Newsletter October 02

Visual aids – using slides

Tips and techniques:

1. When you are preparing your slides, a good way to see if the font size is going to be readable on the screen, is to stand approximately 2 metres from your computer monitor. If you can read it, it’s the right size. Generally headlines are a minimum of font size 40, and body text a minimum of font size 24

2. What kind of title do you use for your slides? There are 4 main types:

Descriptive – e.g. ‘September Sales Figures’

For when you don’t need to get a particular message across

Informative – e.g. ‘Sales up 5% in September’

To show what information they can draw from it

Leading – e.g. ‘More Sales Needed in October!’

Which is your opinion of the conclusion they should draw from the slide

Question - e.g. 'What went wrong?'

To make people think

3. Don’t read out your slide word for word, as this doesn’t allow for the audience to mentally process the data. They are more likely to understand and remember the information if you change the wording as you refer to it.

4. Ever thought about the colour you use in your slides? Colour has an impact on the right side of the brain, creates emotion, aids memory and sets the mood:

Red – stop, alert, life, revolution, passion

Yellow / Orange – optimism, warmth, wisdom, caution

Green – go, growth, health, opportunity, youth

Blue – loyal, dignity, trust, stability, justice

Purple – regal, spirituality, sophisticated, honour

Black – importance, solemn, power, mortality, sophistication

Grey – integrity, maturity, neutrality, discretion