Make Visuals Meaningful

Visuals must be meaningful towards the point you want to make. Easily pictures can be confusing or distracting your audience.

I see that a lot. Images and photos are a kind or decoration for your slide. Something to make your slides more attractive.

I argue that visuals play an important part in your presentation and that images and pictures do not serve the purpose to make your slide more attractive.

They purpose is to get your point across and to convey your message more meaningful.

Now with that being said, it is the challenge to find the appropriate images for your presentation.

My rule is one visual per slide and one slide per point. Now, a visual doesn’t mean that there can’t be more than one image on the slide.

Here are some suggestions:

If you want to use an metaphor or other stylistic device to portrait your point, there might be one photo or image that brings exactly this across. Blow that image up fullscreen to capture your audience in the feeling.

If you want to show any kind of process or organizational chart, use multiple graphics and build the as you talk about them. Too many boxes and arrows at the same time can be very confusing and the audience might get lost.

If you used to have 3 bullet points on your slide supporting an argument you were making, you can use a visual for each point and give it a short and meaningful caption.

There are many more examples and I will mention it when they come up in future posts.