5 exercises on narrating visuals — introducing a chart, drawing attention to one detail, walking through an architecture diagram, and handling dense slides and live code.
Key visual-narration patterns
Introduce: "As you can see here..." then state the takeaway
Draw attention: position + colour — "the third bar, in red"
Walk a diagram: "It starts at X, flows to Y, fans out to Z"
Dense slide: "I won't read all of this — the key number is X"
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
You put up a slide with a line chart of error rates over time. Which sentence introduces the visual most naturally?
"As you can see here..." orients the audience and points to the key takeaway.
Option B uses the high-frequency presenting collocation As you can see here, then immediately delivers the insight ("flat until the deploy... then spiked to nearly 8%"). Never just display a chart — tell people what to notice.
Introducing a visual — phrase bank:
"As you can see here, X."
"This chart shows X over Y."
"What I want you to notice is X."
"The key takeaway from this slide is X."
Why the others fail: A describes the slide's existence instead of its meaning. C is fragmented and vague ("at one point"). D tells people to "understand" without guiding them to anything specific.
2 / 5
You want to direct attention to one specific bar in a busy bar chart. Which phrasing draws the eye most effectively?
Draw attention with a precise spatial anchor plus a colour or label.
Option C guides the eye exactly: the third bar from the left — the one in red, then states why it matters ("our 99th-percentile latency... double everything else"). Combining position ("third from the left") with a visual cue ("in red") removes all ambiguity.
Drawing attention — phrase bank:
"If you look at X..." / "Notice X..."
"The one in red / on the left / at the top..."
"I've highlighted X here."
"Pay attention to X — that's the important one."
Why the others fail: A makes the audience hunt ("have a look around"). B is wishy-washy ("I think"). D describes the chart academically but never points to the one bar that matters.
3 / 5
You are walking the audience through an architecture diagram. Which narration is clearest?
Trace the flow with directional, sequential language.
Option A walks the diagram as a journey: starts at... on the left, hits the API gateway, fans out to the three services on the right. Verbs of motion ("starts", "hits", "fans out") plus spatial words ("left", "right") let the audience follow a complex picture they couldn't parse alone.
Walking through a diagram — phrase bank:
"Let me walk you through the X flow."
"It starts at X, then goes to Y, and finally Z."
"Data flows from left to right." / "This branches into two paths."
"Reads go here; writes go there."
Why the others fail: B excuses complexity instead of explaining it. C abandons the audience ("read it yourselves"). D names shapes ("boxes and arrows") rather than the system's behaviour.
4 / 5
A slide is dense with numbers. Which sentence helps the audience without making them read every figure?
Summarise a dense slide down to the one figure that matters.
Option B explicitly relieves the audience of reading everything (I won't read all of this) and isolates the headline figure with a location ("40% drop in P95 latency, bottom-right"). Good presenters filter; they don't dump.
Handling dense slides — phrase bank:
"I won't read all of this — the key number is X."
"The headline figure here is X."
"Don't worry about the detail; the takeaway is X."
"Let me pull out the one row that matters."
Why the others fail: A overwhelms ("read every number... equally"). C dismisses the slide entirely, wasting it. D defers the point to "later", so the audience leaves with nothing.
5 / 5
You are explaining a code snippet on screen to a mixed-skill audience. Which narration works best?
Point to the load-bearing line and label the rest as setup.
Option D isolates what matters (line 14... a retry with exponential backoff) and reassures everyone that the rest is non-essential ("Everything above is just setup"). This is how you explain code live without losing less-experienced listeners.
Explaining code on a slide — phrase bank:
"The important line is here — line X."
"Everything above this is just setup / boilerplate."
"Notice how we X on this line."
"Don't worry about the syntax; the idea is X."
Why the others fail: A says nothing ("does the thing"). B assumes "self-explanatory", which alienates beginners. C tells people to read silently without guiding what to look for.