Importance of Icons in a Presentation

Whether it is a one-way sign on the side of a road or a symbol of recycling on a packet of chips, icons have always been there. These have the capability to express more in less and play a vital role in every sort of field if designed properly. In fact, the meaning of Iconography is Image Writing.

In the case of presentations too, when we want to share it over an online platform, we need to use additional forms of visuals in order to explain things in a more comprehensive way, without the need for a presenter.

Icons are one of the most useful ingredients to be used in a presentation, as these are expressive and appealing, like any other visuals. These can help you deliver the right message with minimal efforts, along with making the presentation look more attractive and engaging. You can design the icons, based on the content, or you can download them online. There are several websites, that offer free as well as paid icons that you can use in your presentation.

When Should One Use the Icons?

There are times when you want to explain a lot of things through your presentation, but the text is too much to read. Since icons alone are capable of explaining the core of content, there should be no doubt in using icons when you want to minimize the text on a slide of your presentation. You can design the icons according to the text and can explain that particular thing easily. In fact, many of the professional creators also suggest using more visuals than the text, while creating a presentation. So to avoid unnecessary usage of text, as one of the visual elements, you can go for icons.

Also, while using charts and graphs, as giving a textual explanation to every element of the graph/chart can complicate things. So to skip the long description in the graphs and charts, you can opt for icons. These can also be used in the place of bullets, or otherwise, as these make the presentation even more engaging.

Why Should One Use the Icons?

1) Icons are meaningful: The simplest reason to use icons is that these are meaningful and better at explaining. When designed properly, these can comprehend even the most difficult concepts quite easily, and way better than the text itself. So using the icons in a presentation can help the audience understand the idea behind it in a more effective way, and prevent them from losing their interest

2) Icons are Attractive: Icons, whether colourful or designed in black, enhances the appearance of presentation design and make it look attractive. Where long texts have always been the reason behind the audience losing their interest, the properly designed icons always are engaging and help the audience understand things better.

3) Separate Sections: The icons can be used instead of the bullet points, to represent complex content as well as to separate different sections from one another. The icons are best for categorizing and segmenting the bit of the information and gives that clean look to the presentation. By categorizing things, the content of the presentation becomes easier to interpret, and the audience takes every part of the presentation content piece by piece.

4) Enhancing the Appearance of Charts/Graphs: Instead of using textual description on charts and graphs, using icons can make these charts and graphs pop out and look more attractive. And, it is not only about the appearance, but the use of icons also makes the graphs and charts easier to understand. Icons can even attract the audience that is not much into reading the data.

5) Increase Readability: You can use the icons with bullets, paragraphs as well as the other textual blocks, too. This way the icons gives the audience the idea of what the text will be talking about. The right icons will get the attention of the audience and will help them read and understand the context of the content, better.

Icons may be smaller in size but are great at grabbing the attention of the audience. These make the content of the presentation outshine, and at the same time, explaining the context of the presentation to the point.