Prepare your first scientific poster

Getting your key contributions and novelty across quickly and easily gets a lot more challenging as the space gets limited. While a scientific paper may allow you up to six or so pages with two column format, a poster essentially is a single pager and you need to make the most of the real estate given. Here are some tips to help you prepare the ultimate poster and ace your poster session.

Dos:

• Keep it concise. A poster is essentially a concise representation and a visual abstract of your idea not an exhaustive presentation in itself. During a poster session, people glance at a lot of posters so you need to be able to pique their curiosity to have them stop by. The aim here is to kick start a conversation for which you need to attract people to your poster.
  
  
• Avoid clutter. Think of your poster as a visual abstract. Do away with as much text as possible and rely more on graphics.
  
  
• Use intuitive flow. When arranging the elements of your poster, it should be intuitive whether the reader is supposed to read it left-to-right or top-to-bottom etc. They should have to rack their brains to figure out how to scan through your poster.
  
  
• Be consistent with formatting. Inconsistency shows lack of seriousness of the presenter and may put off visitors. So, when it comes to color scheme, fonts, padding, and the overall layout, be very consistent for a neat and legible design.
  
  
• Be patient with the visitors. Normally at a poster session, the visitors scan through a lot of posters spread across the hall. With limited time, they try to skim through as much as possible and then stop by certain posters as it piques their interest. So, be patient with the visitors. Let them come to you and don’t get disheartened if it takes a while to get your first visitor.
  
  
• It’s ok for people to jump through sections. On a similar note of patience, know that sometimes people just want specific answers for which you won’t need to present your whole poster to them. They might already know bits of your work and are looking for certain clarifications. In such cases, just give them the answers they need by referring to the relevant bits of the poster.
  
  
• Always have your contact information visible on a poster. With limited time during a poster session, it is likely that some people might want to have a follow up conversation with you at a later time. For this, make your contact information easily accessible on the poster.
  
  
• Use a QR code for supplemental material. Got any supplemental material such as a work in progress manuscript, published articles, blogs, videos etc., to complement your poster? Use a QR code to point the visitors to such material to help ease their understanding of the concept and novel contributions.
  
  
• Acknowledge the peers and funding agencies. While the space maybe limited, don’t forget to acknowledge the key stakeholders- peers and funding agencies that have made your research possible. A brief acknowledgement is better than none.

Don’ts: 

• Don’t fixate on the template. Your university and/or conference organizers might have given you a poster template to use. This template is meant to get you started and is often not binding. Most templates are lacking in core features especially accessibility, so feel free to do away with the bits that seem restrictive and adapt the format to your needs.
  
  
• Don’t throw in screenshots. Remember that a poster size is often much larger than your manuscript and the paper it is printed on is also quite different than a regular A4 sheet. So, be very mindful of the graphics you use. Stick to vector graphics to ensure they scale well with the size of the poster or risk having smudged illegible images when it is printed.
  
  
• Don’t print and carry your poster to the conference venue. Often times, you would be attending an international conference and carrying your poster together with a carry on baggage in a flight can become a hassle. As opposed to this, ask your organizers if they could recommend a print shop or try find one in the neighborhood of the venue. Negotiate with them to have the poster printed and delivered to you at the conference thereby simplifying the logistics for you.