The Use of Visual Aides in Communication

Assignment final draft

The use of visual aids, along with good public speaking skills, are essential to creating effective presentations. There is much emphasis given to visual aids which are an important part of all successful presentations.

Visual aids help you reach your objectives by providing emphasis to your oral communications. Clear pictures increase the audience's level of understanding of the material presented, and they should be used to reinforce your message, clarify points, and create excitement.

There are many benefits to having access to so many visuals today. Visuals allow you to get your message across faster than words. What is the old saying, " a picture is worth a thousand words". With access to the Internet we now have access to thousands of visuals. You can actually do a search for images on the web. my son uses this type of search for school all the time. Having access to so many visuals allows us the benefit of being able to use them to help tell our story, do our school project, or market our product.  
Visual aids add impact and interest and allow you to appeal to more than one sense at a time. This helps to increase the audience's understanding and retention level. Pictures enable you to express the concepts or ideas you present with more than just words. Visual aids help to get your audience involved. The use of visual aids, then, are mutually beneficial to all the parties involved. One challenge to having access to so many visuals is that it makes it harder to decide what to use. Too many choices often leads to indecision. You have to decide what visuals to use and where you are going to get them from. These issues can actually lead to ethical or legal issues as well, but we will discuss that later.

Programs like PowerPoint, Glogster, or Pinterest can make a presentation more effective and powerful if they are used correctly. If they are not used correctly, however, they can detract from an otherwise good presentation....