Visual aids and… Business Communication? What is the connection? How do these two relate?
What’s wrong with just standing at the front of a room and explaining a new work process to a group? If the presentation is in English, and they all speak and understand English, then everyone should understand the information being presented and be able to apply it in the work environment, no?
First of all, let me define what exactly a visual aid is; A visual aid, for the purposes of this blog at least, is, “an instructional aid, such as a poster, scale model, or videotape, that presents information visually.“ or “an object or representation that may be used to clarify or enhance understanding of a concept or process”. Even the definitions state that visuals are helpful so- they must be!
In all seriousness, I am a visual learner. I can sit and listen quietly but having some sort of visual aid to look at does seem to help me understand new concepts with a little more ease. I intend to explore why and how visual aids help not just myself, but everyone when learning new information.
I’ll start by exploring recent experiences in college presentations. In most classes, professors structure their lessons around a PowerPoint- a visual. Tons of information is thrown at us, explained, questioned, and then tested. Can you imagine sitting through a three-hour class with no visual part to the lesson? I can’t. A lot of the time, the teachers voice fades into the background and I really am only taking in the visual PowerPoint. And I would imagine I’m not the only one. By having a visual, there is a second learning instrument- audio and visual. The visual learners are learning, and the auditory learners are learning.
In a workplace, a presentation on new software, using a PowerPoint or overhead slides would work in the exact same way to reach the employees with new information. The only learners we are missing are the kinesthetic learners but with a little bit of knowledge retained from the speaker and the visuals, they would be able to figure it out and practice with the new software on a computer.
Using visuals helps you reach more people. And if your goal is to introduce new information and have people understand it you want to use the best techniques to accomplish that.
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