How to make a good poster
This is my first post here, but I will try to do my best and write smth good and useful. Not so long ago together with my colleagues from HSE in St. Petersburg Ilya, Viktor and Denis, we gave a presentation of how to make a good poster and how to give a good poster presentation. How dare we? But why not? I was always keen on visualization and manage the public group, where I collect different dataviz projects — I’m a pretty much inside visualization field.
So, let’start! We made a small scheme for poster production. This is like an instruction for your brainstorming: what you should include, what should you say and how could you visualize it.
Research — “What did you do and how?”
Information — “What should all see and remember?’
Audience — “Where are you and with who you are talking?”
How to show it — “Is it better to use graphs, tables or text?”
Firstly, think about what did you do — your research. What is your main idea and why is it important to study it — this could be a good introduction to your talk and you also have to make a poster block about it. Just to tell people what the hell am I doing here. Next, think why did you use these methods and data and tell people why, but show what. You could also cite previous works to show that this is not entirely examined topic or what previous authors missed smth. It’s better to explain your choice verbally but you have to show it as well. Think, what your results could mean and how could you strengthen it? Show your main results on the poster and probably with some discussion around them. But also tell what did you get and what could it mean?
The second thing to think about is information. You have to organize your poster and your talk around it in the way that the main construct and results should be visible and you should only frame the construct and the concept presented on the poster, with your talk. If you constantly refer to some of your results or idea, show it on your poster. Then no one will forget what you are talking about. And always think and care about people. Is it better to visualize some of your ideas and results or just add some text about them? How would they understand it better? Think about diagrams, flow charts, pictures of objects you study, tables and structured text.
Next, which is connected to information, is the audience. Are you on the scientific conference in your field, is just a meetup of all who are interested in it or you have to sell your idea presented on the poster? From the one who is your audience depends on your style of conversation, the main accents on the poster and the need for an explanation of the special terms. Sometimes you can predict whether they know smth about it or no. But if you are not sure it’s better to explain all specific words.
And now it’s time to draw! As you already know what text should you add, think about graphs. Even if your results do not have a map, for example, you could show the importance of the study with the distribution of the problem. Add flow charts — it is always easier for people to read and this is good support for your talk. Provide all important information and make it understandable! Everything else could be said :)
On the right side, there are some tips about where could you make your poster, what fonts and colours it is better to use and where could you visualize all your results.
Next post will be more about graphic design of the poster.