Using visual aids. General principles

Introduction

1 .Nowadays, audiences are used to seeing visual material during almost any sort of talk or presentation. Listening isn’t easy and it helps a great deal if you have something to look at in any case, human beings tend to remember what they see more

readily than what they hear, and so audiences are grateful for the reinforcement of a

good visual aid. People also like looking at pictures – it makes a pleasant alternative

to listening- and a change in the way in which information is presented adds variety and interest to the occasion and helps them to concentrate.

For all these reasons, audiences want visual aids and most speakers provide them.

However, it should be mentioned that you can have too much of a good thing, and that includes visual aids. Visual fatigue is a recognised modern phenomenon: too many speakers either think that they can get away with lots of well-prepared visuals or they want to “entertain” their audience by showing all the many clever things that

PowerPoint can do. All-singing, all-dancing visuals are a bore: don’t try them.

The fact is that the human brain responds well to being stimulated by visual aids and feeling things as well as audio input. A mix allows better understanding, helps messages stick in the memory, grabs attention, help the audience organize their thoughts, and can clearly demonstrate a sequence. Make them big, bold and bright.

Don’t use supporting material just to be clever; only use if they improve your ability to communicate your message. Just like structure, they are an essential part of grabbing your audience’s attention and helping them to understand your message.

You are likely to be using a data projector, a smartboard or possibly an overhead projector (OHP), the last of these being in a sense “old technology” but still easy to use and transport, and so still popular among presenters. The other forms of visual information that you might need to use are handouts, posters and demonstrations. Incidentally, you may hear people refer to a presentation using computer-generated visual material and a data projector as a “PowerPoint presentation”, even if the computer package they‘re using isn’t Microsoft and so isn’t PowerPoint.

So, flowcharts are particularly good at demonstrating chronological steps.

Pie charts and bar charts are particularly effective at showing

relationships between percentages and numbers.

Models, videos, samples, photographs, drawings, brochures and

handouts all have a place.

Make sure that visual aids can be seen by everybody in room and avoid

distractions like spelling mistakes.

There is always a debate about whether to distribute handouts during a

presentation. They can generate interest from your audience, but they can

also be a distraction that causes your audience to miss the next point you

make. The rule is to dish out handouts only when the audience numbers are low enough for you to realize when you have “lost” someone Offer handouts during a presentation to an audience of eight or fewer. With more than that, leave hangouts to the end or use some other graphic.

PowerPoint, properly used, is one of the most powerful presenting aids. The problem is that it is not always used wisely. Too many of people think that PowerPoint is the presentation and this results in the audience switching off when the laptop is fired up. Excessive reliance on this tool is bad for the presenter, and a total turn-off for the audience.

Recognize that there are plenty of software programmes that offer an alternative to PowerPoint. Just search the web for these.

PowerPoint isn’t your presentation, it merely supports the key ideas.

1. Here is a list of visual aids that are usually used in presentations.

Read the words or word combinations included in the list and give the Russian equivalent.

Types of visual support	Visual
	film/video
	picture/diagram
	pie chart	Segment
	chart/table	row/column
	graph/bar graph/line graph	x axis or horizontal axis
		y axis or vertical axis
	lines (in a line graph)	solid line
		dotted line
		broken line

Equipment	(slide) projector	diapositives (Am. Eng.)
		slides (Br. Eng.)
	computer tools	Laptop
		data projector
		Monitor
		PowerPoint
		Modem
		Internet download
	overhead projector (OHP)	Slide (Am. Eng.)
		transparency (Br. Eng.)
	flip chart
	Whiteboard

Exercise 1.

Give the Russian equivalent to the following presentation tools and decide which of them are essential or non-essential to a good presentation:

a laptop …………………………………………………

a video projector ………………………………………

a DVD player and TV …………………………………….

a laser pointer ………………………………………..

a flip chart and pens …………………………………….

a blackboard and chalk ……………………………………

an overhead projector ……………………………………

a set of handouts …………………………………….

presentation software ……………………………………..

Exercise 2. Discuss the following statements.

1. Don’t put too much data on slides: no more than six lines of text, and no

more than six words per line.

2. Too many visuals confuse the audience: don’t overload them with slides.

3. Don’t be too technical: adapt to the target audience, and don’t read out

text on slides.

4. Help the audience to understand by introducing, highlighting and

explaining the most important information.

5. Check all materials and equipment, and have backups for everything.

Exercise 3. Read the text below and find:

a) eight advantages of using visual aids

b) three warnings about using visual aids

Dinckel and Parnham (1985) say that “The great danger (in using visual aids) is that presenters place the major emphasis on visual aid and relegate themselves to the minor role of narrator or technician. You are central to the presentation. The visual aids need you, your interpretation, your explanation, your conviction and your justification.

Visual aids can make information more memorable and they help the speaker. However, they must literally support what the speaker says and not simply replace the spoken information. It is also not enough to just read text from a visual aid.

There are many advantages to the correct use of visual aids. They can show information which is not easily expressed in words or they can highlight information. They cause the audience to employ another sense to receive information, they bring variety and therefore increase the audience’s attention. They save time and they clarify complex information

Advantages 1)…………………………………

2)………………………………….

3)………………………………….

4) ………………………………….

5)………………………………….

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8)…………………………………..

Warnings 1) …………………………………

2) …………………………………. .

3) ………………………………….