According to Gestalt, the human brain is programmed to “structure individual elements, shapes or forms into a coherent, organized whole.” This theory allows you to be in control of your audience’s perception, during the presentation. You have the power to decide the flow in which your audience looks at your presentation, hence controlling exactly how your information is absorbed by them.

Do you want to know how? Let me tell you about Visual Hierarchy – the most important aspect in presentation design to help you mesmerize your audience.

What is Visual Hierarchy?

Visual hierarchy is the order in which the user processes any written information. This order is created by the visual dominance of one element over the other. You give more dominance to different elements, in the order of their importance. There are several ways in which you can provide that dominance like using colors, contrast, spacing, typography etc. Let’s talk about Visual Hierarchy in the context of Professional Presentations.

Visual Hierarchy Elements in Professional Presentations

7 minutes is the average attention span of a typical audience, before they start looking at the clock. If your topic is of interest to them, then you might get 10 minutes; or maybe 5 minutes if your presentation is the last thing before everyone gets to go home! Hence your PowerPoint slides should be able to convey your message to the audience right away in the most logical sequence.To do so, first agree on what message you want the audience to take from your presentation slides. And more importantly, how exactly should they absorb that message. You should be perfectly clear on what you want the flow of a viewer’s eyes to be.Once you isolate the elements and their sequence, use the elements listed below, to emphasize the sequence visually.

COLOR

Colors are the most intuitive way of drawing emphasis in presentations. Different colors evoke different emotions in the audience.

For a business pitch; red, grey and orange are often used. They convey a sense of energy, innovation and maturity while for a presentation on company rules and regulations, you want to seem authoritative yet peaceful. Hence a combination of teal, gray and dark green works amazingly.Look at the matrix below to learn about different emotions colors evoke in a presentation.

a) Dark Background – Light Foreground

b) Light Background – Dark Foreground Colors are the most intuitive way of drawing emphasis in presentations. Different colors evoke different emotions in the audience.For a business pitch; red, grey and orange are often used. They convey a sense of energy, innovation and maturity while for a presentation on company rules and regulations, you want to seem authoritative yet peaceful. Hence a combination of teal, gray and dark green works amazingly.Look at the matrix below to learn about different emotions colors evoke in a presentation. To choose color combinations, contrast is the key. There should be enough contrast between the background and foreground (text and graphics), otherwise they will blend into each other, compromising legibility. This immediately classifies color themes in two broad categories –a) Dark Background – Light Foregroundb) Light Background – Dark Foreground

In the example below, notice how the parts with darker background, have the foreground of white text and icons. This creates a contrast, making the foreground prominent and non-competing to the background. But interestingly, when the background in the middle part is of a lighter shade, the foreground has a mix of gray. Hence making the foreground slightly darker, maintains the contrast and prominence of the foreground.

here Check out this template

Below is the example of color combination which works well for professional presentations: Higher the color contrast, more the audience is drawn to that part of the slide. Below, the darkest shade of blue contrasts best with the white foreground, making it the most prominent and important, while the different shades of blue, indicates progress and sequential flow.

here Check out this template

It might be compelling to use a lot of colors, to make the presentation look vibrant. However, colors should be used strategically and wisely.

A few pitfalls to watch for:

1) When you use too many colors on a slide, no single color stands out. Hence you negate any impact the color might have had in creating a visual hierarchy.

2) Similarly using colors which contradict the intent of business presentation, can negatively impact the morale of the audience. For example: using gray and black, might appear classy. But for a training seminar for new recruits, this could indicate boredom and dullness.

CONTRAST

Creating contrast is the foundation on which visual hierarchy stands. While creating contrast through colors is well known, and often used method; a number of alternatives can be used to achieve the same. A few are listed below:

SIZE: One of the most intuitive ways to create contrast. For example, three different sections of texts can be given three different sizes; largest for the title, smallest for the content. The reader will automatically know where to look.

SHAPE: Simply put, in a field full of circles, a square grabs immediate attention.

SHADE: Another way of creating contrast is by varying the saturation of elements. Saturation refers to the intensity of color in an image. It can vary from 0 percent (no color) to a 100 percent (completely filled). Without using a different color, you can use shades to create subtle yet noticeable contrast. Based on the context, you can increase or decrease saturation to highlight or fade an element resulting in increase or decrease of its visual dominance to the reader,

PROXIMITY: Keeping related elements closer will indicate a close relation between them to the audience.

SPACE: Leaving more space around a graphic, will give a sense of scale, and enhance perspective.

a small tip about the contrast:

To create a contrast, you first need to create similarity. Similarity basically means, different elements blending together in a theme; and having similar visual dominance. Without similarity, any contrast you impart on the element you want to highlight, will not pop out enough to create a difference for the audience. Rather too much variation can cause strain and confusion.You need to remember that contrast grabs your audience’s attention to the important parts of your presentation. Other than stirring up interest, contrast also aids in organizing information presented.Let’s look at a few examples:In the example below, the size of the circles separates the content for the audience, giving them a sequence to follow (either increasing or decreasing size).here Check out this template hereThe gradient of gray in the above example, signifies step by step progression, while separating the individual tiles. This makes sense as the content talks about subsequent years. Further, the orange contrast makes it clear that on this slide, you will be specifically focusing on information related to that tile. This is a great example of using contrast efficiently, to create flow and logic.SPACE

Space is an underrated, albeit powerful element to create visual contrast. Space can be used to show perspective, draw emphasis, or imply scale. We’ve all seen a PowerPoint presentation that’s so jam-packed with information, text, and imagery that you don’t even know where to start looking at it. Don’t create one of those designs that turn away visitors because it’s impossible to read it

There are two types of Spaces in design world:

Passive White Space – This is the white space that occurs naturally, such as the area between words on a line or the space surrounding your content in the presentation.

Active White Space refers to the deliberate placement of the space itself to emphasize a particular design element or content of the presentation.As you would have figured, Active white space is preferred, which makes the design look more dynamic and active. To create impact using business presentations, you should always actively plan for the unused space. It is essential for things like:

● Giving the viewer’s eyes a place to rest and a path to travel through the design

● Separating your layout into sections (the flip side of this is proximity — reducing space to place related items closer together — also an aspect of good spacing)

● Isolating focal points.

● Creating an asymmetry by changing element placing, which draws more attention than symmetric designs.In the below PowerPoint template example, the presenter wants to convey multiple points. But the neat spacing, and grid, makes the slide clutter free and organized. The content is now easy to follow, and the text makes logical and visual sense. Before we show you a few examples of how contrast is used in PowerPoint presentations,To create a contrast, you first need to create similarity. Similarity basically means, different elements blending together in a theme; and having similar visual dominance. Without similarity, any contrast you impart on the element you want to highlight, will not pop out enough to create a difference for the audience. Rather too much variation can cause strain and confusion.You need to remember that contrast grabs your audience’s attention to the important parts of your presentation. Other than stirring up interest, contrast also aids in organizing information presented.In the example below, the size of the circles separates the content for the audience, giving them a sequence to follow (either increasing or decreasing size). Check out this template

Check out this templateThe gradient of gray in the above example, signifies step by step progression, while separating the individual tiles. This makes sense as the content talks about subsequent years. Further, the orange contrast makes it clear that on this slide, you will be specifically focusing on information related to that tile. This is a great example of using contrast efficiently, to create flow and logic.Space is an underrated, albeit powerful element to create visual contrast. Space can be used to show perspective, draw emphasis, or imply scale. We’ve all seen a PowerPoint presentation that’s so jam-packed with information, text, and imagery that you don’t even know where to start looking at it. Don’t create one of those designs that turn away visitors because it’s impossible to read it– This is the white space that occurs naturally, such as the area between words on a line or the space surrounding your content in the presentation.refers to the deliberate placement of the space itself to emphasize a particular design element or content of the presentation.As you would have figured, Active white space is preferred, which makes the design look more dynamic and active. To create impact using business presentations, you should always actively plan for the unused space. It is essential for things like:● Giving the viewer’s eyes a place to rest and a path to travel through the design● Separating your layout into sections (the flip side of this is proximity — reducing space to place related items closer together — also an aspect of good spacing)● Isolating focal points.● Creating an asymmetry by changing element placing, which draws more attention than symmetric designs.the presenter wants to convey multiple points. But the neat spacing, and grid, makes the slide clutter free and organized. The content is now easy to follow, and the text makes logical and visual sense. Check out this template here PROXIMITY AND ALIGNMENT

When two objects are placed closer relative to the distance between other elements, the human brain assumes them to be related. And then it cognitively works to find and make sense of that relation. Hence you can use the concept of proximity, to subconsciously alert the viewer about relations between two objects on your PowerPoint slide. It serves as a guide to your viewers to the different parts of your message. Check out this template here In the above PowerPoint template, the orange grid separates similar content in different sections of the grid. Through alignment, spacing and color, the design tells a story. The story is that while the individually related content are grouped in different sections (hence spaced and aligned such), they are still overall related to the main message of the slide. Further the left portion can be used as a summary, listing the most important point of the slide. The way this section is outlined visually gives the cue to the audience that it contains highlights of the grouped content on the right side of the template. TYPOGRAPHY

While text heavy PowerPoint slides are better avoided for business presentations, sometimes they are necessary (like presenting your research papers to the company management.). Learn about hacks of transforming dull text heavy PowerPoint slides into awesome presentations here Typography refers to the font, font size, font weight, font color and spacing. Visual contrast through typography is very effective for text heavy slides. It allows you to divide the content in different sections, to impart a logical flow for the reader to follow. Look at the example below. There are three different fonts, with different font weights.

The titles of different sections (The facts, Executive Summary, Key Milestones ) divides the content on the slide in different sections. This visual separation divides the large content into bite sized chunks. The dull orange color accents the important part of the text and highlights visual priority. Lastly, the font size of numbers is larger in size than the content. For business presentations, data is important for the audience. And increasing its size attracts the audience to the most important part of the PowerPoint slide. This is a classic example of how typography helps in creating visual hierarchy. Check out this template here A few tips related to use of Typography on the slides are:

1) Divide the text in Title, Subtitle, content etc.

2) Use different fonts, sizes and spacing etc., to make the content look clean and visually appealing.

3) Avoid fancy fonts. They tend to distract more and depart from professionalism. A few Business PowerPoint Presentation friendly fonts are: Helvetica, Garamond, Futura, Gill Sans and Rockwell, all of which are present in Microsoft PowerPoint by default.

4) For text heavy slides, make the title attractive and indicative of the content. Also try to keep a section which acts as a summary for the entire content and conveys your main message.

5) Font choices should not clash. Rather they should complement each other. See below some classic font pairings for Professional PowerPoint presentations. In summary, Text heavy PowerPoint slides are straining to the readers. So, make sure that your choices for fonts, font sizes, and colors are easy on the eyes, and perfectly legible. Testing your design Once you finish designing your PowerPoint slide, you need to be sure that it works exactly as you intended. To test whether your design is effective, just sit back from your computer screen a bit. Now squint at your design so all the details blur and you just see general shapes. What still stands out? Is it what you would want viewers to look at first? If so, then you’re in good shape — if not, then it may be time to go back and try something else. Conclusion A great presentation is not just about conveying information. It is about leaving an impact on the audience, that convinces them for your Call to Action. Visual hierarchy allows you to strategically enter your audience’s mind, and guide their perception, to cognitively convey that impact. So use the concept wisely, and make your presentations unforgettable. You can check out more examples of best practices in using visual hierarchy in Professional PowerPoint templates at SlideUpLift About SlideUplift: SlideUpLift is an online platform to help professionals make compelling presentations using principles of vision science and storytelling. The platform contains an online library of pre-designed presentation templates that can be used across industries and functions Check out our library of Free PowerPoint templates which is weekly updated to serve the presentation needs of professionals. You will find out the simplicity and ease in downloading the editable template, filling it with your content and building world-class presentations in just a few clicks.