by The Open University
Available in 42 free installments
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Visuals must be big enough for everyone to see ? the slide must occupy the whole of the screen; the slides must be clear enough and big enough for someone at the back-right corner to see. Prepared slides, flip charts or transparencies always seem big enough to you, when you are up close, preparing them: they have an unfortunate habit of ?shrinking? to the illegible or even invisible when viewed by your audience, even in a fairly small room. If you can, sit where the audience will to check how it feels to be one of ?them?, to see if there are any impeded views, and to make sure any screen, flip chart or ?props? can be seen.
Be careful using pointers ? while it is always better to use some kind of pointer than just your hand or your finger, it does tend to accentuate any movement in your hand, so if you are nervous it may show more. An old telescopic radio aerial is ideal as a pointer, since it can be extended to reach quite large distances and then contracted when you don't need it, but if you are nervous the end will tend to flutter.
Don't leave visuals up too long ? visuals left up after they have ceased to be relevant to what you are talking about are distracting.
Be prepared for your machinery ? when using any machinery such as a video or audio player, overhead projector, slide projector or 16mm film, do ensure that there are adequate reachable power points that can be used safely. Tripping over an extension lead is the last thing you'll want to do during your presentation. In addition, make sure that you have access to spares such as fuses for power plugs, lamps for projectors, and batteries for audio machines, cassette players, etc.
Always be prepared for disaster ? however well prepared you are, things can, and frequently do, go wrong. What will you do if the OHP bulb blows? If the video-tape breaks? If you open the box and find the wrong video? If the Velcro cards won't stick to their flannel board? What if the experiment doesn't work? Or if the felt-tip pen dries up? Or your lap-top crashes?
And as we have listed in point 2, you should have some back-up plans. If your lap-top doesn't work, do you have hard copies of the slides in case everything else fails?
Since many presentations include the same types of things, we've come up with a list of recommendations that you can follow when preparing your visual aids. We include advice about:
fonts
the written word
colours
graphics and charts
slides and transparencies.
You have only a few seconds to make your impression, so your initial visual should aim to hook your viewers as quickly as possible. It only takes four or five seconds to scan a well-prepared visual aid and digest the material ? after that, it's your job as the presenter to illuminate them by adding more information or giving examples which facilitate understanding of your expert topic.
When using written words, you can shorten your sentences to phrases, key words or critical messages. Use a font which is large enough to see in all parts of the audience (say 32 to 44 point size for title slides, and down to 26 for sub-titles, but certainly not smaller). These sizes may seem huge but when projected letters lose some definition so it's better to be too big than too small. You will know when the font size is right if you can read your slides from your computer screen after you have pushed your chair about 2 metres away (assuming you have the slide on the screen in its normally viewed 100 per cent size state). If you go further back and can still see them, even better.
Font types that are simple and plain work well, especially when used in a bold manner, whereas more complicated, fancy (or embellished such as serif) script types tend to be misread. Italics and underscoring can also be a problem for some fonts, so be aware of this. In some cases, if you are using a software
