Good visual aids make presentations clearer and more memorable. Whether for a school project, a club meeting or a business presentation, following a few guidelines will help you create detailed visual aids. Many people prefer to use PowerPoint for their visual aids, but that is not always practical or desirable.
Instructions
1. Choose the information from your topic that will make the strongest impression. Pick something interesting, unusual or complex.
2. Decide on the visual form for your information. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially if you are trying to describe something your audience has never seen before. Diagrams, maps, graphs and charts are all excellent visual aids. (A list of bullet points is not a visual aid.)
3. Make it big. It isn't helpful if only the first row can see your visual aid. You can use an overhead projector to help turn a small image into a big, beautiful visual. Use simple shapes and lines and only include essential details.
4. Make it colorful. Two or three colors make visual aids more interesting to look at. Depending on the subject matter, anything from two to six colors is considered attention-getting; more than that can get distracting.
5. Make it easy to display. Create your visual aid on, or attach it to, a rigid surface, such as foamcore. Consider ways to make it freestanding, unless you are sure of having an easel. You can make a support for any rigid, flat display by cutting two long, thin triangles from the the same rigid material and taping them vertically to the back of the panel, the short end flush with the bottom edge.
6. Consider using some authentic objects. For example, place a sombrero and maracas on a small table in front of the podium when talking about mariachi music. Real objects can be impressive attention-grabbers, but consider also if they are fragile, valuable or too big or small to be used.
Tags: visual aids, visual aids, your visual
