How to Use Effective Visual Aids

This article is part three of a four part series on speech making and effective presentations: How to Prepare a Great Presentation, How to Create an Effective Presentation Outline, How to Use Effective Visual Aids and How to Deliver a Great Presentation. This article will focus on the benefits of using visual aids in a speech, the types of visual aids often used in a presentation and how to use visual aids effectively.

Benefits of Using Visual Aids During a Presentation

There are several benefits to using visual aids properly during a presentation such as retaining audience attention and participation, increasing their learning and illustrating a point more effectively. Visual aids can also provide more detailed information to support your presentation key ideas, and give participants a hands-on component that will make the speech more memorable.

Types of Visual Aids Used in a Presentation

There are two main types of visual aids used during a presentation - electronic visual aids and traditional (non-electronic) visual aids.

Traditional Visual Aids

Traditional visual aids include hand-outs, charts, diagrams, model objects, posters, chalk boards, dry erase boards, images or photographs. Charts and graphs are extremely useful for side-by-side comparisons of data while photos "speak a thousand words" as they say. Dry erase boards can be used to give more detailed information, or help the audience follow the outline, however it is a temporary medium and unlike handouts cannot be taken home. Handouts allow for more details and can be taken home and looked over by the audience participant at their leisure, reinforcing the key ideas you presented.

Electronic Visual Aids

Electronic visual aids include anything from laser pointers and overhead projectors, to sophisticated computer presentation programs. This category would also include audio CD's and digital video images which can be highly effective when demonstrating a technique or skill that you are unable to reproduce on stage during the presentation. Transparencies and overhead projectors are a great way to keep the audience focused on the outline so they know where they are heading. And of course, computer presentation software is becoming more and more commonly used for speeches and presentations because it gives you the ability to mix many of these visual aid mediums in one place for a greater impact.

Making Your Visual Aids More Effective

Visual aids for an effective presentation require careful selecting, a professional appearance and proper use during the actual presentation.

Selecting Your Presentation Visual Aids

The first step to using visual aids effectively is to select what visual aids you want to use throughout your speech. Be sure you've read the article How to Create an Effective Presentation Outline because that outline is the basis for your presentation's visual aids. Consider again the level of knowledge your audience has when selecting your visual aids; I wouldn't bring an epidural needle to show a room full of doctors but it would be a great model to show first time parents in a childbirth class. Look through your master outline very carefully and note any places where you feel a visual aid would help emphasis a key point, increase the audience's understanding or add a sense of importance to what you are presenting. You must also factor in the total time you have to deliver the presentation, the venue in which you are presenting and the situation your audience will be in. If there is no electricity or you are meeting outdoors you will need to adjust your choices of visual aids.

Professional Visual Aid Appearance

You don't need a professional to make your visual aids for you in order to have a well-designed visual aid. Here are some simple tips to keep in mind for effectively presenting your visual aids.

~Make the words large enough to read. In a small, close setting a poster or easel chart may be sufficient but in a large auditorium a screen and projector will make for visual aids that can be seen.

~Select images carefully for quality and impact. If a picture requires a full paragraph to explain what is happening you should probably select another visual aid. Also, a blurry or poorly edited image will loose effectiveness as a visual aid and be distracting.

~Be succinct! You should make your point in a sentence or two and the audience should generally be able to take in your visual aid in just a few seconds or it becomes a distraction from your presentation and is no longer effective.

~Keep colors eye-friendly and consistent. Nothing is more difficult than trying to read neon yellow type on a bright green or orange background! Keep your colors easy-to-read and friendly to your audiences' eyes. Also keep the colors consistent for all your visual aids rather than switching colors for no obvious reason. Your audience will become distracting trying to figure out why your visual aids are now red and blue instead of black and green.

~Use easy to read fonts and white space. Visual aids should be well-spaced out and easy to read. The eye should flow quickly and easily from paragraph to paragraph without large chunks of uninterrupted text or curly-twirly letter fonts that will render your visual aids ineffective.

Using Visual Aids Effectively During the Actual Presentation

Here are some tips on using visual aids effectively during the presentation through proper practice, set up and delivery of the visual aids.

Practice Your Presentation Visual Aids!
One of the key elements to successfully using visual aids in your presentation is to practice using them. Have you practiced setting up your visual aids? Turning the computer on? Flipping through the charts? Using the VCR or television set up? A presentation is only as effective as your ability to smoothly transition from one key point to the next and fumbling with visual aids will be awkward at best and potentially disastrous.

Setting Up Visual Aids Ahead of Time.

Visual aids have to be set up either prior to your presentation or during. Take-away visual aids could be given out afterwards but most other types of visual aids need to be brought before the audience as you talk about the subject at the very latest.

First, make sure all your visual aids are mobile enough to get to the presentation easily without being damaged. Place your presentation visual aids in easy-to-reach locations so you can smoothly move from point to point during your speech. Double check that all connections are properly installed, disks properly marked and everything is in correct order. Briefly glance through your outline and make sure all the visual aids you plan to use are present, ready to go and close at hand.

Delivering Your Visual Aids Effectively

Visual aids that go to the audience such as handouts or models must at some point be delivered to the audience. While a Power Point or other computer visual aid presentation can easily be "clicked" to move from slide to slide, handouts and model objects have to somehow be placed in the hands of the audience. If a handout follows the outline and provides detailed information consider having them available for the audience to pick up as they enter the presentation. More detailed follow-up information such as a medical study or review type material can be handed out after the presentation to allow the audience a chance to look it over later as a reinforcement of your key points. A model object or picture can be passed around from person to person for them to personally examine while you continue on with your speech.

Tips to Remember about Visual Aids

~Remember to speak to the audience and not to the visual aid. How many times have you seen a presenter turn his back to the audience to read off the Power Point slide up on the screen. This instantly breaks the connection with the audience! Don't fall into this trap of disconnecting from audience and presentation outline both. You have prepared an effective outline so you don't need to read the slide - stay focused on your audience!

~Don't insult your audience by reading to them! Continue giving your presentation off your outline instead of reading them each individual point. They can read for themselves and the material presented in the visual aids will reinforce what you are saying by reiterating the information in a new way.

~Allow ample time for images and pictures. 30 seconds seems to be the minimum needed by an audience to take in and analyze a photo, image or line drawing. If your visual aid is very detailed more time may be needed for them to see all there is to see in the image effectively.

~Provide a variety of visual aids. This goes back to carefully considering which visual aids will best represent the specific key point you are trying to reinforce in your presentation. Using a variety of visual aids will increase the audience retention by repeating the information in a new and effective way.

These tips have helped you move from selecting potential visual aids from your presentation outline, to creating professional looking visual aids, to practicing with them, setting them up and using them effectively in a presentation. Make sure you read through the other presentation articles to pull the whole presentation together and deliver a highly effective speech.