How do you design a high-impact presentation? Enlighten your audience.

What is a high-impact presentation?

According to Section 4 in Communicating Nutrition, of which I am a coauthor, it is “a presentation an audience will pay attention to, engage with, and act upon.”

This post is the second in a 3-week series sharing content from a webinar titled “Designing and Delivering High Impact Presentations: Envision, Enlighten, and Engage,” based on this section of the book, which I presented with coauthor and colleague Sonja Stetzler.

In last week’s post, we explored what it means to envision the outcome of a high-impact presentation and the path to get there. In this post, we explore what it means to enlighten an audience.

What does it mean to enlighten?

Enlighten is a verb meaning to give someone greater knowledge and understanding about a subject or situation. In the context of a presentation, "someone" is your audience.

To enlighten is more than providing instruction. It means the audience comes to a depth of understanding that makes knowledge real, personal, and actionable. When someone is enlightened, they experience a lightbulb or “aha” moment. It is when someone exclaims, “I get it!”

When a presentation enlightens the audience, it has the power to persuade. It becomes a high-impact presentation. Creating a presentation that enlightens requires a clear message supported with well-designed visuals.

How does a clear message enlighten the audience?

Clarity is essential for creating understanding. Donald Miller, author of Story Brand, says it best, “If you confuse, you lose.” When we confuse our audience with our messaging, they won’t understand and, in turn, won’t act upon it. Our message will not have the impact we desire.

Don’t leave your audience in the dark or in the fog; enlighten them. How? With a clear message.

A clear message:

• Avoids jargon and uses language the audience understands.

• Opens at the audience’s current level of understanding.

• Uses examples and illustrations that the audience can relate to.

• Has been tested with the audience and revised until it is understood.

Creating a clear message with the characteristics above requires knowing the audience and involving them in its creation.

How do well-designed visual aids enlighten the audience?

Visual aids help clarify our message for our audience by providing essential support. The multimedia principle (1) developed by Richard Mayer and colleagues states that people learn better and remember more when taught using words and visuals than words alone. Adding visuals increases persuasiveness.

Visuals include slides, videos, props, displays, demonstrations, and more. They can also include creating a visual image that your audience creates in their minds based on a story you tell or a vivid description you provide.

Choose visuals that capture your audience’s attention and enhance the content you are delivering. Follow the UR rule for visuals:

• Do they help your audience understand your content?

• Will they help your audience remember your content?

Well-designed visuals help you achieve your purpose, are unified with consistent design elements, and have carefully chosen colors and fonts. Unnecessary and distracting features are removed. Minimal text (or none) is used. Each visual is designed to support one point.

Well-designed visuals help your audience focus their attention where you desire. They enhance learning and memory.

A high-impact presentation has one more key feature…

Now that we’ve envisioned the outcomes we desire, determined the presentation structure to maximize our impact, and enlightened our audiences with a clear message supported by well-designed visual aids, thereby creating a more powerful and persuasive presentation, next week’s post will cover why and how to engage an audience.

“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment.” ~ Lao Tzu

1. Butcher K. The multimedia principle. In: Mayer R, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press; 2014:174-205.

If you liked this content, please share it.