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Presentation aids can help listeners process and retain information, convey information in a time-saving fashion, and enhance an image of professionalism. Designed well and used with care, aids can spark interest and even make a speech memorable.
Most people process and retain information best when it is presented both verbally and visually. That is, we learn better from words and pictures than from words alone, a principle dubbed the “multimedia effect.”1 However, no matter how powerful a photograph, chart, or other presentation aid may be, the audience will be less interested in merely gazing at it than in discovering how you will relate it to a specific point. Emphasis should be on using the aids to further the audience’s understanding and not on the aids themselves.2