USING VISUAL AIDSUSING VISUAL AIDS

Why Use Visual Aids?

• Clarity

• Interest

• Retention

• Credibility

• Persuasiveness

Visual aidsobjects

models

photographs

drawings

charts & graphs

videos, PowerPoint, etc.

yourself

or someone

else!

And here’s the

rule for slide presentations:MOST IMPORTANT

No more than FIVE lines of text

“ 5 and 6”

No more than SIX words per line!

There’s nothing more boring…

…than having to sit through a speaker who has the ENTIRE TEXT of

their speech (or a rough approximation of it) written out on a slide…

which means that the audience gets to listen to the speaker drone on

and on and on and on… and READ the entire slide to them while the

audience is also reading the slide…or, even better, when the speaker

has obviously downloaded something from the Web… and just pasted

it onto their slide…and the font is so tiny there’s not a human being in

existence who could possibly read it when it’s projected on a slide.

Now, wasn’t that fun and interesting???

AARRUGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BE SURE YOUR VISUALS ARE

LARGE ENOUGH

Toyota Honda Saturn Audi BMW

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

DISPLAY YOUR VISUALS ONLY WHILE YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT THEM

PRACTICE USING YOUR VISUALS IN ADVANCE

AVOID GIVING HANDOUTS DURING YOUR SPEECH

AVOID USING THE WHITE-BOARD

MAKE SURE YOUR AUDIENCE CAN SEE YOUR VISUALS

TALK TO YOUR AUDIENCE, NOT YOUR VISUAL NO HATS!

EXPLAIN YOUR VISUALS

Some Examples of Visual Aids…

Video and Audio Clips

• Keep video clips short (30-45 seconds maximum)

• Integrate clip into your speech so it

• Make sure audio isn’t so that it drowns out your voice

• OK to “talk over” video if explaining

LOUD

Photographs

The old train station in Applegate, c. 1900

Pictures or Drawings

Pictures or Drawings

Graphs

Pie Charts

Sales

1st Qtr2nd Qtr3rd Qtr4th Qtr

Bar Graphs

Descriptive Charts