When speaking in public, when a speaker speaks in front of the audience, he not only expresses his ideas in the form of words, but can also use many other audiovisual aids. When speaking in public, it can be a display, flip chart, whiteboard, videos, pictures, PPT, OHP, etc.
Why is it important to use public speaking aids?
They act as a complement to your words. Along with listening, to enhance the audience’s visual appeal to himself, the speaker often uses presentation aids.
Let’s imagine that you work so hard on your speech (without any help) that you find it useless to use them in your speech. But there are many reasons why you shouldn’t ignore the importance of these aids.
According to Dale Ludwig, “Well-designed visuals do more than provide information; they bring order to the conversation.”
These days, people are widely using PowerPoint presentations as their most important aid. With this, people also use flip charts, slide projectors, movie projectors, white boards, etc. sometimes.
Let’s see why it is advantageous to use these public speaking aids.
1. It’s easier to draw the audience’s attention to you. It can be unexciting to sit and pay attention to someone’s conversation, but the use of visual aids would capture the interest of most of the people present.
2. Participants’ involvement and commitment increase when aids are used, as they hear and see. This would give the audience a better learning experience.
3. It is easier for the audience to understand and remember the information you provide. Viewing relevant image text is easier to understand than plain text. People remember what they see more than what they hear.
4. Its correct use also minimizes the chances of any kind of error. Used correctly, visual aids can make presentations more exciting, more vibrant, and more effective.
Now, let’s see how these aids can be disadvantageous.
1. First of all, having visual aids requires a lot of presentation material and preparation for it. This can be time consuming and you may end up spending more time on this than your speech.
2. They can also distract the audience from your speech as they pay more attention to the prompts. Ultimately, the purpose of your speech may not be served.
3. Stay away from overly elaborate visual aids. The ability to see and understand the help from the audience is more important than the form of delivery.
In summary, we can say that proper use of visual aids can give your presentation a really superior twist. On the other hand, if you pay more attention to the prompts than to your speech, they can overshadow you in the eyes of the speeches and grab all the attention of the audience.
So choose your visual aids wisely and become a star when speaking in public to viewers.