Visual Aids in Technical Presentations

Dr. Dieck, in her extensive power-point presentation about the

American public opinion about the U.S. military intervention after Cold War
Era, provided many visual tools and aids in order to help her better tackle
and encircle the topic at hand from multiple point of views. Since most of her
work was focused on the public opinion of the American people, Dieck had
plenty of statistical data to present and analyze throughout the lecture. Also,
the subjects dependence on geographical and knowledge and historical
context allowed her to incorporate many interesting tools in her
presentation.
The first aspect of her presentation that caught my eye was the
simplicity of the slides and the smooth contrast of colors that allowed for
better readability. Having to summarize years of research into an hour-long
presentation, Dieck refrained from using over-complicated figures or data
analysis methods. On the contrary, it seemed like the speaker made sure
nothing too hectic goes on the slides and that only the crucial data is
presented. Having this kind of awareness in mind of what your audience
exactly wants to see is a very important aspect of technical presentations
and of communication skills as a whole. Dieck provided sufficient data and
aid to sufficiently back up the interpretations she was highlighting verbally. It
is usually very easy for an undergraduate to get lost in between his own
work after some research he has conducted, and so observing data selection
firsthand gave me a better idea of what kind of intel I should include when
presenting a very technical topic.
The presentation was then made more interesting after Dieck decided
to use a set up 3-dimensional interactive map of the globe, one that is very
similar to Google Earth, in order to transition from one place of action to
another. Watching her describe some key historical events and interactions
between several countries all while following the globe that is being focused
on different countries as she speaks was a truly inspiring sight. Another skill
that the speaker showed very elegantly was the ability to match eloquent
speech with substantially impressive pictures, graphs, and slides that
seemed to flow together in a very coherent manner: what your ears hears,
your eyes saw. Such skills require much training and preparation, yet I was
convinced that the pay-off is more than enough when a presentation is of
some significant importance to you.
Diecks only aspect of visual aids that can be criticized were occasional
flaws in transition from one part of the slide to another. At some points, the
audience would be very submerged in her talk about one region of the world,
and analyzing the corresponding map, only to be interrupted and taken to
another part of the globe with no efficient use of transition or subject
preparation. This might have been due to lack of time, but is still note-worthy
and something that I should take care of when preparing my own
presentations.