The secret to great presentation visuals
You may have heard the advice to use visuals in a presentation, but how?
Here are the most common mistakes I have found when helping speakers prepare for a big presentation:
Visuals as a cover-up - Visuals can’t cover for the fact that a presenter hasn’t practiced, or when they’re being used to jog the speaker’s memory about what to say next or to fill time for not having enough to say.
Dominating visuals – Are you adding more slides to your deck just because you have more to say, and not thinking about what the audience needs to hear? Is your screen in the middle of the stage, instead of you? Let’s keep the focus on you, the presenter.
Distracting visuals - If I’m trying to read or understand a slide, I’m not listening to the presenter – this includes multiple fonts, crowded slides, or unrelated data, etc. Be ruthless about removing distractions.
Inappropriate visuals - Photos or cartoons illustrate concepts. Flowcharts show processes. Bar charts illustrate differences. Line graphs show trends. Understand what your visual language is saying.
Talking to visuals - When you read from your slides, you’re turning your back to your audience. Body language communicates too!
Crowded visuals - Visuals should be used to communicate, which most often means simplifying. Example: Instead of showing a dense table of data, bold what you want the audience to focus on, and say, “as you can see with the bolded numbers…”
Fancy visuals - Cut the silly transitions. No one wants to watch every letter fly into your bullets.
Here’s a secret.
You don’t need to think in terms of “presentation tips” or “things to avoid” if you first define your goal, audience, and message.
Then, every decision about what to do, include, or say will be more clear.
Ask of every presentation element: why is this here?
