Visual communication tends to have more value to people than oral communication. This is because human beings tend to take in things they see more than those they hear. The use of visual aids when passing a message across helps people identify with what others are telling them. The use of charts or PowerPoint presentations when making a business presentation helps the audience better understand the message. This is because the audience can see the numbers and projections you are talking about on the charts and the slides making it easier for the audience to follow your thought pattern, thus adding value to your presentation.
According to studies carried out by Jerome Bruner, a New York psychologist, people retain 10 percent of what they hear, 20 percent of what they read, but up to 80 percent of what they see. This is because images have a direct line to the long-term memory storage area in the brain therefore people can remember images long after viewing them. This aspect of visual communication enables it to be the recommended and preferred form of media by many.
With oral communication, you are able to get your audiences response almost immediately after you deliver a particular piece of information. In face to face oral communication, you can identify your audience's reactions from their facial expression, body language, or in the case of telecommunication, by change of tone. Oral communication is therefore best-suited in cases where you require instant feedback or when solving a problem.
Oral communication requires less skill than any other form of communication. As long as you can speak in an understandable dialect to your audience, you can effectively use oral communication. This is unlike visual and written communication where you require some technological know-how to operate the visual aids or writing skills respectively to communicate; oral communication requires no skill at all. Oral communication therefore, comes in handy when you have an illiterate audience.