What are Visual Aids?
Visual aids, such as PowerPoint slides or printed handouts, offer structure for your presentation and help the audience follow your main points. Visual aids may include bulleted lists or outline, charts or figures, or images that show important details that would take time to explain orally. Use visual aids to complement, rather than to compete with, your presentation. If the slides or handouts are not necessary or helpful, don't make them.
Presentation Slides
Digital presentation slides can be an excellent way to communicate information to your audience during a presentation. Remember the slides are an aid for your audience, not for you. Before preparing your slides, ask yourself: What part of my presentation needs visual aids? Will visual aids help my audience understand me better, or not?
Slides are visual aids, so try to use images and graphics where possible, instead of text. While keywords and phrases can be helpful to anchor points, images, figures, graphs, tables, flow charts, etc. help convey ideas that are challenging to communicate. Your audience cannot read text-heavy slides while also listening to you. Think of it this way: slides filled with text do not really need a presenter, because the audience can read them themselves! Similarly, never read the exact words from slides that you present. The audience is there to hear you present to them, not ready to them.
For more information on creating presentation slides, explore our Using Creating Effective Presentation Slides guide.
Poster Presentations
Posters a triple-threat! They allow for information to be presented using text, visuals, and through an oral presentation! You may need to create a printed or digital for a course or a conference. Posters differ from a standard oral presentation with slides because posters can, and should, stand on their own. You may not always be in front of your poster when it is being shared. your poster should have enough information so that your audience can understand your project/research without you present. It should engage them to ask you questions about the project. When you are beside your poster, your job is to summarize its information and provide additional information by engaging in conversation with your audience.
For more information on creating posters, explore our Creating Poster Presentations guide.
Virtual Presentations
Today, it is not uncommon to present your work virtually. Many courses and conferences are offered remotely and require you to present using a video conferencing platform such as Zoom, MicroSoft Teams, or others. Here are five things to consider for your virtual presentations:
- Prep your Tech - Make sure you have a stable internet connection, have the required program installed, and are familiar with its features (i.e. how to connect your headphones, microphone, camera, share your screen, silence on-screen notifications, etc.) Being prepared helps you appear professional and reduces pre-presentation stress.
- Set-up your Space - You want to be in a space free of background noise or distractions. if possible, use a space where you are alone to limit background noise and movement. If not, consider what your background looks like. You want the audience to focus on you, rather than try to figure out what's going on behind you. Use a virtual or blurred background, if needed.
- Be mindful of your Look and Sound - Similar to presenting in-person, consider your stance, pace, and tone. We are often seated for virtual presentations. Get comfortable presenting while seated or adapt a standing set-up if you prefer it. Keep in mind that you do not need to project your voice to the same volume that you would use in-person because you will be speaking into a microphone. You will also want to maintain a steady pace to account for any lag between your voice and visual aids due to poor internet connections. Try recording yourself to get a sense of what you look and sound like to others.
- Know where to Look - On a video call, we tend to look at ourselves rather than others. While you cannot make eye contact with your audience in-person, you want to ensure you are still presenting to them. Try to look at your camera, rather than your visual aids or yourself. If it is helpful, set up your screen so that your video frame, the video frame of a person you want to look at, or your shared visual aid is positioned near your camera. By doing so, you can look directly at the screen and appear as if you are looking directly into the camera.
- Present, don't read! - In a virtual presentation, the audience cannot see if you have notes on your screen, but they can tell when you are reading at them, rather than presenting to them. Reading from an on-screen script is obvious to the audience based on your eye movement and tone. Avoid reading directly from a script or notes. Give the presentation as independently as possible to keep your audience engaged.