In the last lesson, we talked about ways to make our message sticky. Think of that lesson as the text of what we're going to say. In this lesson, we're going to talk about what the audience should see on the screen. Can you believe we're now at that fifth lesson, and only Now are we opening up PowerPoint to create slides. What they should not see is the text you were reading. This is the fastest way to disengage your audience.
If you intend your audience to read your slides in advance of the presentation, you will obviously have more text along the lines you see here. But when it comes to making the actual oral presentation, you will need to create a different set of slides. text on the slide presented should be sparse so as to not ask your audience to both listen to you and read a slide at the same time. In this lesson, we're going to talk about the visual effects of your presentation. A page full of numbers can easily get ignored, misinterpreted or just stress the brain Oh too much trouble. Pay attention.
But what if instead we brought life to those numbers by turning them into a graph and build a story around it? Better yet? What if we could add an image? There's an old adage that picture is worth 1000 words. In fact, research has proven that the adage actually understates the effectiveness of images. Images are estimated to be 60,000 times more memorable than words alone.
60,000 Times holy crap Batman. Dr. Richard Mayer is one such researcher looking at this phenomena. His multimedia principle basically says that an audience understands the message better when both words and pictures are used rather than just words alone. Don't think of pictures in a narrow sense of a photograph. It could also be charts and graphs and flow diagrams, etc. The reason that visuals are so powerful in a presentation is because pictures get processed and stored in different parts of our brain from the words which gives the brain a far deeper and meaningful experience.
Having strong visuals reinforce our message helps us to feel the emotion behind the facts. Keep in mind this quote, people will forget what you said people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Mayor also pioneered the modality and redundancy principle. These principles say that audience comprehension improves when we speak words rather than display them as text for the audience to read. And instead of reading words, presenters should speak to various points instead. For example, take this quote, accounting is the language of business.
Putting the words on the screen put the idea in our minds and leaves the presenter free to expand on the idea further, choose these words carefully and minimize the length of these statements so as to not distract from the speaker's words. It's a myth that our brains can multitask effectively. So keep in mind that when our audience is paying attention to our slides. They're not paying attention to us while we're speaking. So avoid having so much text or such a complex diagram that our audience is distracted by the visual aid. Just about any message you have can be converted into a visual ideas can be reinforced by images.
Numbers can be reinforced by graphs. historical events can be converted to timelines. performance can be represented by arrows, traffic lights, axes, and checkmarks processes can be converted to a conceptual model. Choose the best visual to support your message. Be sure to incorporate a headline using a few words that reinforce the story. If you have a complex diagram, consider having the diagram build using some of the animation features inside PowerPoint This allows you to hold your audience's hand and give them a guided tour of your message.
However, I would suggest avoiding distracting animations where text or graphics swirl and spin as they come onto the screen. Most times the appear animation works just fine. PowerPoint is full of features that can help you build compelling presentation visual aids. Let's look at seven best practices to help you build your PowerPoint presentation. First, ensure a minimum font size of 30 and use consistent fonts throughout your presentation. Second, use clear concise phrases and not full sentences.
Third, a mismatch of Clippard erodes your professionalism. You are far better to use stock photography or even your own drawings to give the presentation a consistent look and feel. Be sure that whatever images you use, you blend them with your background which is more Like using a white canvas and images with a wider clear background. Fourth, have no more than one idea per slide. Fifth, if you're showing a bullet list of text on the slide, have each bullet appears you're speaking to it, rather than displaying the full list at once. Next, limit your digits to three, and no more than five.
The more digits you include, the more detailed the information you are subconsciously conveying. Most times you are neither prepared or proposing to have discussions that deal with dollars and cents. So round your digits to the level of which you want your audience to think about the numbers. Finally, if you can avoid using your fancy corporate templates, I know that marketing people are going to have a condition. Having your corporate template on the first and the last slide is just fine. But is it really necessary to have your logo on every one of your slides.
Personally, I prefer Using a plain background for each slide, and then building the visuals using a blank canvas. I don't want anything on there that dilutes my message. In this lesson we discussed making your presentation visual using tools such as PowerPoint. Keep in mind the following three points whenever possible convert text on a screen to a visual aid to supersize audience engagement and retention of your message. Second, use words judiciously as headlines or catchphrases you want the audience to remember and third, incorporate PowerPoint best practices for slide development. Your slides should be clean, clear and professional.
Using visual aids to support your presentation can greatly elevate the effectiveness of your presentation. However, if it's done poorly, it can also destroy it. In our next lesson, we're going to close off our presentation. Until then, I'm Blair cook