Quick! look at the slide below:
Do you remember the main message of the slide? Are sales up
or down? What’s driving sales and why? Without taking the time to read and
absorb the bullet points, it is impossible to say!
Now, look at the same information presented visually:
This visual makes it clear that sales are up and that
distributors are driving sales. Many PowerPoint presentations simply use the default
slide with bullets. If the slides do contain visuals, the visuals often lack
appropriate titles and labels. Visuals are rarely used because for the vast
majority of users, they are simply too difficult to create. When you craft your
visuals within SmartDraw, it is easy to either insert them into an already
created PowerPoint visual or simply create your entire presentation using a
storyboard in SmartDraw. Here are some tips for creating your presentation
visuals:
Tip 1: Import your data from Excel (or other data source) to
create impactful charts and graphs.
While you could create a visual in Excel, the visuals are very limiting and not very easy to customize. In SmartDraw, not only can you import your data from an Excel file (or other data source), you can easily apply different chart formats and styles. In SmartDraw, you can also just adjust the values manually with your mouse.
Tip 2: Reveal your visuals in a series of steps.
Even the best visual can be ineffective if displayed in the
wrong way in your presentation. Showing a visual to your audience all at once
can overwhelming. It’s better to reveal the visual by sequencing it. By
stepping through a graph or a mind map, your audience can easily follow the
argument. By revealing your visual in a series of steps your audience can
follow the argument with much greater comprehension than just putting the whole
graph in front of them in one pass.
Tip 3: Use a storyboard to create a logical presentation.
As Wikipedia
says, “Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations
or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion
picture, animation, motion graphic, or interactive media sequence.” When
planning a presentation, no matter the length, it can be useful to look at a
presentation at a higher level, seeing the overall structure and flow of the
presentation. When you use the storyboard feature, it is easy to simply drag
the slide to where you want them to go as you think about the most logical sequence of your presentation.
Tip 4: Create slide libraries of your most used visuals.
If you give a lot of presentations, you probably re-use some
of your slides, perhaps with some changes each time. Rather than digging up and
searching through all of your PowerPoints, wouldn’t it be easier to have them
all stored in one place? A better solution is to create a stored library of the
slides. To do this in SmartDraw, click on the Library tab in the SmartPanel,
navigate to the My Symbols folder and open the “slides” library. Then, simply
drag it into the library panel to save the slide and any animations for future
use.
If you are interested in learning more, be sure to check out
our white paper on visual presentations! How do you use visuals in your
presentations? What is your method of preparing for a presentation?
