I’m not proud of how much time I spend monkeying around in PowerPoint. I’ve wasted full days shunning SmartArt for bespoke versions of simple process diagrams. Why? As a visual learner and compulsive whiteboard doodler, I’ve always been drawn to (pun intended) the relationship between what we see and how we think. Frameworks and visual cues play a huge role in how we interpret information. Visual models become mental models. As a consultant and trainer, I've found that incorporating the right visuals into a presentation can help me to explain things more clearly, structure sessions more effectively, direct the attention of participants, and ultimately influence outputs.
I’ve put together a quasi-periodic table of visual elements that can be used to help bring more clarity to presentations. Each includes what I want to communicate (the client’s question that I want to answer) and a visual element to help me do so. And yes, I created this in PowerPoint.