Scientific Poster Presentation - from the Lab to a Conference

We’ve all been there at one point or another. Experiments piling up one after the other and meetings to discuss results that are unclear, to say the least. And then your boss tells you it’s that time of the year again. 

Conferences tend to generate a mixture of excitement and terror in most scientists. Excitement to meet like-minded peers, share your findings and get essential feedback. Terror because of the challenges you’ll face while preparing a scientific poster that helps you get the best out of the conference.

It can be a double-edged sword, since a well-designed scientific poster can facilitate the spreading of information and ideas and cultivate fruitful collaborations, but it can also present a creative challenge to people who are more used to being empirical and to-the-point.

And yet, many researchers report that it was in front of one such scientific poster where they established key collaborations or career-defining connections.

Here are some challenges scientists often face when designing a scientific poster and how to circumvent them.

Simplify complex information on your scientific poster

Scientists put a lot of hard work into their research and experiments. Late nights and sacrificed weekends and holidays. So, it is natural for them to want to include all that hard work into their scientific poster. However, this leads to them being cluttered and such scientific posters are hard to comprehend and often overwhelm viewers.

It is important to understand that a scientific poster is a mere tool to give the audience a glimpse of what your research is about. It is, thus, imperative to tell a story with your data. To overcome this challenging feat, focus on a central question and include results that either support or negate it in your scientific poster. In addition, having a couple of take-home messages helps the viewers remember the significance of your scientific poster and thus your work better. Catchy headings and strategically placed visuals further help guide your audience through your scientific poster.

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Designing an aesthetically appealing scientific poster

Apart from designing scientific posters, scientists rarely require training in graphic design, and they tend to find it challenging to prepare scientific posters that are visually appealing. Ideally, a scientific poster needs to strike a balance between aesthetics and scientific rigour.

With the available tools that make scientific poster designing more viable, there are plenty of choices with regards to fonts, pictures, themes and templates that can overwhelm most. It is hard to discern what captivates and guides the audience and what detracts from the information and the story.

The rule of thumb is to prioritise simplicity and readability. Another option, if you are unsure of having a balanced scientific poster is to reach out to experts that have extensive experience making scientific poster appealing, yet rife with information.

You can get more tips on how to create a scientific poster in this article!

Making scientific posters can be time intensive

As a scientist, experiments take priority above all else, closely followed by analysis of the results. It is understandable that how that data is represented on a scientific poster can be less important when critically thinking and optimising experiments and results take most of your time. On top of that, there are other responsibilities that further decrease the time you can allocate to poster-design.

However, this causes you to rush through the preparation, revision and printing of scientific posters resulting in suboptimal scientific posters. It is, therefore, worthwhile to provide yourself with more time to go over your poster before printing it. Remember, a stitch in time, saves nine.

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Know your audience

Whether it is for a job fair, a conference encompassing your field or specific to it, it severely affects the extent of detail you will go into on your scientific poster.

If it is a big conference, for example, your scientific poster not only needs to be detailed enough to engage your audience, but it also needs to stand out to attract the right kind to it. However, if you were to present the same scientific poster at a job fair, you would run the risk of alienating your audience that mostly consists of laypeople.

Think of it this way, if you cannot explain your work to your own grandmother, you most likely cannot explain it to your audience. So, it is always crucial to ask yourself what kind of audience you wish to cater to with your scientific poster before you sit down to design it.

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Conclusion

Today, with the amount of information available in the palm of our hands it is essential to communicate your science to your audience devoid of biases, false interpretations and claims, but in an appealing manner. Although it is not exclusively taught today, science communication is an important part of being a scientist and scientific posters are one such crucial aspect. 

By focusing on the following key points, you will be well on your way to making and presenting a poster that is both eye-catching and informative: