Designing visuals
Working on the visuals can take longer than any other part of
planning. The important thing to remember is that any aid you
use is there to help you, not to substitute for you. You are
not
a
voice-over accompanying a slide presentation; the pictures are
there to illustrate your ideas. The audience wants to see
you
: to
meet with you, assess you, ask you questions, learn about you.
They will not have the chance to do any of this if you hide behind
your visual aids.
Visual aids intrude. The moment you turn on the projector or
turn to the flipchart, the audience’s attention is on that rather
than you. A small number of excellent visual aids will have far
more impact than a large number of indifferent ones. Don’t fall
into the trap of thinking that every part of the presentation
should have an accompanying slide.
Make your visuals just that:
visual
. If you can avoid using
words, do so. How can you put the information into graphic
form? Is there a picture you can use to illustrate or suggest what
you are saying? Words are for listening to. Visual aids are for
looking at. It really is that simple.
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
128 Improve your Communication Skills
Audiences’ expectations of slides are changing. We all know that
it’s quite easy to produce slides with flashy animation. Many
people are becoming bored with endless slide shows filled with
more or less poorly designed slides. Confound your audience’s
expectations. Use the technology by all means – and then leap
away from it, galvanising your audience with your own passion
for your subject. Or be really daring, and work without any slides
at all.
Rehearsing
There is a world of difference between thinking your
presentation through and doing it. You may think you know what
you want to say, but until you say it you don’t really know. Only
by uttering it aloud can you test whether you understand what
you are saying. Rehearsal is the reality check.
Rehearsal is also a time check. Time acts oddly in
presentations. It can seem to stop, to drag and – more often than
not – to race away. The most common time problem I encounter
with trainees who are rehearsing their presentations is that they
run out of time. They are astounded when I tell them that time is
up and they have hardly finished introducing themselves! You
must
rehearse to see how long it all takes. Be aware that it will
6 × 6 × 6
If you
must
put words on your slides, they should obey this
design principle.
No more than six lines of text on any slide.
No more than six words on any one line.
The text should be visible
on a laptop screen
from a
distance of six metres. (For most fonts, this means a
minimum size of about 24pt.)
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
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