By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
For more than a year, many of us have been presenting to audiences by Zoom or other web-conferencing platforms rather than presenting in person. Largely, the experience has lived up to the challenge, convincing many in the process that the online presentation is a viable alternative in handling the challenges of in-person presentations including facilities costs and travel. As a result, this may be one of those adaptations that, to some extent, stays with us after the pandemic.
But let me share one gripe: When the speaker shares their screen, for example to show the slides, the platform makes the assumption that whatever is on the screen share is vastly more important than anything else that is visual, including the speaker. So, in practice, it means that ninety-five percent or more of our screen’s real estate is devoted to slides, while the speaker is reduced to a postage stamp-sized pane that just serves to provide a small reminder of who is speaking. This is not ideal for a CLE presentation or for a Zoom trial. Visuals are a critical part of your communication: Research shows that visuals increase the perceived truth-value (“truthiness“) of your message, and our own research has shown that they make you more credible and comprehensible in a legal persuasion context. That means that they’re important. But it doesn’t mean that they’re 20 times more important than the speakers themselves. In newer online settings, and also in person, as a presenter, you need to wisely use your visuals. But you also need to take care that you’re not being eclipsed by your visual presentation. In other words, you need to be the speaker, and not just the narrator of slides.
Let’s look at the best practices for visually balancing the speaker and the screen content in both online and in-person settings.
Don’t Be Eclipsed On Screen
This is something that online CLE providers should address: Their own dedicated sites should allow the share-screen size to be scalable in order to adapt to speaker preference and to the type of content. If we are looking at engineering diagrams, then sure, maximize the size of the share screen. But if a speaker is using a more conventional slide deck with simple texts and images, then there is no reason the slides need to take up nearly all of the screen real estate.
Ideally, what I would like to see is a layout that gives the speaker and the screen equal emphasis. To get there, presenters and hosts ought to explore options beyond the default settings. When the screen is maximized with the speaker’s video tile overlaid on top of the slides, then we should design slides so we are not using the space that will be covered up. And rather than creating PowerPoints that are designed to take up an entire screen, maybe we should start thinking in terms of a half-screen ratio so that a speaker can comfortably share the screen with their slides.
Don’t Be Eclipsed In Person
The online presentation isn’t the only setting where a presenter might have to fight for attention with their visuals. Ideally, the best setting is for a speaker to be standing a little in front of and a little to the side of a screen. This works well, and even when the screen is truly massive — think TED Talk sized — a dynamic speaker will not be overwhelmed by visuals that are well-chosen to complement their content. Part of what makes it work is that the audience has a single gaze direction: Looking the same way, they see both the speaker and the screen.
Not every setup accomplishes that, however. In rooms that are designed for video-conferencing, for example, the speaker’s screen is often directly across from and facing the speaker. But when people are physically in the room looking at both the speaker and the screen, the speaker is at one end of the room, and the screen is at the other end. Sure, it is easy enough for audience members to turn their heads to see the screen, but the habit of looking at the speaker, and then at the screen, will soon have the audience feel like they’re watching a tennis match. Simply put, the audience shouldn’t have to choose at any given moment whether to look at the speaker or the screen. They should easily see both in the same gaze.
That same problem can often occur in court. When the presenter is tied to the lectern, but the video monitor is either across the room, by the witness box for example, or in front of each individual juror, then the audience has that same problem of not having a single gaze direction to see both speaker and screen. In those situations, you are better off asking for a single large screen and for the freedom to leave the lectern and stand in a spot where jurors can see you and your screen, and ideally where you can physically interact with the screen (using an old-school pointer, for example, or your finger).
If the courtroom layout doesn’t permit that, then I think a speaker is better off adapting their visuals: Use them when needed, but don’t be afraid to just go to a black screen so that the audience turns their attention back to you.
Ultimately, remember that it isn’t just about your audience seeing the slides. It is about them seeing you, using your slides, as a credible, dynamic, and effective speaker. So think about how you can use visuals without being eclipsed.
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Other Posts on Visuals in Presentations:
- Be Multi-Modal in Your Courtroom Visuals
- Ban the Bullet (From Your Slides)
- Witnesses, Add to Your ‘Truthiness’ by Showing Pictures
Image credit: 123rf.com, used under license