Guidelines for Preparing Scientific Posters in the Digital Age

Introduction

The proliferation of poster presentation sessions at scientific meetings and conferences has grown in response to exponential advances in contemporary research in science, technology and medicine. During the past thirty years, the need to communicate, disseminate, document and preserve new research has outstripped the capacity of scientific sessions at scholarly meetings and conferences. As a result, posters have evolved into the third leg of a scholarly publication tripod, joining abstracts and published papers in journals as an essential component of scientific communications.

For example, one of the largest organizers of scientific information, the American Heart Association, first began considering poster sessions as an effective and inexpensive technique for presenting research only in 1974 when requests for simultaneous traditional sessions exceeded conference space and time constraints. In 1976, the AHA approved poster sessions on a one-year trial basis and 180 abstracts were accepted, on the basis of scientific merit, as posters. In 2000, nearly 50 percent of abstracts, or about 3,000 posters were approved and presented at AHA's annual scientific conference. Other associations and learned societies conduct poster sessions ranging from ten to over 13,000 presentations at a single conference, and this year it is estimated that over 500,000 poster presentations will be accepted worldwide.

The majority of scientific posters today are still assembled and displayed using the same cut and paste techniques used for the past three decades, but digital design, production and printing services for posters will no doubt grow in popularity in years to come. Digital alternatives have become surprisingly affordable and offer many advantages over do-it-yourself techniques. Digital production processes circumvent the complex spatial and proportional design issues inherent in hand assembly, producing posters that are more professional looking, more convenient to transport, and easier to reproduce in small sizes for handouts than traditional cut and paste methods. Presentations produced in this manner are ready to archive and disseminate electronically as well.

The guidelines presented here are meant to offer hints and tips for the preparation of posters using the digital production and printing process. Although digital poster preparation eliminates the need to be one's own designer or art director, there are some basic principles to consider in order to create an effective presentation of information about important research on serious topics. Many of the principles presented here address special considerations specific to the utilization of digital graphic arts technology, but these guidelines also contain aesthetic and practical suggestions that can be applied to all preparation and production techniques.

Poster Design Objectives

As visual explanations, scientific posters need to be judged by their presentation as well as their content. As concise communication tools used in presentations given to small groups of people in short informal and interactive sessions, posters also need to attract viewers and provoke curiosity. Effective poster design addresses these purposes through the proper arrangement of information, graphical elegance and clear representations of complex data.

In poster construction, this involves the elements of text, graphics and tables. Although different mechanisms, they have a single purpose - the presentation of information about useful and important research on serious topics.

Making efficient and convincing summaries of data are difficult tasks, but the process can be managed by recognizing that the clarity of the presentation stems from the proper arrangement of information and that graphical elegance is often found in simplicity of design and complexity of data.

Preparation

The key to effective poster display is preplanning and preparation - which always takes longer than one thinks. William Warriner in his book, 101 Corporate Haiku, captures this eternal lesson using the insight inherent in traditional Japanese poetry:

Objects reflected
in a project schedule are
closer than they seem.

The key to planning for attractive, professional looking displays is plotting the flow of information. This flow should have a narrative quality, telling a story using the basic elements of words, tables and graphics together. Even before considering a design, or choosing a format from a digital poster printing service, plot the research story and analyze what details have the richness, intricacy and relevance needed to understand the complexity of the research.

Poster Design

Conventional wisdom might conclude that because scientific posters offer concise visual explanations of complex research that it is best to reduce the quantity of detail and simplify data. But the fact is that the quantity of detail and texture of the data is an issue completely separate from difficulty in reading. Clutter and confusion are failures of design and not attributes of information. Poster displays portray complexity and intricacy because the content is complex and intricate.

Effective posters are both accessible (viewer friendly) and rich in detail. They are simple in design, avoiding excessive content-free decoration, but complex in data. They may be simple but they never patronize their audience.

Here is a set of tips to make posters accessible:

Working With a Digital Preparation and Printing Service

Although there are many digital printing options available, it is always best to use a service specializing in the communication of scientific information. These specialists usually offer templates that mirror the scientific process, understand poster session presentation protocol, and are able to recognize glitches that occur when sending and translating software programs, especially confusion over scientific notation.

Here are additional suggestions using digital processes:

An effective poster is a marvelous communication vehicle, essentially transforming rich, dynamic and multidimensional work onto a flat 4-foot by 8-foot surface. Telling a logical narrative with a simple design and complex data can transport, inform and delight viewers in ways that can't be conveyed even with a published paper or abstract. Properly executed, the scientific poster becomes a visual experience that repays over and over again.