Persuasion and Influence
Presentation Aids (Pt 1)
DEVELOPING PRESENTATION AIDS
PART 1
WHAT’S THE POINT?
This handout:
 explains why it is so important to use presentation aids; and
 describes the key principles you should apply when developing and
using presentation aids.
Overview – Developing Presentation Aids
Some people will tell you that presentation aids are
not required, and an audience can be persuaded by
speech alone. Certainly, some speakers can pull this
off. People like Sir Winston Churchill were able to
influence others through wonderful orations (Even
now we all remember ‘we shall fight them on the
beaches …’ [and some other places that I can’t remember]). However, the
rest of us need an edge, to get the same effect without being world-class orators.
This edge can come from the use of presentation aids. The essence of this edge is described
in an old Chinese adage that states: I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do I understand. In
other words, by going beyond the use of speech in your presentation you can improve the
audience’s retention and understanding of the message. This assertion is borne out by
research, which indicates that the use of presentation aids can:

Improve Retention.
Research undertaken by Harvard
University shows that retention of your message can be
improved by up to 38% by using graphical representations of
your points(1).

Save Time. Findings cited by David Peoples(2) indicate that a
presenter using visual aids can reduce the time taken to explain
complex issues by up to 40%. Noting that you are invariably
short of time to get your message across, you will typically be
much better off if you use presentation aids.
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Persuasion and Influence

Improve Persuasion. A study conducted for the 3M corporation in 1986 indicated that
audiences were 43% more likely to be persuaded in a presentation if
visual aids were used(3).

Enhance the Audience’s Belief in the Presenter. A Wharton
Business School study showed that most members of an audience
perceived the presenter as being more professional, if effective visual
aids were used(4). Therefore, by using presentation aids, you can
help to develop audience belief, which is an essential ingredient if
you are going to persuade them with your message (See Page 23 in
the book Persuasion and Influence, the Science and Art of Effective
Presentation for more information).

Sway the Audience Beliefs. Research conducted by the
Wharton Business School indicates that a presenter is about
67% more likely to sway an audience, if effective presentation
aids are applied(5).

Help to Achieve the Presentation’s Goal.
Decker
Communications Inc conducted research, and found that
presenters who did not use presentation aids
were likely to achieve their goals only about
33% of the time. However, the likelihood of
achieving the goal for their presentation
increased to around 67% if they used visual aids(6). This is more
than a 100% improvement, just by using presentation aids!
As illustrated by this research, the use of presentation aids can
provide clear advantages.
You should therefore take the time to
develop effective presentation aids, because these can help you to
influence and persuade the audience.
This document describes some of the key general principles related to designing and using
effective presentation aids.
General Principles
You can help to ensure that you gain the benefit from your presentation
aids by applying some quite straightforward principles for designing and
using the aids. The following subsections describe these key principles.
Presentation Aid Design
Good design is generally very easy to apply, but it
makes a big difference in the effectiveness of your presentation. You
should aim to use the following universal design principles to optimise your
aids:

Design Principle 1. Ensure that your aids are exciting and interesting. I am sure you
have sat through presentations where you were suffering ‘death by view-graph’, or
‘PowerPoint® Poisoning’, because the visual aids were boring and did not help to
capture and hold your attention. Don’t fall into the same trap.
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Presentation Aids (Pt 1)

Design Principle 2. You must ensure that your aids are accurate. This approach
includes making sure that the information they portray is correct, and that the spelling
of text is valid. For example, what will the audience think about you and your message
if you included the following text in a presentation?
Gud Speelling iz esential

Design Principle 3. Your presentation aids must be as clear and unambiguous as
possible, so they promote understanding
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Design Principle 4. Make sure that your text and graphics are large and clear enough
for your audience to see them easily. To help you scope this requirement, Figure 1
provides a rough guide to the minimum height of text you will need to produce, to
allow people to read it clearly at various distances(7).
APPROXIMATE DISTANCE AT
WHICH TEXT CAN BE READ
(Metres)

Assess
put
20m
15m
10m
5m
0mm
10mm
20mm
30mm
40mm
50mm
60mm
HEIGHT OF TEXT (Millimetres)
Note: These measurements show approximate distances for people with normal eyesight. Variations in eyesight
within your audience may vary these distances markedly, so use this only as a guide. Additionally, the font being
used, and the colour of the text in relation to the background will also have a bearing on these figures.
Figure 1: Approximate Distances at which the Audience will Read Text of Different Heights

Design Principle 5.
Make the presentation aids look good, because people are
typically more likely to believe the message if it is presented in an aesthetically
pleasing way.

Design Principle 6.
Maximise the use of graphics to optimise understanding and
retention, by applying the principles that will be described in later newsletters.
Seahorses© 2011
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Persuasion and Influence

Design Principle 7. The presentation aids must reinforce your message, by providing
redundant and related information (See Chapter 5 of Persuasion and Influence for more
details). In other words, make sure that your presentation aids and your words are
telling the same story at the same time.
Using Presentation Aids
Designing the right presentation aids is very important, but there is little
point in creating great presentation aids if you do not use them properly.
You should therefore apply the following fundamental principles to make
best use of the presentation aids:

Usage Principle 1. Pre-prepared presentation aids can be
more effective than building the aid on the spot (e.g. the
presenter drawing on a whiteboard). Firstly, pre-prepared
presentation aids tend to be neater and more legible, so
your audience can understand them better. Additionally,
if you have to spend a lot of time developing your aids
during the presentation, it is less likely that you will
achieve good eye contact with your audience (as shown by
the example to the right). In real terms, this means that
you may not be able to communicate as effectively, while building your aids during the
presentation.

Usage Principle 2. You should apply the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), so you can
achieve the optimal complexity. Don’t overcomplicate your use of presentation aids.
For example, I saw a presenter try to use a data projector, white boards, video, and
other visual aids in a short presentation. It was a catastrophe, because it all became too
complicated. I am not suggesting that you should stick only to one form of presentation
aid, but rationalise your use of aids so they do not take control of the presentation.

Usage Principle 3.
Your presentation aids should not only help your audience
understand, you should also use them to provide landmarks within a verbal script (See
Pages 219 and 225 in Persuasion and Influence for more details on these concepts).
This approach can help you to make it look as though you are speaking off-the-cuff,
which can enhance the audience’s belief in you, and markedly improve the
effectiveness of the communication.
Conclusion
Although the general concepts in this document are quite simple, they encapsulate each of the
more detailed elements that will be covered in later newsletters. This document therefore
provides some useful principles. I hope you will find these inights helpful.
Next month the newsletter will extend these principles, by providing practical advice on the
optimised use of different types of presentation aid. In following newsletters, we will drill
down into the practical implications of these concepts. As such, they will have ramifications
not only for presenting information in any context, but also for the development of eLearning
environments and Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs).
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Presentation Aids (Pt 1)
A General Note
In each of the newsletters I will provide linkage back to the general
principles in the book ‘Persuasion and Influence – The Science and Art
of Effective Presentation’. I am doing this, so you will be able to
assess the overarching context.
If you do not already have a copy of this book, you can order a copy
online at the following web site:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GWC00AA.
You can also download other free (and very useful) documents from this web site:
http://www.seahorses-consulting.com/persuasion_influence.html
Alternatively, if you have a query and you would like to contact the author, you can send an
email to [email protected].
You can also find other related handouts in this series as follows:
http://www.seahorses-consulting.com/DownloadableFiles/PresentationAids_Pt2.pdf
http://www.seahorses-consulting.com/DownloadableFiles/PresentationAids_Pt3.pdf
http://www.seahorses-consulting.com/DownloadableFiles/PresentationAids_Pt4.pdf
ENDNOTES
1.
Research cited in US Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections, 2001, ‘
Facilitator Guide Preparing for the Training’ [Online]
http://www.nicic.org/downloads/pdf/2001/restorjust-files/resjusfintro.pdf, p. 28
2.
Peoples, D., 1992, ‘Presentations Plus’. John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp. 45-50.
3.
Research listed in Hallan, 1993, p. 43, as cited in Macnamara, J., [Accessed 2004], ‘The
Modern Presenters Handbook’. [Online] www.aesvn.org/resources/presenter-handbook.pdf.
4.
Peoples, D., 1992, ‘Presentations Plus’. John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp. 45-50.
5.
Peoples, D., 1992, ‘Presentations Plus’. John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp. 45-50.
6.
Malouf, D., 1988, ‘How to Create and Deliver a Dynamic Presentation’. Simon & Shuster,
Sydney, p. 82
7.
Developed from a variety of different sources, but one of the primary source is Lucas, R., 2000,
‘The Big Book of Flip Charts. A Comprehensive Guide for Presenters, Trainers and team
Facilitators’. McGraw-Hill, New York, p. 23.
Seahorses© 2011
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