Visuals - Flip Charts

B.O.B. was looking for guidelines for how big visual aids should be for a small audience of about 20 - 25 people? I will be using several visual aids on a flip-chart and want to make sure the graphics and text is the appropriate size. The thread was Visual Aids and ran in December 2005

Rod advised:
It depends on distance rather than audience numbers, and it's not a matter of size alone - thickness, colour, contrast, and lighting intensity are also important factors. Not all members of your audience will have equal visual acuity.

Red/green colour blindness is the most common, so try to avoid combinations where confusion of these colours might cause problems.

Remember, you're presenting a speech and not administering an eyesight test!

With an audience of 25, the distance from your flipchart to the back of the audience is likely to be around eight metres (25 feet). For this arrangement, my recommendation is to use a character height of at least 40mm (an inch and a half). Avoid thin point markers. Make it easy for your audience to see and understand your visual aids.

For graphics, make sure that the important features are clearly illustrated and avoid non-essential detail. Visuals are support for your message - they're not the message itself. You can explain detail. For example, on a graph, label an axis with a large 'P' rather than the word 'Price'.

Keep each visual simple. Rather use a larger number of visuals with less information on each. Use different colours to differentiate ideas, items on lists, etc.

You can check the effect by looking at your flipchart under incandescent lighting from a distance of eight metres. Fluorescent lighting is closer to daylight and doesn't have the same effect on colours as incandescent lighting. Colours at the red end of the spectrum (reds, oranges, and yellows) sometimes become difficult to read. If you can't read your text easily and instantly, change size, boldness, and/or colour.

Once you've planned your size and chosen your markers, if you need to go 'live' on your visuals, set out your chart in feint pencil on the chart beforehand. It's then a simple matter to write boldly over the pencilled letters (which are invisible to your audience).

Rick added:
Standard fluorescent lights are just as different from sun light as incandescent. Incandescent lights are heavy in the red end of the spectrum and light on the blues. Fluorescent lights are the opposite. Warm fluorescent lights have more reds (but they aren't as energy efficient). Full spectrum fluorescent lights do a good job of imitating the sun.

I haven't seen any problem seeing reds and oranges if they are dark enough. (Dark yellow is brown.) Printed material under fluorescent lights could be had to read because they don't have a lot of red component. Actually, the human eye can see the least detail in the blue range because we have the fewest blue receptors in our eyes. However if this is causing a problem with your graphics, reread Rod's paragraph on simple and bold.

From the 1984 edition of the _Technical_Presentations_ manual, the Supplement says, text should be half (13 mm) and inch for every 10' (3 m) away the back row is. It also suggest no more than three colors except for pictures. It suggests limiting text to seven lines of seven words.

John F suggested if you have a marker that has a short edge and a long edge, use the long edge for writing as this will produce thicker lines that are easier to read.

Joy warned never, never use yellow or other pastel colors. They can't be read more than a few feet away.



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Project 8: Visual Aids - technology

Visuals are more than gestures and PowerPoint.
To check out postings on either of these, use the labels below. You may also want to check out other references to Handouts and Flipcharts.

In July 2006 there was a discussion on vsual aids entitled Speech or Presentation.

Where technology is involved, Rod recalled one of the more valuable lessons concerning preparation. Ask yourself what are the things that can go wrong, and what will you do under each set of circumstances. Power failures, computer system failures, microphone failures, all kinds of equipment failure, noisy environments, minor flooding, contaminated food giving everyone 'the runs' during the afternoon sessions, VIPs arriving late or not showing up...

Many of these things may never happen, but knowing what you would do if they did provides a lot of confidence.

I didn't realise I was learning this lesson at the time (I was only 11 years old), but I was given a splendid example of this at a Scout camp. Patrick Moore, the astronomer, was coming to talk to us about the stars. Being in England, it was cloudy and wet and no stars were visible. We went into the barn, where Patrick told us that he's show us some slides of the stars. After the third slide, the projector lamp failed. Fifty years ago this entailed dismantling the projector to fit a new one, but Patrick had both a spare and the tools to change the lamp. About 10 minutes later, there was a huge lightning strike and all the power went off. Patrick produced a torch and a couple of candles. Our Scout leaders found some more candles, and Patrick held 30 small boys absolutely fascinated as he spoke to us about the stars. Even after all these years, I can still relive the experience. I thought I had only learnt something about the stars that evening. It took at least 20 years for me to realise that I'd learnt more than that.

The light output of the projector should be a function of image size (usually measured on the diagonal). It's also very strongly influenced by ambient light levels. If the lights can be dimmed in the conference room, well and good, but this often causes the speaker to disappear into the shadows if the projector lacks the necessary output illumination.

I remember one District conference held in the Grand Hall of a Golf Club. The room had a very high ceiling (about eleven feet at the sides, plus the apex) and was mostly glass facing the outdoors from floor to ceiling on two and a half sides. The thin vertical blinds only covered the bottom six feet to prevent outsiders from looking in. No problem at night, but during the day you might as well have been outside. The projectors and TV monitors that we planned to use couldn't be seen during the day, so we spent the entire previous night with ladders and trestles, taping black plastic sheeting over the glass.

The best option is to use a projector with a lot of illumination power so that it can project bright images above the ambient lighting in the room.

On the other side of the coin, too much power can wash out the projected images on a small screen. Modern projectors can adjust brightness and contrast within limits, but often this isn't enough and it may be necessary to adjust the original images in PowerPoint to suit the circumstances.

Whenever possible, check YOUR slides on the projector/screen combination in the room in which you will be presenting under the likely lighting conditions, and do this well ahead of your presentation so that you have time to make whatever changes are necessary to your slides or choice of equipment.


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Powerful PowerPoint

In July 1998, Matt was looking for suggestions for using PowerPoint or other visual aids in a presentation. His concern was encapsulated in the thread title Slides inhibit presentation style - suggestions

Joy has seen and heard hundreds of speeches but only a very few where visual aids were really an asset as they often detract from the speech. If not all members of the audience can see them or read them those people lose part of the effect of the speech. They also cause the audience to look away from the speaker, thus destroying eye contact.

Murf raised doing a presentation on budget performance and explaining the 'figures' 'trends' etc. without the use of charts and graphs. Give them a test afterwards and see what the recall is.

For John F like any other kind of talk, we should be able to do our presentation without the visual. We never know when our projector is 'going to take early retirement' in the middle of a presentation.

The information on our visuals should give the salient points we want to cover and/or important supplementary information. A picture is worth a thousands words.

When we prepare our visuals, we do need to ask if the visual adds to our presentation, or just takes away. If it doesn't add, then we should just dispense with it.

In Mike's opinion many users of visual aids underestimate the intelligence of the audience and spend much too much time pointing at them rather than trusting the audience to realize that the number at the bottom, labelled "Total Expenditure" is, in fact, the total expenditure.

My other gripe is the use of visuals as a set of notes. I think that what put on the projector should reinforce by complimenting, not merely repeating, what you say. I see far to many overheads that are speaking notes rather than visual aids.

Eric recalled a presentation where he came to the room early, checked all the wiring connections etc. and did a dry run with no problems. When the real presentation began, they turned out the lights so that the audience could see the screen better. The room was pitch black - I couldn't see my fingers in front of me to type on the keyboard! I learned a lesson that day on what 'being prepared' meant.

Rick gives the audience a couple seconds to read the overhead before you start talking. So, I put the overhead up and skim it before going on. Then I go on looking at the audience instead of the overhead.

I have seen some visual aids which are useless. These are visual aids that have too much text or they are too small. That is one reason I like projected visual aids. If you have a well done slide, you can get a big enough projector for the size of the room you are using.

In May 2001 Denis posed a question about the number of slides to show in a 30 minute presentation. The thread was PowerPoint Question.

Rod suggested two very important things to bear in mind. The first is your message. If you succeed in getting that across, then the number of slides you used to achieve that goal is irrelevant. The other important thing to remember is that YOU are the presenter. The visual material is just support.

Fred doesn't think one can make a hard and fast rule. He has found that in sales training the number of slides varied widely from subject to subject. When the subject matter was technical more slides were required. When the subjects were things like the psychology of sales, or closing, the number of slides dropped dramatically and the explanations became longer.
A one hour session could vary from 20 to 40 slides.

If the slides "start to get in the way" and we seem to be changing them for the sake of changing them, then there are too many! They should facilitate and not hinder the communication of the message.

I always left lots of room on the page for the listener to make marginal notes to 'personalize' the message. This, also, tends to reduce the slide count.

I think that you must find a comfort level for yourself ensuring that the slides truly help rather than becoming an end in themselves.

Rick said not all slides will be displayed for the same amount of time. Some slides may simply indicate that you are moving to a different point and may be up for 10 seconds. Other slides, may be up for a while.

Jim's rule of thumb is that you should never put a slide on the screen for less 5 seconds. If the slide is shown for less then 5 seconds then it's not worth showing at all.

Ian said YOU are the presenter - use it to suit your style but be careful.
Use more of YOU, pictures and don't show slides with lots of points on them, if you do that the audience will read rather than listen to you.

In October 2003 Sky Eagle started a thread "Speaking Tips - Visual aids"

With visual aids it is necessary to be able to speak with them, but you need to be very careful with how you use them because they can detract from the speaker EASILY.

The general rule is to NEVER use any text smaller than 28 point.
Simple backgrounds are always best, rather than the loud ones. Personally I'd rather see something sedated that fits the topic and not a bunch of loud colors. Busyness is not a good thing either. When in doubt, just going with a simple color scheme and something like bars on the outside is best.

And on that topic of busyness, you only want your main points on your slides and not the whole speech. The slides (overheads or PowerPoint) are meant as a guide to the audience and not as a crutch so you don't have to remember your whole speech.

Make sure the slides can be read - that the text of the slides isn't similar to the color of the background.

Rick said don't just check the colors on your desktop monitor. It's best to check it on the projector as the display may vary significantly.

Rod added If a font you've chosen from the computer on which you created the slides isn't available on the one you're using to project them, the system will make a substitution, which may not be what you want.

I use a particular font to illustrate that some fonts are easier to read than others. If the font is substituted, the example becomes meaningless. Therefore I embed the font files in my presentation. This is an option on the Tools menu, under >Options >Save.



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Project 5: Your body speaks

When thsi thread "Ideas for 4th speech in basic manual" was posted (April 200) , the assignment was number 4 - Show what you mean. Many of the ideas could equally be applied to project 8: Get Comfortable with Visual Aids

Kim started the thread with the request:
I was hoping I could get some ideas on what to do my 4th speech on. I am having a time coming up with a topic and am scheduled to do the speech pretty soon. Any suggestions at all are appreciated.

Bruce suggested describing a sporting activity. Perhaps talk about a tennis game, or some other sport that you watched or participated in. Or some activity that you will watch or participate in. One can use hand gestures to show how you or the other person performed the act.
For an Advanced Entertaining Speech, I described an event that Lee Trevino wrote about in a book about winning. For example, I bent over and pretended to pick up the ball from the hole, then looked at the audience and continued to speak.
On my 4th speech, I described my duties as a dessert cutter as a plebe (freshman) at West Point. I held up a package of fig newtons, counted the cookies and acted as if I were performing duties at table.
This can really be a fun speech because you get the change to put some acting, along with gestures into your speech.

JG advised:
Almost any topic will do since you should use gestures properly in all presentations. Most "Show What You Mean" presentations I've seen have, however, chosen a gesture-heavy or show-and-tell topic like beekeeping or quilting. I did mine on reading a book.

John F recalled:
In one that sticks out in my mind, a member showed us how to set up beer making equipment.

For Terry it lends itself to storytelling with all the action in body and facial expressions. Can you think of a story on yourself (as a child or teenager) or something you saw someone else do?

Eric asked "are you involved with a hobby or craft which you could demonstrate to your club?" I've seen these speeches on photography, doll-making, Irish dancing, racquetball, golf, proper use of a chainsaw; when I did it years ago I talked about my single experience with skydiving.

You could pretend you're a salesperson, trying to sell a product by demonstrating its uses to the audience. Find some mundane object at home to use for this, and be creative. Tell a tall tale, and use elaborate gestures to make your points, as in "...the fish that got away was THIS big".
You don't need props, though they help you to focus on the theme.

Jenny recalled:
When I did my fourth speech, I did a demonstration of one of the warm-up exercises that I had learned in my tai chi class, and showed the various muscle groups that were being used.

Something else that worked well was an "audience participation" bit, in which I taught an elementary tai chi movement to everyone in the audience. Since this was just an arm movement, they didn't have to take up time standing up and moving around, and it really helped "show what I meant".

From Rick:
Another type of speech, that works well with gestures, is a story. Stories are often about people doing things. Gestures can be used to help convey what people are doing.

Les reported:
My 'show what you mean' speech was well 'over the top' - I did a talk on gliding complete with a winch launch down the centre aisle together with a circuit round the room, approach and landing.
Oh yes - and there was a demonstration of my childhood tendency to rip of my clothes and imagine that I was Superman (to cries of "what a load of old kryptonite" from the audience).


In August 2002, the thread title became "Speech 4 help" when Dave's idea for this speech was to take a section from a film I saw as a young kid condensing it down to the 6 minutes. I can then use gestures to act out bits from the film, conveying key plot points.

Richard advised to remember to key the sweep and scope of the gestures to the size of the room and audience size since those gestures and body language are carrying the bulk of the message content.

In general big room and big audience then big and broad gestures. Small room then much more intimate and subtle gestures. If they are over large/broad they will distract rather than add to your message in most cases.


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