the
time of presenting.

Posters
Poster boards can be created using a variety of visual devices, such as graphs
and images. They're generally quite portable and you can make them as
elaborate as you want. However, they can be expensive to produce if the
poster is quite complex.

Tips:

 One poster per message or theme

 Use colour
 Use block capitals
 Avoid using posters when presenting to large audiences as they will not
be able to see the content

Product, objects or artefacts

Objects can be useful tools for making an impact or even for making a dull
topic more interesting. Sometimes they'll be needed for technical and
practical reasons, such as, showing a model or conducting an experiment.

Tips:

 If you are presenting to a small audience consider passing the object

around but provide enough time so they won't have to divide their
attention between the object and what you're saying.
 If the audience is large ensure that you move the object around so
everyone sees it.
  The audience will be more distracted from what you're saying when
they're looking at the object so keep it hidden until the right time and
provide the background information before revealing it.
 Explain why you're using the object.
 If you are conducting an experiment or demonstration, move slowly with
exaggerated movements so the audience can follow. Also explain
precisely what's going on.

Key points for using visual aids

Try to find out what the presentation room is like beforehand, such as, the
layout of the room, the equipment etc, so you can see if your visual aids are
appropriate and whether they will work there but always have a contingency
plan regardless. Also remember that the audience should be able to
understand an image almost immediately.

Practice

Before your presentation, ensure that you practice with your visual aids so
you know how to operate the equipment. If something goes wrong you'll have
a better chance of solving the problem.

Use color

Research suggests that using color increases people's motivation to read and
their enthusiasm for a presentation. Software like PowerPoint is great for
producing color visuals.

Using the color wheel can help when choosing your presentation's colors:

Colors opposite each other in the wheel are complementary and they create
contrast. Using complementary colors makes your text more readable.

Colors next to each other are analogous and they are harmonious. Using
analogous colors makes your presentation more unified.
Adobe color wheel for your presentation

The Adobe color wheel, which helps you pick complementary colors for your
presentation design.

Avoid using too many colors in your presentation as this can look cluttered
and unprofessional and keep your color themes continuous, for example, if
you highlight all the key words on one slide in blue, continue to do this
throughout the presentation. Also be careful with color associations, for
example, in many cultures red is linked to danger. Try to represent your words
and topics with colors that make sense and are appropriate.

Many people are blue-green or red-green color-blind so avoid putting these

colors next to each other’s in, for example, a graph. If you cannot avoid
placing these colors next to each other then use text to clearly label items.

Taken from
https://virtualspeech.com/blog/visual-aids-presentation