My Little Poster Revolution for COMP 2014 (Part 2)

... or how I plan to make my poster not suck

This is the 2nd posting in a series describing my experiment on creating a poster at the Canadian Organization of Medical Physics 2014 Conference. See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3  and Part 4 for other  entries.

While frantically trying to organize my thoughts on our conference poster, I started to generate a list of what I thought of what I'd like to see in a poster. Here are some of the things that appeal to me:

• a link to all the information/content in the poster, such as PDF or summarizing document;
• access to actual data in the poster, so that I could draw my own conclusions or examine things on my own time and potentially in more detail;
• a way to add or view comments from the author, and others (i.e., some level of interaction) so as to make the learning experience more dynamic and in 'realtime';
• some degree of interactivity with the poster itself. This could be through:
• multimedia content;
• provide some level of control to the reader, like scrolling through a self-directed powerpoint;
• some way of integrating technology within the poster itself, either via smart phone, tablet technology, computers, etc.
• a conclusion that could be stated in about 2 sentences, using a language that doesn't require me to read the entire poster's content.

So, I decided to create a poster effectively for myself, hoping to find ways to address the things that appeal to me.

Here were the constraints, some of which are typical in standard posters:

• The poster requires 48x48 inches of printed media;
• Obviously, any gadgets that I could use had to be secured to the poster, and probably little access to power / plug ins;
• I probably couldn't provide any more than 30 hours of work on the entire project, and a timeline that required me to get this work down about 1 week before the actual conference itself.

Poster Layout

The poster itself is printed media (either on paper or cloth), which means using software such as Adobe Photoshop / Power point / etc. In the end, I elected to go with PowerPoint, simply because I didn't have universal access to Adobe products (but for the record, using Adobe products would have been my preference).

Poster design

I explored the web for some ideas on poster design. Some nice ideas to sample from include Colin Purrington's website (http://colinpurrington.com/tips/academic/posterdesign). I thought the 'pimping your poster' idea was brilliant, and thought why shouldn't I do this. Personally, unless you plan to post up your poster in your lab hallways, the printed poster gets no exposure outside of the conference itself: so why not let folks write all over it?

Another helpful website was a lib-guide at NYU's Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology (http://poly.libguides.com/content.php?pid=174875&sid=1471879). This a great resource, and should be the envy of librarians everywhere.

I also spent some time on this website devoted to better posters, as the name would suggest: http://betterposters.blogspot.ca. It has some interesting marketing tips and tricks worth reading.

I must have spent about 2 hours perusing the web with different search terms, looking for ideas on how to organize the poster and make it more interesting. In the end, I determined the following:

1. Ensure there is a link to a PDF of the long abstract. This would be through either providing the link itself or a QR code. I debated for a while on using a QR code, an idea provided by @WarrenG1983 (https://twitter.com/WarrenG1983/status/469265485637251072). I looked into the pros/cons of using a QR code, read this (http://www.pfsweb.com/blog/is-the-qr-code-dead/), but thought why not give it a try.
2. In some way, provide a link to multimedia and supplementary material so as to enrich the poster content. By doing this, I could reduce some of the text in the poster itself by providing supplementary details, and make the poster more interesting by providing a level of interactivity. One approach was to provide a link to a more in-depth power-point presentation and provide a link to http://www.slideshare.net. But why stop at slideshare and Powerpoint? I've used Prezi.net for some of my presentation (http://prezi.com/user/dawf58f40g0e/). One can embed YouTube videos, PDFs, text, images, and all the other tools you commonly see in PowerPoint, but with a little more flair. 
3. Provide a method for viewers to access the multimedia while at the poster itself. I decided that while I can provide a link to the multimedia enriched Prezi, not everyone will have access to a smart phone / tablet while perusing the conference posters. So, why not put my 1st generation iPad to use? I don't use it nearly as much as I used to and -provided it is secured to the poster- it could be a nice way to generate some interest in the poster. So I designed the poster layout such that the focus is on the iPad itself.
4. Focus less on the WHO and more on the WHAT, WHY and HOW. People should care more about the WHAT/WHY/HOW and less on the WHO. The WHO shouldn't take up much real-estate on the poster. Provide a place where people can take your business card if they prefer old-school methods of contact.
5. Use a gentle combination of Serif and San Serif fonts. I've always been and advocate of San Serif fonts, so mixing them made me a bit uncomfortable despite reading that, from a design standpoint, San Serif is best for titles, and reading text is slightly easier with Serif. 
6. Try to ensure there is a logical 'pathway' for the eye to follow for the poster. One of the problems with posters is figuring out where to start and end reading the contents. If you're like me, I often look for the title, then the conclusion. And if it interests me, start looking at the figures and results... either way, the path the eye takes tends to be ectatic. To help the reader control how they access the material they are interested in, I integrated a circle in the poster with an arrow to indicate the starting point. I placed my text in a clock-wise direction, hoping it is easier for the eye to follow a closed trajectory. It also helps reinforce 'closing the loop' nature of the poster itself. At the centre of the poster, I provided room for the IPad, which provides the multimedia.
7. Drop the 'Abstract' from the poster and the other things such as Methods/Results. All that stuff is in the conference proceedings. Chances are that some viewers may have read the abstracts before arriving to view the posters and have made an effort to visit your poster. So why provide details which repeat what they've already read? Instead, provide titles to the poster which help provide a narrative.
8. Try to embrace some design principles such as the use of empty spaces, balance and symmetry.
9. If time permits, include a YouTube video for those who would like a video presentation. But keep it to within 3 minutes (anything longer and your likely to loose some level of attention).

In the next post, I will describe the poster itself, the time needed to create it and whether I was successful in achieving any of the goals I set out for.

Feel free to leave a comment. Always looking for suggestions!