Reimaging posters on In Plain Cite podcast

Everyone has a podcast now. Even the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals . They just renamed their podcast to In Plain Cite, and their first real episode is about conference posters! They talk to Doreen Valentine. (She is listed as being affiliated with Bristol Myers Squibb, but I cannot find any active web page).

Valentine describes what she sees as trends in conference poster design.

1. Plain language summaries.
2. QR codes.
3. Iconography. (It sounds like she just means more attention to graphic design.)
4. Interactive posters.
   
5. Augmented reality. (She mentions goggles, so I think she might mean virtual reality)

Host Rob Matheis asks how we can make posters more accessible to a wider audience. This struck me as a curious question. If a poster is in a conference hall, it doesn’t matter how you design your poster. You’re limited to conference attendees. A scientific conference is a walled garden. You can’t just walk into a scientific conference off the street. You have to register, and academic conferences are notoriously expensive. The audience is largely technical experts by design.

How would conference posters reach a wider audience? I suppose that in medical conferences, there will be some patients and patient advocates along with original researchers. I do see conference posters that have a second life in hospital hallways, much like scientific posters often end up decorating hallways outside university department offices. And finally, I have repeatedly suggested that posters should be archived online through repositories.

But I don’t see any of those three pathways being a very significant expansion of audiences to a wider audience that are not researchers.

The podcast goes on a bit of a tangent to mention best practices for medical publications. The discussants miss an opportunity, I think. Professional communication societies don’t have best practices for conference posters. Not truly.

The American Medical Writers Association guidelines do say, “The GPP guidelines cover... non‑peer‑reviewed communications such as posters, lectures, and book chapters.”

But the guidelines are all about text. They are about who gets to be an author, transparency, conflicts of interest, and when to submit. Those are useful. But it misses what guidance would be useful in making an effective poster.

Why not guidelines on visual accessibility for posters?

I understand that the publication guidelines are not Elements of Style. And maybe a national writers association is not the right organization to provide those guidelines. But plenty of organizations, like conference organizers, might be.

The absence of best practices from professional organizations is very conspicuous.

External links

Scientific Posters, Reimagined