Leaders need to know how and when to use graphics. Graphics improve presentations and documents, particularly if the material is primarily quantitative, structural, pictorial, or so complicated that it can be illustrated more efficiently and effectively with a visual aid than with words alone. Graphics will contribute to the success of your oral and written communication.
RECOGNIZING WHEN TO USE GRAPHICS
Specifically, graphics should serve the following purposes:
1. Reinforce the message.
2. Provide a road map to the structure of presentation.
3. Illustrate relationships and concepts visually.
4. Support assertions.
5. Emphasize important ideas.
6. Maintain and enhance interests.
SELECTING AND DESIGNING EFFECTIVE DATA CHARTS
For data charts to add to your presentation or document, you first need to clarify your message and then you can determine the type and content of the graph that will add to, support, or explain that message best. Although you may have someone to help design your graphics, particularly if you have reached a high level in an organization, you will find it useful as you manage others and oversee the creation of your presentations to possess some knowledge of the best types of graphs, as well as the best designs, to ensure the clarity and accuracy of the different kinds of data you will be conveying to your audiences.
Edward Tufte, a Yale University statistician and author of several books on graphic design, provides the following best practice guidelines for creating data charts. Excellence in statistical graphics consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision, and efficiency. Graphical displays should:
- Show the data
- Induce the viewer to think about the substance rather than methodology, graphic, design, the technology of graphic production, or something else.
- Avoid distorting what the data have to say.
- Present many numbers in a small space.
- Make large data sets coherent.
- Encourage the eye to compare different pieces of data.
- Reveal the data at several levels of detail, from a broad overview to the fine structure.
- Serve a reasonably clear purpose:description, exploration, taulation, or decoration.
- Be closely integrated with the stastitical and verbal descriptions of data set.
MAKING THE MOST OF POWERPOINT AS A DESIGN AND PRESENTATION TOOL
Top ten Guidelines for Using Graphics and PowerPoint for a Leadership Edge
1. Decide on your message, determine what information or data best supports it, and then decide how best to show that data graphically.
2. Use graphics for the right reasons, such as to reinforce your message, to provide a road map of your presentation, and to support assertions.
3. Select the right kind of graph to illustrate your message.
4. Use integrity in selecting and designing all graphics. making sure any graphs do not distort the data.
5. Keep your graphic simple. The graphic should make your message easier to understand, not more difficult; however, make sure it is meanigful and actually says something.
6. Use a title that captures the "so what?" of your slide so that your audience sees immediately the message the graphs is communicating.
7. Create your own PowerPoint template or modify the standard ones Microsoft provides so that the presentation reflects your personality or that of your company.
8. Make the font size and any graphics images large enough for the audience to see even from the back of the room.
9. Be careful with your color selections; go for contrast but conservative.
10. Avoid overusing or misusing animation.
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