The visuals used in presentation are for facilitating the understanding of the audience, and not for attempting to win prizes in abstract modern art.
Ask this questions to yourself before you choose a picture to show your audience: "Will this visual make it easier for my audience to understand and enjoy my talk?"
Please refer my earlier blog:
“Seven Considerations for choosing visuals to enhance your presentation skills”.
The guidelines enumerated below will asset you in creating effective visuals in your presentation
1. Use readable consistent type face
A variety of exciting and appropriate type faces are available, but beware of mixing more than two different types. This may distract your audience from the main message you want them to leave with.
2. Limit to a few phrases on a slide
Do not put too many points on a slide; it causes the visual to become difficult to read and boring to look at.
3. Emphasize points by using color and art
Use color and art for emphasis. However consistency in maintaining a definite color or combination of colors along with art, should be maintained. It should never happen that in each slide, you are using a different color or art or a combination of colors and art
4. Use phrases not sentence
Shorten everything to phrases. Following example illustrate this point
5.Number the phrases
Number the phrases listed by you, so that it is easier for the people to follow. For example, standing away from a visual, you may say things such as “As you can see, with respect to point 3, we need to…..”
6. Put a caption or heading on each visual
It is easier for the people to follow the presentation if you have heading on each visual. This should also be borne in mind in one heading, only the things related to that topic should be given.
7. Use pictures, or charts, or graphs
These are much more interesting than normal text.Remember, a well designed chart or graph can be used most effectively in place of text.
For more information, you may contact Ripples Learning in Bangalore, who are pioneers in a variety of soft skills development programs on presentation skills, communication skills,team building etc.