Preparing Effective Visuals

by Peter and Cheryl Reimold

Good visuals can strengthen your presentation tremendously, but unfortunately, they’re rare. The keys to good visuals are to make them:

1. Few and to the point
2. Big, so they’re easy to see
3. Simple, so they’re easy to understand

To these, add one more principle: Make the important visuals memorable so your key ideas stay with the audience long after the talk.

Be Selective: Know Your Purpose

People often ask us how many visuals they should use per minute of speech. They are usually disappointed with our answer: No more than you really need. There is no magical number; the true criterion is that each visual must have a clear purpose.

There are only a few legitimate purposes for visuals. They can:

• Get a difficult technical point across — say, with a flow diagram or line chart

• Make a process or concept more concrete with an example

• Make a key point easier to remember through a strong symbolic image

• Make the structure of your talk more transparent by listing the major points to be covered

• Provide a prompt for yourself so you don’t forget the next point

The last purpose is the least legitimate; yet in many presentations, it seems the only reason for most of the visuals. Imagine writing every word of your presentation on transparencies and just reading the whole speech off the screen. The more overheads you use as prompts, the closer you get to this absurd extreme.

Decide exactly how you will use each visual. If it doesn’t serve a legitimate purpose, throw it out. Sometimes, you’ll end up with just three or four visuals. That’s fine. Many presentations can be improved dramatically by omitting half the visuals. For one thing, it encourages you to talk to people, rather than hide behind your visuals.

Choosing the Right Chart Type

Your material usually suggests a certain range of chart types,  but within that range, you can have many choices. The most overused chart type is undoubtedly the word chart; the most inappropriate, the numerical table. Correcting your habits in these areas alone may improve your presentation dramatically without much effort.

Major Chart Types and Their Uses in Presentations

Make Text Big and Bold: The 18-Point Rule

Audience members complain most often about unreadable charts. Is there a simple guideline for avoiding this problem? Yes: make typed text bold and at least 18 points. Anything smaller will be hard to read from the back of the room. Also, when creating bullet charts, use short phrases rather than full sentences. After all, you don’t want to turn your presentation into a speed-reading exercise, or insult your audience by reading verbatim what’s on the screen.

Keep It Simple and Easy to Process: The Three-Second Rule

As much as possible, avoid competing with your visuals for the audience’s attention. Anything that takes them away for more than three seconds constitutes destructive competition. Here is the “three-second rule” for you to remember: if viewers can’t get the main point of the visual in three seconds, revise the visual.

You can accomplish this revision in several ways:

• Cut out all clutter, such as unnecessary grids, numbers and details

• Include only what you need to make your point

• In most cases, replace numerical tables with other types of charts, such as bar or line charts, which show relationships visually

• On line charts, label lines directly instead of forcing your audience to flip between line and legend

Using Symbolic Images as Layout Elements

On the simplest level, symbolic images can serve as a basis for a layout that avoids the standard bullet format. The chart is still a basic list, but its character is disguised to give the audience a break from the tedium of bullets.

This standard bullet chart, for example, will probably wash right over your audience:

The same content arranged around a star symbol that expresses the speaker’s “star presence” will get much more attention.

Using Symbolization To Produce Memorable Visuals

Symbolization is the skill of finding symbolic images for the concepts you want to express. For instance, we wanted to illustrate the idea that the key to powerful delivery is connection with the audience. A natural image for connection was that of a plug connected to an extension cord so that power could flow. It was simply a matter of asking: Where do power connections occur? In the realm of everyday household objects, plugs and extension cords immediately offered themselves. Furthermore, the cliché “plugged in” seemed ready-made for the purpose, leading to the symbolic chart below:

This is one situation in which clichés can actually be useful. Here are some examples to get your thinking going:

A Caveat

By definition, a memorable visual draws attention to itself — and therefore away from you. Isn’t that just the sort of competition we urged you to avoid? Yes, and that’s why you should be careful not to overdo it. Besides losing your audience to your graphics, you risk getting a reputation as someone who likes to play on the computer instead of working on real problems. Consider a special visual only for your main message or the most important key point — and even then only if the ideas naturally lend themselves to strong symbolic representation. In other words, build the skill, but use it sparingly.

 

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Cheryl and Peter Reimold have taught communication skills to engineers, scientists, and businesspeople for 18 years. Visit their new educational web site at www.allaboutcommunication.com.

This article was excerpted from The Short Road to Great Presentations, by Peter and Cheryl Reimold. It is available from Wiley-IEEE Press (2003); price: $33.95 members, $39.95 non-members.