Visual Support - Aids & MaterialsHow Using Visual Support Aids Can Make Or Break Your Presentation Getting to grips with visual support aids for your presentation or speech, can be the making of a very GOOD and memorable speech. On the other hand if you get this part wrong, can be the making of a very BAD and memorable speech. This article about 'visual support' is the final part of the article extracted from an original article by Canadian-born Suzan St Maur, who is an international business writerand author based in the United Kingdom. Visual Support AidsOne issue which isn't strictly about writing but certainly is about content, is visual support. There is nothing, but nothing, worse than a speaker who gets up and gives a long, droning talk around a set of hideously complicated slides full of figures and charts that no-one understands and only half the audience can see, because the words and numbers are very small and crowded together. These are the same people who will start each link with "and on the next slide you'll see..." and at the time I'm writing this, these people often refuse electronic speaker support and cause previously normal conference producers to froth at the mouth, because they insist on using overhead projector slides. Because their visual quality is so poor, overhead projectors are the curse of the conference production industry and although they were probably invented before the Industrial Revolution they are still worshipped by many speakers, particularly academics who love to slap blank slides on the lightbox and scribble things on them with marker pens. There are a few other useful points to remember about support material too. You should use slides as a complement to, not a repetition of, what you say. The right visual support can increase the audience's retention of your content by at least 50%, so what's the point of using slides that say exactly the same thing as you do? Word slides are useful to summarize the points you are making, and also to add information to your points. Column, bar and pie charts do not have to contain lots of figures and so are useful to illustrate quantities and proportion. Written figures tend to break up on even the best quality screens and are hard to see from the back rows. The columns, bars or pieces of pie, however, serve to give a tangible dimension to the figures you're talking about. Long sequences of similar slides become mesmerising and lose the audience's attention. If you absolutely have to go through a large number of figures or computations then it's best to break the sequence up every few slides with something different, even if it's only a plain company logo. Try not to refer to your slides in your speech, because it looks amateurish and in any case should be unnecessary. The slides should speak for themselves. Also, you should try to avoid looking at the slides for the same reason, but that can be tricky sometimes when you're cueing them yourself, or if you're not using a script. Rehearse, rehearseI don't want to be depressing, but once you've finished all the hard work of preparing your material, writing your speech and (if relevant) organising your visual support, you then get down to the really hard work - rehearsing. You've got to practise, practise, practise. Not too soon before the event, or you'll be so stale and fed up with the speech you'll lose interest. But don't wait until the night before, either. Memorize the speech as well as you can, but don't worry if you forget the odd "and" or "but." If you say "er" and hesitate slightly now and again, it will make your speech sound more natural. What you must memorize perfectly is the content, and the order. Then on the day, you will use your script or bullet points as a reminder - not as an essential element that you would be desperate without. All that rehearsal - in the shower, in the car, to your family or if they don't appreciate your oratory, even to your dog - will pay off because you will be confident a) that your material is good and b) that you know it well. If you're giving your presentation in a large conference environment you may find yourself working with a show crew and a very sophisticated set and equipment. Novice speakers can feel daunted by all this stuff but what you must always remember is that it's there to make your job easier, not harder. Many times my elbows have been clutched nervously by speakers who've just caught their first glimpse of a teleprompting device, only to find that the next day when they've used it they wonder how they ever managed without one. I won't go into how to use a teleprompter here because it's a bit complex and in any case, when you rehearse your presentation one of the show crew will teach you how it works. All I will say is that teleprompters are wonderful, because they free you to deliver your performance without having to worry about anything at all - your whole speech, or your bullet points, are always in the right place without you having to do anything. And provided that you don't wander "off script" and start ad libbing with no warning, your visual support material will be cued by someone else too. All you do, is be the star. Any further tips? Oh yes, cue cards.I know they're low tech, but the places where you may have to speak are not always going to be state-of-the-art theatres, so they're useful. Two very, very important things to remember. One, always get two sets made, not just one. Keep them in separate places - e.g. one in your pocket and one in your car - so if one set gets lost you know you've got another handy. And two, ensure that both sets are irrevocably tied together in correct order via a securing device looped through a hole in the corner of each card. That way you can turn the cards over as they're used, but should you drop them you won't have to fumble around trying to pick them up and re-order them. The securing device does not have to be sophisticated, as long as it's strong. I once confounded the CEO of a major European telecomms company who, fortunately for me, was an engineer by trade, when I showed him the high-tech fasteners I'd used on his cue cards. "Good stuff," he said, "they work well. Can my secretary get these at a stationery store?" "No," I replied, "from your local car dealer's workshop. They're wiring loom clips." Canadian-born Suzan St Maur is an international business writer and author based in the United Kingdom. In addition to her consultancy work for clients in Europe, the USA, Canada and Australia, she contributes articles to more than 150 business websites and publications worldwide, and has written eleven published books. Her latest eBooks, "The MAMBA Way To Make Your Words Sell" and "Get Yourself Published" and available as PDF downloads from BookShaker.com To subscribe to her free biweekly business writing tips eZine, TIPZ from SUZE, click here © Suzan St Maur You are here: Visual Support Return to Your Career Change home page. Also In This Section:Public Speaking | Tips For Public Speaking | Making A Speech | Interview Presentation Skills | Public Speaking Presentation | Speech Writing Skills | Public Speaking Humor | Speak Like Barack Obama | Visual Support AidsYou can also search this site for more about visual support for your presentation, or the whole of the web from here.     
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