Effective Posters and Poster Presentations

1. Effective Posters and Poster Presentations E. Kraemer CSCI 6950 - “Lunch & Learn” October 26th, 2009

2. Poster Sessions • Opportunity to present your work in an informal and interactive setting. • Promote in-depth, one-on-one dialogue • Strong visual impact will attract participants to look at your poster and hear about your work. • Poster sessions at conferences. • Research Day in CS Department.

3. Issues to consider .. • What will the participants know or be able to do as a result of viewing you poster? • What is your key message? • Logical sequence of info? • Who is your audience, what do they know already? • How will your poster be displayed and how much space will you have? • How will you get your poster to the venue?

4. Focus on key idea … • Turn your idea into a succinct message that is self-explanatory, eye catching, and communicates to the audience quickly. • Support it with a combination of images and short blocks of text. • Know your message • What is the ONE thing you want your audience to learn? • Focus on that message throughout the poster. • Edit out anything that doesn’t reinforce your message.

5. Know your audience • Determines tone, shapes content • Specialists • Can assume a high level of knowledge, use jargon, take other presentation shortcuts. • Wide-ranging discipline. • Can assume familiarity with the topic in general, but avoid jargon and simplify language • Very general audience. • Explain everything in the most basic terms.

6. Abstract/Summary A succinct description of your work in which you: • Explain why your information is important - set the context • Describe the learning objectives for your poster. What will the attendee know or be able to do as a result of viewing your poster session. • Concisely state main points, conclusions, and recommendations. This is what most people want to know. Be specific and tell them what they need to know and what you recommend!

7. Creating an effective poster • Headings highlight key sections –objectives, summary, main points, recommendations, etc • Balance the placement of text and graphic • Use white space creatively to define flow of information. • Don't fight "reader gravity" that pulls eye from top to bottom, left to right. • Column format makes a poster easier to read in a crowd. • Prioritize your information. Decide what the most important element of your poster is and provide this first or makeit stand out.

8. Effective poster • Consider what information your audience needs before they read each section of your presentation • Begin your presentation by summarizing the aim of your poster and then provide a brief background. • The layout of your poster should reinforce the order in which your information is structured.

10. Graphics • Communicate relationships quickly. • Graphs should be simple and clean. • Stick to simple 2-D line graphs, bar charts, and (if you must) pie charts. • Avoid 3-D graphs unless you're displaying 3-D data. • Be sure to follow text guidelines (below) for graphs. • Use photos that help deliver your message. • Use art - but not too much - to attract attention. Focus on your data!

13. Text • Minimize text - use images and graphs instead! • Keep text elements to 50 words or less. • Use phrases rather than full sentences. • Use Active voice. • Avoid jargon (depends somewhat on audience). • Clearly and prominently display the title and authors(s). (Be sure not to claim sole credit if not solo project.)

14. Text • Use a Sans-serif font (e.g., Arial, Tahoma, and Helvetica). Easier to read. • Text should be large - at least 36 point for title panels; 24 point for text. • Text in figures should also be large. • Title should be at least one - two inches tall.

15. Color • Use a light color background and dark letters for contrast. • Stick to a theme of 3-4 colors, no more. • Overly bright colors will attract attention, but wear out readers' eyes. • Consider people who have problems differentiating colors.

16. Software Tools • A variety of software tools: • Microsoft Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, etc. • Microsoft PowerPoint is a good, relatively easy-to-use tool for creating posters. • Adobe Illustrator and InDesign work well, but are more complex and expensive. • Microsoft Excel can create and export graphics for PowerPoint - but you'll need to clean them up. • Adobe Photoshop is great for manipulating images.

17. Edit & Evaluate • Edit! Edit! Edit! to reduce text. • If it's not relevant to your message, remove it! • Have colleagues comment on drafts. Print a small version and circulate it for comment, or hang a full-size draft with pens and invite people to critique it. • Evaluate your work • Are your objectives and main message obvious? • Will readers be able to contact you?

18. Presenting Your Poster Effectively • Prepare handouts to facilitate interaction, offer additional detail, and/or provide reference material. • Bring business cards and copies of your paper(s).

19. On poster day… • Arrive early at the display site and bring a poster hanging kit with you. • Push-Pins. These work most of the time. Good for cork boards, some fuzzy walls, and even some woods, ifyou have heavy-duty pins. Bring some heavy-duty pins for thick or hard surfaces and light-duty pins for thin or soft surfaces. • UHU Holdit. This is a removable putty adhesive. Good for glass, block, wood, metal, and most other nonfabric surfaces. You pull off a little piece, stick it to the back corners of your poster and push your poster against the mounting surface.

20. … on poster day • Velcro Tape. This has Velcro on one side and a sticky adhesive on the other. Use for fuzzy fabric surfaces. If you carry Velcro tape, you should also have scissors to cut it. • Masking Tape. Bring single or double sided. Good for non-fabric surfaces. Will even work on some fabrics forshort periods of time. • Hang your poster squarely and neatly.

21. On poster day • Bring copies of a handout for your readers. It should include a miniature version of your poster and more detailed • information about your work, in an illustrated narrative form. • Consider doing this on an 11x17-inch sheet of paper, folded in half. This allows three pages of information, in addition to the miniature of your poster. You want people to remember you and your work! • Put handouts, business cards, reprints nearby - on a table or in an envelope hung with the poster. • Consider leaving a pen and pad inviting comments from viewers.

22. During the session … • Be at your poster during your assigned presentation slot. • Have a 3-5 minute presentation prepared for people who ask you to walk them through the poster. • Don't read the poster. Instead, give the big picture, explain why the problem is important, and use the graphics to illustrate and support your key points.

23. Poster Evaluation • Use this evaluation to quickly evaluate the appearance and organization of your poster. This evaluation does not address the quality of the information.

24. Overall Appearance 0 - Cluttered or sloppy appearance. Gives the impression of a solid mass of text and graphics, or pieces are scattered and disconnected. Little white space. 1 - Pleasant to look at. Pleasing use of colors, text, and graphics. 2 - Very pleasing to look at. Particularly nice colors and graphics.

25. White Space 0 - Very little. Gives the impression of a solid mass of text and graphics. 1 - OK. Sections of the poster are separated from one another. 2 - Lots. Plenty of room to rest the eyes. Lots of separation.

26. Text / Graphics Balance 0 - Too much text. The poster gives an overwhelming impression of text only, OR not enough text. Cannot understand what the graphics are supposed to relate. 1 - Balanced. Text and graphics are evenly dispersed in the poster. There seems to be enough text to explain the graphics.

27. Text Size 0 - Too small to view comfortably from a distance of 1-1.5 meters. ½ - Main text OK, but text in figures too small. 1 - Easy to read from 1-1.5 meters. 2 - Very easy to read.

28. Organization and Flow 0 - Cannot figure out how to move through poster. 1 - Implicit. Headings (Introduction, Methods, etc.) or other device implies organization and flow. 2 - Explicit numbering, column bars, row bars, etc.

29. Author Identification 0 - None. 1 - Partial. Not enough information to contact author without further research. 2 - Complete. Enough information to contact author by mail, phone, or e-mail without further research.

30. Objectives 0 - Can't find. 1 - Present, but not explicit. Buried at end of "Introduction", "Background", etc. 2 - Explicit. This includes headings of “Objectives", "Aims", "Goals", etc.

31. Main Points 0 - Can't find. 1 - Present, but not obvious. May be imbedded in monolithic blocks of text. 2 - Explicitly labeled (e.g., "Main Points", "Conclusions", "Results").

32. Summary 0 - Absent. 1 - "Summary", "Results", or "Conclusions" section present.

33. Good Resources • http://library.buffalo.edu/asl/guides/bio/posters.html • http://www.ncsu.edu/project/posters/NewSite/ • http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/posterpres.html