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 Who was it that said "a picture is worth
a thousand words"? You know, they were right! The use of visual aids can
be used to inform your audience of many things. We humans take more information in
visually, even when we are reading something because its process and stored as a visual
thought in our minds.
The main purpose in developing your visual
aids are that they help you teach your training objective, so develop them around your
main teaching points. However, be careful not to go overboard in designing your
visual aids the word "Overboard" could mean here "Overload" instead.
All too often, to save time or money on putting together our visual aids, and we end-up
get carried away and overloading them with just too much information for our viewing
audiences to process visually.
Realizing this only after that fact that it did cause our viewing audience to immediately
go into some form of visual "overloading condition visually," this visual
overloading condition occurs when your viewers are presented with just too much
information at anyone time. What actually happens in many situations like this, is it
causes your viewers to become confused. Your viewers are now forced to focus their
attention to the visual aid while trying decipher or speculate on what you're trying to
show them. And that can take away from your presentation effectiveness.
Of course, the opposite is true also, by using
too little information to make your point. Try not to overload visuals, find a balance,
and don't overcrowd them.
It is easy do! Your in a hurry, grabbing
whatever it is that you need to have an overhead transparency of, and then you run off to
the copy machine and your done right! Well maybe? Ok, so next time just plan
ahead a little and think about what's the purpose of your visual aids? Remember to limit
your overheads and slides to a few topics and sub-phases. this also applies to flip charts
and any other charts or graphics you may use.
For now continue on and read the rest, then
you will have a little better understand how we human react to the information being
presented to us and how we process it.
They're many different types of media available for use in our classrooms or at a
presentation we are conducting. With all the many different types of media available
that can be used, so are the opinions on how to develop your visual aids. Nevertheless,
out of all those different opinions and strategies they seam to have one thing in common,
which has resulted into a few simple basic rules to follow when developing your visual
aids.
We will discuss and review those rules. But
before we do, think back for a few moments about the human behavior psychology, and the
way we humans like to receive and process information we receive about new things,
remember that:
KINESTHETIC PEOPLE LIKE:
- Hands on activities
- Question & objection time
- Small quizzes done in pairs
- To be busy
- To feel your enthusiasm
- Audience participation
- To touch things
AUDITORY PEOPLE LIKE:
- A varied and well-modulated voice
- Statistics and facts
- Detailed descriptions
- Clear, loud voice
- Calm and organized talk
- Audiotapes
- To hear your enthusiasm
- To talk out loud so they can process what you
say
VISUAL PEOPLE LIKE:
- Overheads, slides, pictures, graphs
- Videotapes
- Demonstrations
- Broad overviews stated
- To see your enthusiasm
- Gestures
- Stories and examples that create a picture
- To see materials ahead of time
Remember to keep the way people prefer to receive their information in mind when you are
designing or developing your visual aids. It is an important consideration you must
consider because your visual aids can make or break your training or presentation, which
can result into a complete failure of the overall effectiveness of your training programs
or your presentation.
Now continuing on, let's look at the most common types of visual aid equipment available
for you to use are:
Blackboard
Marker board
Flip Chart
Overhead projector
Slide projector
LCD projector
VCR and Video tape
Whichever media of your choice is, here's what
most all of the experts have agreed on and recommend about developing your visual aids
- Rule 1:
Use readable and consistent fonts, and stay a
way from the fancy stuff.
- Rule 2:
Keep to one or two major points per visual
aid, and limit the use of subtropics text to a few phrases per subject.
- Rule 3:
Remember to use the "Kiss method" of
"Keep It Simple Stupid."
- Rule 4:
Always add a control number and title to each
visual aid used, where possible, this will help your keep your presentation organized and
in sequence as you present it.
You need to also beware of that each of visual
methods you intent to use has there limitations, knowing what they are can help you
prepare for your training session. During the course we will discuss the Advantages and
Disadvantages of each of the Visual Aids, and how you can maximize them to your
advantages.
Our next stop is talking about you, go there now or go back to the top! It's your choice! |
