Visual aids for a speech are important to help your audience comprehend what you are talking about. We have all had the experience of watching a demonstration speech that is long and convoluted. Without the assistance of visual aids, it is even more difficult to follow.
To make your demonstration simple, comprehensive, and engaging for your audience, you need to use visual aids in your presentation. To help you deliver the best presentation we will be examining everything from the benefits of visual aids to how to make them stand out.
In this post we will be covering the following topics:
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- Visual aid meaning
- Visual aid benefits
- Visual aid speech topics
- Preparing your presentation
Visual aid meaning
What exactly is a visual aid? A visual aid is a visual medium to support your speech and make it easy for the audience to process what you’re saying.
Here are some visual aid presentation examples:
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- Photographs as part of a slideshow. Photos of what you are speaking about take away the audience’s need to use their imagination, when they can instantly visualise it.
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- Videos as part of your presentation. A pre-recorded video demonstrating how to use a product or how to perform something is far more convenient and clear than having to demonstrate it live in a demonstration speech – and removes the possibility of something going wrong!
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- Infographics. According to Forbes, infographics are a highly engaging method for presenting your content to your target audience. The combination of text and data showed visually in graphs and charts makes it easy for your audience to understand.
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- Handouts: Handouts with photos or infographics can make it easy for your audience to follow along.
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- Whiteboards/ interactive whiteboards: Using a whiteboard can be useful if you are brainstorming with your audience as part of your speech or drawing to show how something works.
Visual aid benefits
Visual aids are extremely beneficial to presenters for many reasons. Good visual aids will:
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- Make your presentation more concise
- Save your preparation time in your speech
- Make your presentation more engaging
- Make your presentation more comprehensive
- M the content of your speech more memorable
- Support your credibility
Visual aid speech topics
Visual aids can and should be used for any presentation as they help to improve the clarity of your speech, and they make you a more effective speaker. Visual aids can be used as part of many speeches; for example:
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- Demonstrations
- Educational presentations
- Corporate seminars
- Training sessions
- Sales pitches
- Motivational speeches
- Entertaining speeches
Preparing your presentation
The process of preparing your presentation will be much easier if you are using visual aids, but there are some ideas you should come up with so that they suit your presentation well. How can the visual aid best support your message?
A video demonstration, for example, is perfect for demonstration speeches as you can record and edit the video in advance. This saves the need for you to rehearse and perform a live demonstration. The professionalism implied by a video demonstration also enhances your credibility.
Other parts of your presentation may benefit from photographs and infographics. If you are presenting data to your audience, be sure to use graphs and charts.
Once you have written a visual aid speech outline, you can integrate them into the presentation. Make sure your visual aid is coordinated with your speech and ensure that the speech is correctly timed, to avoid confusing the audience.
If you’re using a PowerPoint presentation, keep text to a minimum on slides. Too much text is unnecessary as it will detract from what you’re saying. You don’t need a verbatim script. Just summarise what you are saying in a few bullet-pointed statements. Using visual aids to support your message is perfect.
Pro tip: The more text you have on a slide, the more your audience will read the slide instead of paying attention to you, and miss what you are saying.
On slides with visual aids, stick to one at a time and avoid cluttering it with text as this can be distracting. One key point per visual aid is fine.
Your visual aids should be clear and high-quality. If you are using a video make sure it is high-resolution and well-edited.
The visual presentation should be consistent and attractive. Make sure you use the same layout, colours, and font throughout your presentation.
Once you have prepared your presentation, practice makes perfect! Doing a run-through with some friends or work colleagues acting as your audience is helpful as they can give you some feedback on your speech. They will also be able to tell you whether the visual aids were visible and well-used.
Now that you know everything you need to know about visual aids, you are on the way to delivering the best demonstration speech ever!
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