Presentation Skills: Using Images

A Visual Aid

PowerPoint is a visual aid to your presentation. It shouldn't be used like Word, as somewhere to write lots of text. Good use of images will enhance your presentation. Images can help the audience visualise what you're saying and help them to remember it. The audience are there to listen to you talk, not read screeds of text (and they're certainly not there to listen to you read screeds of text). You can also use slide images as a prompt for what you're going to say next.

To improve PowerPoint's use as a visual aid, think about using images to replace text or support it. Instead of displaying numbers, why not think about using charts or tables to graphically illustrate what you want to say.

Examples

PowerPoint slide listing thre seven continents, North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Antarctica Map of the world with continents colour coded

Here, a bullet point list of continents is replaced by a map with each continent colour-coded.

Text: Exam Success and Library Borrowing 1st Class - average book borrowing by student - 55 2nd Class Upper - average book borrowing by student – 40 2nd Class Lower - average book borrowing by student – 32 3rd Class - average book borrowing by student – 20

Here, a list of words and numbers is replaced by a graph showing the same information.

Understanding and Explaining - "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.“ - Albert Einstein

Here, a quote on a clear background is replaced by a quote next to an image that covers the whole slide.

(Note that Albert Einstein never said this - he never said a lot of things that are attributed to him)

Tips

Some general tips for including photos and images in your presentation:

Images must be large enough for your audience to see. This includes any text that appears in them
Use a solid colour and neutral background behind your image
If you have to create text in an image, think carefully about the text colour and the colour contrast with the image
Use photos and images that are high-quality and do not appear blurry or pixelated.
You can increase or reduce the size of images but be careful of enlarged images losing quality. When you resize an image, make sure to keep the aspect ratio (the proportional relationship between the width of an image compared to its height) - for example, don't change a 100px x 100px image to 75px x 25px
Try to use imaginative images instead of more obvious or cliched content (e.g., teamwork - don't use an image of businesspeople sitting around a table, what about using bees working in a hive instead?)
Make sure that the images you choose are relevant to the content of your presentation. Images that don't immediately make sense will confuse and distract your audience.

Image: Seven continents Australia not Oceania No author provider CC BY-SA 4.0