It takes a lot of courage to stand center stage with hundreds of eyes focused on you and pleasing an audience under such circumstances can be one intimidating task! One effective tool to keep them keen on what is being said is to support those words with visual aids.
Visual aid involves the use of visuals like PowerPoint, graphs, diagrams, pictures, paintings etc., that are relevant to the subject that is being discussed/studied.
Popular Types of Visual Aids
There is never a shortage of visuals to lay relevant emphasis on the speech. But the three most popular types of visual aids are PowerPoint Presentations, props and videos.
PowerPoint Presentations are a great way to display precise information with the use of tools like appropriate animations, photography, creative diagrams etc. to engage the audience till the very end.
Props such as miniature models are a great way to feed the curiosity of those who crave for the real deal and not just words. It is for instance a great way to propose an architectural project before a panel to show them the exact creativity on your mind.
Good quality motion videos are another way to please the audience. Since there is a story to every video, it keeps the audience interested.
Benefits of Visual Aids
Visual aids simplify the processes of educating, demonstrating, marketing and the like to be appealing to the audiences and be well understood. The benefits of visual aids are absolutely impeccable!
Visuals perform the associative function by stimulating thinking. An image for instance allows the brain to establish a link between itself and what is being explained about it. Because of the visual the explanation makes more sense and is hence better identified. In case of kids, they may not understand an apple with explanation but will get it when the apple is actually shown.
Next is the recall function. Because of the associative identification it is easy to retain and recall any information. Like the child will now be able to spot the apple among various fruits because he now understands the relation between the name and the fruit.
Visual aids also allow you to create appropriate emphasis. Use of an interesting animation in a children’s presentation is sure to grab more attention than the rest of the presentation.
These visuals also act as an interactive tool to break monotony that can otherwise be dangerous for you may lose the audience’s attention.
Benefits of visual aids are way many beyond these too. These seem like a reason good enough to be incorporate as a tool to successfully deliver a speech, project proposal or presentation for any purpose!
