Say it with me: A picture’s worth a thousand words. Why put bullet points on a slide when a single photograph captures your message?
Before: Do bullet points make us care?
The Internet can be a great resource for kids! They can do research, play with other kids and be entertained online. But there’s a darker side: cyberbullying, inappropriate content and online predators. These are very serious problems, and this slide is doing a terrible job of calling attention to them. This slide looks like a shopping list and elicits about the same emotional response when read.
After: What’s she looking at?
This slide is now a great way to spark a conversation about how parents, teachers and guardians often don’t have the faintest idea what kinds of online experiences kids are having. Look at the photo. What is the girl seeing? Is she shocked, appalled, fascinated, scared? She could be experiencing any of these emotions. Will she tell an adult what just happened, will she simply go to a different website or has what she’s seen left a deep impression? People who see this photo can interpret it in many different ways, not many of which would be positive. The presenter can invite the audience to speculate on what the girl is looking at, then start the presentation, including the ideas expressed in the bullet points on the original slide.
The Takeaway
Photos are effective to include in your presentations because people process visual information much more quickly than they can read and interpret words. The right photo can provoke an instant reaction and can help an audience to relate what you’re talking about to their own experiences.