Visual confusion

Seek to clarify, not confuse.

When you give a presentation either in person or virtually, do your visuals match your message?

Certainly your objective is to present a brief, clear, simple message, but sometimes we unknowingly confuse and ultimately distract our audience – the exact opposite of our goal.

Are you introducing your speaker while the topic title is showing?

It’s something we all do. But to improve your impact, why not move to a slide that includes a picture of the presenter and a few bits of info of interest?

Do you refer to visuals on prior slides?

Why not stop and navigate back to support your message? Though it may not be as smooth as a well rehearsed presentation, if it adds value and gets your message across – why not try it?

The risk of not matching your visual with your slide is audience confusion.

If any of your audience momentarily wander mentally (it can happen), and come back to see one thing on the screen and you speaking of another – they will try to fix the misalignment instead of paying attention to you.

You’ve lost them!

Keep their attention on what’s important – sync your visuals and your words.