Why does anyone go through the work of delivering a presentation?
It is because they want to educate the audience about a certain thing and evoke some action out of it. The central purpose is to derive some form of result from your talk. Each one of us, at some point, has to deliver a presentation, whether academically or professionally.
What does it take to travel the distance from a good to a great presentation? How do you ensure what you have created will stay with people and generate the required response?
There is no one answer to it. Your content, communication skills, slide design, everything is a piece that needs to be put to complete the puzzle.
However, if you keep the principles of psychology in mind, you are much closer to hitting the right chords than otherwise. It will help you connect to your audience at a much deeper level and deliver your message with a full impact.
This article details tips on how to use the power of psychology to add more meaning and depth to your presentation and connect with your audience better.
Does Psychology Play a Role in Presentations?
100% it does. Our learning styles are different. Our attention pattern is different, which eventually translates into our memory. Presenters, who are mindful of this, stand a better chance of connecting with people more at an individualistic level.
Psychological Tips to Create an Impactful Presentation
Let’s see how you can use psychology to create an impactful presentation.
1. Take Care of the Learning Style
Let’s find out the 3 learning ways called the VAK model.
According to the model, people essentially are three kinds of learners –
- Visual learners – They learn better with visual content like bars, graphs, charts, mind maps, illustrations, etc. Appropriate body language, facial expressions, gestures, and other visual cues are effective while communicating.
- Auditory learners – They learn better through sounds and words. Voice modulation, pitch, tone, pauses, etc., can be used to emphasize points and spark curiosity.
- Kinesthetic learners – They learn better through experience. Touching, moving around, doing, sharing, activities, etc., can help them participate more.
Incorporating a mix of all is a decent approach to outreach diverse audiences. However, you can choose your combination depending on the people you are catering to.
2. Incorporate Elements/Cues that Help them Remember
You would want people to remember the important data or key takeaways from your presentation. In fact, you would want them to remember most parts of your presentation.
Does that happen in reality? Not often.
Incorporate elements in your presentation that help capture the attention of your audience.
The more you are able to catch their attention through means like captivating data, voice modulation, slide designs, etc., the more they will be able to retain the information better.
You can use the power of memory-building concepts like mnemonics, visual imagery, memory castle, etc., to help them remember the data/content/statistics better.
3. The Serial Position Effect
According to this principle, ideas that are presented initially stand the chance of being remembered better than concepts presented in the middle or end. Additionally, ideas presented at the end are remembered better than ideas presented in the middle.
What does it mean for your presentation?
Present your central idea in the beginning, expand upon it in the middle, and reiterate it in the end. It will help your audience recall the concept better.
However, you might have a few limitations to it –
- You might need a little time to build up to the central/main part of the presentation.
- Some people prefer anecdotes and other things to warm up to the audience and proceed slowly and softly.
Even if you rightly can’t present your main idea at the beginning, find innovative ways to introduce your point in a way that fits in the initial section of the presentation.
For example, your product solves a problem. So, in the initial part, you can tell the audience about the fact. This way, an introduction has been made right at the start for you to build on later.
4. The Von Restorff Effect
The principle states that the concepts which stand out from other similar ones are more likely to be remembered. It is a bias towards the unusual.
Now, what are the key points that you want people to remember?
After you have zeroed in on that, the next question would be how you can make those key points stand out.
Well, there are a lot of ways.
- One way you can highlight your point is through slide design. Differentiate the important slide from the others by going for a different design.
- You can also move from no slides to sharing slides only for the most important part. This way, people will be more attentive toward those sections.
- You can also alter your style of delivery for the important sections. Change your tone, pitch, interactive exercises, body language, delivery style, props, demonstrations, etc., to highlight important sections.
- Tweak colors, sizes, shapes, and other visual elements to spark curiosity.
Be mindful of people noticing the difference in your presentation style because if they don’t, you will miss the point of highlighting the relevant points.
5. Anecdotes and Storytelling
There is a documentary called The Nero’s Guests highlighting the agrarian crisis in India. To make the point, the documentary starts by drawing an intriguing parallel between the ruling class and the Roman emperor Nero and his guests. The storytelling draws a powerful parallel and hooks the audience into the narrative.
That’s what storytelling does. You can take your audience to some other time and help see how it connects to the problems and solutions of today.
What’s more?
Stories release chemicals in your body that help evoke feelings of connection and empathy and improve focus and attention. Use the power of storytelling to help people remember your information better and to forge instant connections with people.
6. Create a Powerful Headline
Going back to the example of the documentary Nero’s Guests, how do you think the title India’s agrarian crisis or Farmers in Distress would have felt compared to this?
A little flat, right?
Strong headlines will help you deliver your message more powerfully. It will help your audience connect to your content more. You can go for one-word, short phrases, or long headlines. We recommend going for worded titles over single words, as it enhances slide retention. You can also pair your headlines with catchy graphics to add to its appeal.
7. Your Content should have a Structure
Following a structure will help you present data in a coherent form. It will provide an outline to your content so that it doesn’t look illogical. Also, research says that people can retain structured information 40% easier than that delivered in a freeform manner. That’s because our brain processes things that are aligned. You can follow the following structures to provide clarity to your content –
- Chronology – It is best when you want people to walk through a process or for reporting.
- Comparison – Good when you want to show the differences and similarities, i.e., when highlighting the advantages of a specific approach to an issue.
- Cause and effect – Effective when you want to show the logic behind your position.
- Problem, solution, benefits – Effective for CTA when you want to motivate/persuade people to do something.
Also, don’t overload your presentation slides with content and information. People won’t be able to remember it all anyway, and your central point might get muffled with all the supporting data and information.
8. Break it up
According to research – people lose attention/focus after 10 minutes. You have your audience engaged, but your presentation is going to take, let’s say, around 20 minutes. What do you do? As it’s not possible every time to crunch material into a short presentation.
So, in that case, try to bring a change or contrast that sort of breaks your presentation and gives people a small break.
You can add something humorous, change the medium of transmission of information (slide to video), do something unexpected, give a small break, etc., to keep people engaged and lively.
9. Use Visuals to Spark Curiosity
We know that visuals aid in memory retention and also help provide an aesthetic appeal to something. Use creative visuals to spark curiosity and grab more attention. Here are a few tips that can help you use the power of visuals –
- Use bars, charts, diagrams, and graphs to present numbers/words over tables. People will be able to take out essential information quickly and more comfortably.
- According to a study, images with 7 or more colors are more memorable than images with 2-6 colors. So, go bold with colors when trying to showcase an important slide.
- Don’t go for complex visuals. According to research, our neural resources are limited. Complex visual information can reduce the brain’s capacity to process.
- There is a phenomenon called the curiosity gap. People are able to learn and retain better when they are curious about something. Try incomplete visuals, clickbait titles, missing data/information, etc., to spark curiosity in people and keep them focused throughout.
In a Nutshell
Psychology plays an important role in hitting the mark with your audience (since it is people you are presenting to).
Use elements to highlight important sections of your presentation, keep your presentation short, incorporate elements that help with memory retention, use the power of visuals and storytelling to create attractive content, and provide a concrete structure to your work. And don’t forget to provide small breaks in between to give people the space and time to digest the information (if your presentation is a little long).
Follow the tips, and you are good to go with a mind-boggling presentation.
