Communication Skills
Developing Visual Aids
Topics
How to use presentation technology
Techniques for preparing and
delivering
2
Develop Visual Aids
Designing Effective Slides
Using a key visual and selecting color, artwork, and
typefaces to create effective slide designs
Businesspeople have had to sit through so many
poorly conceived presentations - the phrase “death by
PowerPoint” to describe dull, slide-heavy
presentations
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Develop Visual Aids
Ineffective Slide Design
Lack of Awareness
Inadequate Training
Schedule Pressures
Habitual Responses
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Develop Visual Aids
The problem is not with PowerPoint or any other
presentation program
The software is just a tool and, like other tools, can be
used well or poorly.
Ineffective slides - treating slide sets as standalone
documents
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Develop Visual Aids
Function as both
presenting
visuals and
printed documents
don’t work well
They usually have
too much
information to
be effective visuals
and too little to be
effective reports
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Develop Visual Aids
Solution
Create an effective slide set and a separate handout
document
(additional details and supporting information)
Each piece can do the job it is really meant to do
An alternative - use the notes field in your
presentation software
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Develop Visual Aids
However, if just slides is the only option, be sure to
emphasize clarity and simplicity.
Having a larger number of simpler slides is better
than having a smaller number of jam-packed slides
Remember that the primary purpose of the slides is to
support your presentation
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Develop Visual Aids
Designing Slides Around a Key Visual
Structuring
Organizing
Explaining
It is often helpful to structure specific slides around a
key visual - organize and explain the points
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Develop Visual Aids
Designing Slides
Around a Key Visual
For example:
A pyramid suggests
a hierarchical
relationship
A circular flow
diagram emphasizes
that the final stage in
a process loops back
to the beginning of
the process. 10
Develop Visual Aids
Designing Slides Around a Key Visual
Color
Artwork
Typefaces and Type Styles
• Pay close attention to these principles as you
select the design elements for your slides:
Color
• A critical design element, rather a mere decoration
• Get viewer’s attention, emphasizes important
ideas, creates contrast, and isolates slide elements
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Develop Visual Aids
Artwork:
Every slide has two layers or levels of visual
elements:
The background and foreground
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Develop Visual Aids
Typefaces and Type Styles
Follow these guidelines:
• Avoid script or decorative typefaces, except for
limited, special uses
• Use serif typefaces with care and only with larger
text.
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Develop Visual Aids
Follow these guidelines:
• Limit the number of typefaces to one or two per
slide.
• When using thinner typefaces, use boldface so that
letters don’t disappear on screen.
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Develop Visual Aids
Typefaces and Type Styles:
• Avoid most italicized type; it is usually difficult to
read when projected.
• Avoid all-capitalized words and phrases
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Develop Visual Aids
Typefaces and Type Styles:
• Allow extra white space between lines of text
• Be consistent with typefaces, type styles, colors,
and sizes
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Develop Visual Aids
Maintaining Design Consistency
Slide Masters Predefined Layouts
Color Choices Titles
Font Styles Graphic Art
Design Elements Bulleted Text
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Develop Visual Aids
Audience start to assign meaning to visual elements
beginning with your first slide.
Don’t force viewers to repeatedly figure out the
meaning of design elements by making arbitrary
changes from slide to slide.
Presentation software makes consistency easy to
achieve
Adjust the slide master using the colors, fonts, and
other design elements - choices will automatically
show up on every slide
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Develop Visual Aids
The less work readers have to do to interpret your
slide designs, the more attention they can give to
your message.
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Effective Slide Content
For every slide, remember to watch out for
information overload.
When slides have too much content—textual, visual,
or both—particularly for several slides in a row,
viewers can’t process the fast incoming information
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Develop Visual Aids
Writing Readable Content
• Limit each slide to one thought, concept, or Idea
• Limit text content to four or five lines with four or five
words per line (5 X 5 Rule)
• Don’t show a large number of text-heavy slides in a
row
• Write short, bulleted phrases rather than long
sentences
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Develop Visual Aids
Writing Readable Content
• Use sentences only when you need to share a
quotation or the like
• Effective text slides supplement your words and
help the audience follow the flow of ideas
• In a sense, slide text serves as the headings and
subheadings for your presentation
• You want your audience to listen, not to read.
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Develop Visual Aids
Writing Readable Content
• Phrase List Items in Parallel Grammatical Form
• Use the Active Voice
• Include Short, Informative Titles
• Use Visuals to Convey the Bulk of Information
(Charts and Tables for Slides)
23
Develop Visual Aids
Adding Animation and Multimedia
Four Categories of Animation and Special Effects:
Functional Animation
Transitions and Builds
Hyperlinks
Multimedia
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Develop Visual Aids
Adding Animation and Multimedia
Presentation software offers a wide array of options
- including sound, animation, video clips, transition
effects from one slide to the next, and hyperlinks to
websites and other resources.
The key is to make sure any effects you use support
your message.
Always consider the impact that all these effects will
have on your audience members and their desire to
understand your message.
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Develop Visual Aids
Adding Animation and Multimedia
Functional Animation:
• Set of tools for moving and changing things on
screen.
• Make sure each animation has a purpose.
Transitions and Builds
• Can choose from various options for adding motion
between slides
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Develop Visual Aids
Adding Animation and Multimedia
• These slide transitions control how one slide
replaces another on screen.
• Subtle transitions can ease your viewers’ gaze from
one slide to the next.
• Builds are much more useful than transitions, at
least when used with care and thought.
• These effects control the release of text, graphics,
and other elements on individual slides.
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Develop Visual Aids
Adding Animation and Multimedia
Hyperlinks:
• Hyperlinks and action buttons can be quite handy -
flexibility in your presentations or want to share
different kinds of files with the audience.
• A hyperlink instructs your computer to jump to
another slide in your presentation, to a website, or
to another program entirely.
• Hyperlinks can be underlined text, invisible
hotspots in graphical elements, or clearly labeled
action buttons. 28
Animation & Hyperlinks
29
Develop Visual Aids
Adding Animation and Multimedia
Multimedia Elements:
• Multimedia elements offer the ultimate in active
presentations.
• Using audio and video clips can be an effective
way to complement your live message
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Develop Visual Aids
Completing Slides and Support Materials
Just as you would review any message for content,
style, tone, readability, clarity, and conciseness, you
should apply the same quality control to your slides
and other visuals.
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Develop Visual Aids
Reviewing the Slides
Readable
Consistent
Simple
Audience-Centered
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Develop Visual Aids
As you look over your presentation for the final time,
make sure that all visuals are:
Readable. Can text be read from the back of the room?
Does the text stand out from the background?
Consistent. Are colors and design elements used
consistently?
Simple. Is each slide and the entire presentation as
simple as possible? Can you eliminate any slides?
Audience centered. Are the message and the design
focused on the audience? 33
Develop Visual Aids
Reviewing the Slides
Clear
Concise and Grammatically Correct
Focused
Fully Operational
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Develop Visual Aids
Clear
Is the main point of a slide obvious?
Easy to understand?
Can the audience grasp the main point in just a few
seconds?
Concise and grammatical.
Is text written in concise phrases?
Are bulleted phrases grammatically parallel?
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Develop Visual Aids
Focused
Does each slide cover only one thought, concept, or
idea (or summarize a group of related ideas)?
Does the slide grab the viewer’s attention in the right
place and support the key points of the message?
Are arrows, symbols, or other techniques used to draw
the audience’s attention to the key sections of a chart
or diagram?
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Develop Visual Aids
Fully operational
Have you verified every slide in your presentation?
Do all the animations and other special effects work
as you intended?
The slide sorter view (different programs have
different names for this feature) - see some or all of
the slides in your presentation on a single screen.
(add and delete slides, reposition slides, check
slides for design consistency, and verify the
operation of any effects)
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Navigation and Support Slides
Agenda and
Title Slides Navigation Slides
Program Details
Guide Audience
Communicate
First Impression Through Your
Agenda
Outline
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Navigation and Support Slides
The content slides are ready - add “finish” to your
presentation and provide additional information to
benefit your audience
Title slide(s)
First impression on your audience with one or two title
slides, the equivalent of a report’s cover and title page.
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Develop Visual Aids
Title slide(s)
A title slide should contain:
• The title of your presentation (and subtitle, if
appropriate)
• Your name, your department affiliation (for internal
audiences)
• Your company affiliation (for external audiences)
• You may also include the presentation date and an
appropriate graphic element
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Develop Visual Aids
Depending on the amount of information you need
to convey - two title slides might be appropriate:
One focusing on the topic of the
presentation
Second with your affiliation and other
information.
This second slide can also be used to introduce the
speaker and list his or her credentials.
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Navigation and Support Slides
Agenda and program details
Communicate the agenda for your presentation and
any additional information your audience might need.
Navigation slides
To tell your audience where you’re going and where
you’ve been, you can use a series of navigation slides
based on your outline or agenda.
This technique is most useful in longer presentations
with several major sections. 42
Develop Visual Aids
Creating Navigation and Support Slides
As you complete each section, repeat the slide but
indicate which material has been covered and which
section you are about to begin
You can then use the original slide again in the close
of your presentation to review the points you’ve
covered.
As an alternative to the repeating agenda slide, you
can insert a simple bumper slide at each major
section break, announcing the title of the section
you’re about to begin. 43
Develop Visual Aids
Creating Effective Handouts
Good Content Recommendations:
Charts or Diagrams
Articles and Technical Papers
Case Studies
Recommended Resources
Copies of Presentation Slides
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Effective Handouts
Handouts
Any printed materials you give the audience to
supplement your talk, should be considered an
integral part of your presentation strategy.
Plan them with your presentation slides so that you
use each medium as effectively as possible.
Your presentation - convey and connect major ideas,
set the emotional tone, and rouse the audience to
action (if that is relevant to your talk)
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Effective Handouts
Handouts carry the rest of the information load
The supporting details that audience members can
consume at their own speed, on their own time.
No need to stuffing every detail into your slides
because you have the more appropriate medium of
printed documents to do that.
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Effective Handouts
Possibilities for good handout materials include the
following:
Complex charts and diagrams
Charts and tables that are too unwieldy for the
screen or that demand thorough analysis make
good handouts.
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Effective Handouts
Articles and technical papers
Magazine articles that supplement the information in
your presentation
Technical papers that provide in-depth coverage of
the material you’ve highlighted in your presentation
Case studies
Summaries of business case studies can make good
supplemental reading material.
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Develop Visual Aids
Creating Effective Handouts
Recommended resources
Lists of websites, blogs, and other online resources
related to your topic
For each source, provide a URL and a one- or two-
sentence summary of its content.
Copies of presentation slides
Print versions of the slides used by a speaker,
containing the speaker’s comments about each slide
and blank lines for note taking.
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Develop Visual Aids
Develop Handouts
Three major uses of handouts
1. To reinforce important information
2. To summarize action items for audience to
follow up on
3. To supply supporting data you don’t want
cluttering your visual aids
50
Develop Visual Aids
Distributing the Handouts
Timing
Nature of Content
Personal Preference
The distribution of handouts depends on their
content, the nature of your presentation, and your
personal preference.
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Develop Visual Aids
Distributing the Handouts
Timing
Before the presentation
So that the audience can take notes on them.
Risky - particularly if you’ve organized your talk with
the indirect approach
The audience can read ahead and reach the
conclusion and recommendations before you’re able
to build up to them yourself. 52
Develop Visual Aids
Distributing the Handouts
Timing
Simply advise the audience of the types of
information covered in handouts
Delay distributing anything until finished speaking
53
Develop Visual Aids
During the presentation
• Must be use carefully
• Quickly distribute and it should be to the point
• Otherwise it will cause disturbance
• Then it will be a disturbance, not an aid
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Develop Visual Aids
At the End of the presentation
• You can inform the audience that you will receive
handouts at the end of the presentation, covering
such and such points
• They will avoid taking unnecessary notes
• Decide carefully keeping in view the topic and
audience
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Review
Review Check List
For my presentation, I have:
• Analyzed the audience
• Developed position, action, benefit statement
• Brainstormed main ideas
• Stated sub-points
• Developed introduction and conclusion
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Review
Review Check List
For my presentation, I have:
• Developed slides and visuals
• Developed handouts
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Develop Visual Aids
Remember
The slides are not the messenger, just a
communication aid
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Question Answer Session
Question Answer Session
• Encourage your audience to ask questions
• Listen attentively to questions
• Prepare for questions (anticipate)
• Clarify (for complicated questions)
• Involve the whole audience in your answer (25% -
75% rule)
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Question Answer Session
Question Answer Session
• Keep answers to the point
• Dealing with hostile questions – acknowledge
feelings, respond with information
• Maintain position
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THANK YOU
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