Select Effective Visuals

This book contains a three step approach to help business professionals create effective presentation visuals. Step 1 is writing a headline that summarizes the message you want the audience to understand and remember from that slide. Step 2 is to select and create an effective visual for the slide. The book focuses on this step because corporate presenters have said they need the most help with this area. The different messages in business presentations are broken down into six categories. The 66 visuals shown are organized into 30 groups and sub-groups under the six categories. Each visual is explained, examples are shown, and tips for creating the visual are given. Step 3 is to focus the audience during the delivery of the slide by using callouts, building the slide piece by piece, and by organizing complex information.

How can an analyst, accountant, engineer, manager, executive, or other business professional create effective visuals for their presentations when they aren't a designer?

Using the HVF approach in this book, you don't need any graphics or design background to create an effective presentation visual. Follow these three steps:

1. Write a Headline summarizing your message
2. Select and create an effective Visual
3. Focus the audience during delivery

The majority of this book deals with the hardest step for business professionals: selecting the appropriate visual. You start by choosing which of the six categories the message for this slide fits into best. Then you select which visual will work from the groups and sub-groups for that category. In all, there are almost 200 examples of the 66 types of visuals. After you read this book, you will be able to select the best visual for your message and have tips on creating that visual in Excel or PowerPoint.