Importance of Visual Aids in Presentations

Visual Aids Visual aids help your presentation make things happen. Visual aids help you reach your objectives by providing emphasis to whatever is being said. Clear pictures multiply the audience’s level of understanding of the material presented, and they should be used to reinforce your message, clarify points, and create excitement. Visual aids involve your audience and require a change from one activity to another: from hearing to seeing. When you use visual aids, their use tends to encourage gestures and movement on your part.

This extra movement reinforces the control that you, the speaker, need over the presentation. The use of visual aids, then, are mutual beneficial to the audience and you. Visual aids add impact and interest to a presentation. They enable you to appeal to more than one sense at the same time, thereby increasing the audience’s understanding and retention level. With pictures, the concepts or ideas you present are no longer simply words, but words plus images. When preparing your visual aids you should include a clear, brief, heading on each slide or page.

Use bullet or short phrases to complement your heading. Do not use sentences or entire paragraphs unless you plan to read them out loud, your audience will want to read what you show them. Avoid using all capital letters except in headings. Whether you use slides, overhead transparencies, flipcharts, models, photographs or drawings, keep visual aids simple: no more than three or four key points on each item. Its better to have a few extra slides than a lost audience. In preparing tables and charts for projection, limit data to key points. Include only columns, rows or plots that you plan to discuss.

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Leave details and more comprehensive data summaries for your written paper or a separate handout. Leave plenty of white space or other background color to make your visuals easier to read. Check spelling and your slides’ readability by printing them on standard-sized paper. Then as a quick check to determine whether they can be read from the back of a room, place the printed sheets on the floor to see if you can read them while standing up. If you use overheads, refrain from marking them with hand-written additions before your talk. When presenting your speech with visual aids, the presenters may be tempted to hide behind their visual aids.

It is important not to do that, you must be proud of your visual aid and you should be the center of attention not your visual aid. (Centre for Teaching Excellence)(1) Whether you are creating a visual aid by hand or designing them on a computer, there are six basic guidelines you should follow to make your aids clear and visually appealing. They are: Prepare visual aids in advance, Keep visual aids simple, Make sure visual aids are large enough, Use fonts that are easy to read, Use a limited number of fonts, and Use color effectively. Lucas 275-278)(2) If you go by these guidelines when preparing your visual aids, you will capture the audience’s attention and be proud of what you accomplished with your visual aid. Visual aids are eye-catchers. They need to be used appropriately and moderately to be affective. Different types of visual aids emphasize different data relationships, so choosing the right type is very important. Think about your data, consider your purpose, and decide which type best illustrates your point. Use caution when considering using illustrations, however, as they ten to captivate an audience’s attention perhaps distracting from your point.

Once you have chosen and created your visual aid, you’ll need to revise it for clarity, simplicity, and style. (Austin)(3) Visual aids involve your audience and require a change from one activity to another: from hearing to seeing. They add impact and interest to a presentation. They enable you to appeal to more than one sense at the same time, thereby increasing the audience’s understanding and retention level. With pictures, the concepts or ideas you present are no longer simply words, but words plus images. The use of visual aids is important to all presentations.

Without them, the impact of your presentation may leave the audience shortly after the audience leaves you. By preparing a presentation with visual aids that reinforce your main ideas, you will reach your audience far more effectively, and perhaps, continue to touch them long after the presentation ends. (Labor)(4) Insight Statement: While writing this paper, I learned many things about how to prepare a visual aid and some tips on what/what not to do when presenting them. The meaning of visual aids to me is that the audience grasps and understands a speech when they have something to look at, that clarifies the speech for them.

Works Cited (3) Austin, University of Texas at. Visual Aids. 26 09 2012 <http://uwc. utexas. edu/node/90>. (1)Centre for Teaching Excellence. Using Visual Aids. 17 03 2011. 26 09 2012 <http://cte. uwaterloo. ca/teaching_resources/tips/using_visual_aids. html>. (4) Labor, United States Department of. Occupational Safety & Health Administration. 26 09 2012 <http://www. osha. gov/doc/outreachtraining/htmlfiles/traintec. html>. (2)Lucas, Stephen. "Guidelings for preparing visual aids. " Lucas, Stephen. The Art of Public Speaking. Mcgraw-Hill Higher Education, n. d. 275-278.

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