Designing Presentation Visuals
Media Services, Robert A. L. Mortvedt Library
Pacific Lutheran University
The URL for this file is: `http://www.plu.edu/~libr/media/designing_visuals.html`

Think of Your Listeners

Listening is much more difficult than reading
- "Listeners" listen somewhere between 25% and 50% of the time
Information must be taken in "on the fly" with no backtracking
- Short-term memory holds only 5 to 7 points
- People remember only 10% of what they hear versus 50% of what they read
If your audience only listens only part of the time and remembers only 10% of what they hear, then your "window" of communication is around 2.5% to 5.0% of your total presentation time!

Therefore:

Pity your poor listeners!
Do everything you can to help your listeners
to listen and remember.

Organize - provide structure and framework for the data you will present
- provide a "jigsaw puzzle boxtop" for listeners to organize and reconstruct your verbal message
- list points to be covered and provide a "road map" of how you will get there
Illustrate - help listeners to visualize - convert data to information
- paint a picture
- tell a story
- make comparisons
Repeat - improve audience reception of data
- remember that "listeners" listen only 25 to 50% of the time
- repetition often suggests importance

Support your communication objective
Enhance your verbal message, not detract from it
Set tone and emotional content of verbal message with the use of colors and images

Visible - You have to be able to see it to believe it
- Visuals should be legible to most distant viewer
  - Minimum legibility standards: one inch letter height on screen per 30 feet viewing distance
  - Data needed for legibility calculation
    - Screen width
    - Distance from projector to screen
    - Lens rating of projector (in inches)
    - Distance of most distant viewer from screen
- Typewritten copy will not be visible!
  - Enlarge it on copy machine
  - Use 18 point type or larger when laying out transparencies on a computer
- Limit number of words per line
  - 3 to 4 per line optimal
  - 6 to 7 maximum
- Limit number of lines per visual
  - Less than 10 per transparency
Clear - Instantly recognizable in context to your verbal message
- Focus on one idea per visual
  - Avoid too much primary information
  - Use color to focus on key information
- Directly relate to communication objective
- Complement verbal message
  - Add impact or tone to message
  - Provide overview or "whole picture"
Simple
- Eliminate extraneous information and clutter
- Visually simplify using design, color, or overlays

Combine both left and right brain sensory channels
- Left brain: words, sentences, symbols
- Right brain: graphs, charts, symbols, pictures, etc.
Add color for emphasis, but beware of color connotations
Use movement with transparency pens, overlays, slide dissolves, etc.
Change backgrounds to change pace or introduce new topic
Change sequence of eye scanning (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) with design

Media Services Telephone: (253) 535-7509 FAX:: (253) 535-7315
Media Services E-Mail: media@plu.edu Home Page: http://www.plu.edu/~media
Maintained by: Layne Nordgren (nordgrle@plu.edu). Send comments.
Last Update: 09/23/96

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