Water Whys presentation, 28 March 2025: Poster pitfalls and power-ups!

 

I’ll be giving an online presentation tomorrow, March 28 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time or 11:00 a.m. Arizona time.

There is still time to register! Visit https://waterwhys.org/seminar/spring-2025/ to sign up!

Politics hits poster sessions

Alexandra Witze reports:

Here at the ASSW (Arctic Science Summit Week - ZF) Arctic science conference in Boulder, a poster describing research done with US federal funds has words including “ethical” and “equity” crossed out. 🧪

 

 

This is, without question, a response to the American federal government’s attempt to eradicate policies that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But there are questions as to why someone felt compelled to make this particular response. Did the author(s) make it to draw attention to the policies? Or were they instructed to make the changes by someone above their pay grade?

If you are presenting a poster funded by an American federal agency, have you been asked to change to poster? Would you consider doing so even if not so instructed to avoid having to justify it to some agency administrator?

If you have a story to tell, I’m DoctorZen.66 on Signal.

You can’t have a great poster session in a bad conference

Many academics are aware of predatory or low-quality journals, but I get the impression that many are not as aware of predatory or low-quality conferences.

Christine Ro has just released an article in Nature describing the difficulty of knowing what you’re going to get when you decide to go to a new conference. This is a follow-up to an article last year about exploitative predatory conferences.

An underlying question that is not addressed in either article is, “Why would you go to a conference that you didn’t know?”

Many researchers are introduced to conference through their mentors. Many of them are conferences run by scientific societies. That continuity is a big benefit of societies running annual conferences. They are known and trusted. 

I know from personal experience that people end up with projects that cut across disciplines and are interesting to people in fields that you were not trained in. Again, it is usually not difficult to find a well-established scholarly society that has been running an annual conference for decades.

Why go to a conference that isn’t connected to a society, that doesn’t have a track record? What is the perceived value of going to a new conference by a commercial company? This is not to say such conferences are bad, but they represent a significant change from the tradition of conferences run by academics.

Ro’s article quotes researcher Olivier Sandre: 

Sandre advises students to be cautious with unfamiliar conferences, advising them to attend established ones at which they can be confident about making useful contacts. ... Now that he is more selective about which conferences he attends, he’s particularly wary of those run by businesses rather than learned societies. It’s fine when companies arrange practical services, such as meals, but he feels that the scientific content needs to be decided on by scientists. If he does not recognize the name of a single member of the organizing committee, he’s doubtful that the conference will be a good one.

In other words, conferences are about building a trusted community.

The bottom line from both articles:

Conference experiences are often a mixed bag. But understanding the potential and limitations of a conference ahead of time can help to manage expectations and assess the value of attending, even if it requires quite a bit of upfront research.

One resource mentioned is the “Think. Check. Attend.” website. It seems nice enough. I would also search for the conference on social media and look for whether people you trust have been to an earlier version of the conference. Searching the Flaky Academic Conferences blog might also be a useful tool, although I wish it was updated more regularly.

References

Ro C. 2024. How to spot a predatory conference, and what science needs to do about them: a guide. Nature 632: 219-220. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02360-2

Ro C. 2025. How to know whether a conference is right for you. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00903-9 

External links

Think. Check. Attend. 

Flaky Academic Conferences (blog - not updated in a long time)

Sweet sixteen

Almost missed blogiversary month!

It’s always a little crazy to think how this one project, started almost on a whim spinning off from my general academic blog, has managed to keep going.

I thank you for you continued interest and attention. I know I have slowed on posts, but make no mistake, I have every intention of keeping this project going for many more years yet.

I’m always looking for posters to share on the blog! I.ve you’ve done a conference poster you are happy with – or one you want to share as a warning to others – please email me at BetterPosters@gmail.com!

 

Photo by Michael W. May on Flickr; used under a Creative Common license.

Critique: No grave mistakes

This poster comes from Spencer Moore. Click to enlarge!

I’m super pleased to have posters that are not from the traditional sciences. This one is off to a good start. 

This posters had a big advantage, because the research itself is about the use of imagery. That can provide entry points for a viewer. If I were browsing in the conference hall, I would look at this and be convinced I could get something useful in five minutes.

The top of the poster features a curve that is reminiscent of the top of many grave markers. I am torn between making the visual connection to a stone stronger, or leaving it subtle.

The first place I would look for improvements is in the layout of those graphics. For example, here’s a close up of the lower left corner:

I want to see those symbols positioned more carefully. Currently, they are different shapes and sizes, and only the top edge of the second row aligns. Let’s try a couple of different grids.

There are nine image, which would suggest a three by three grid. The top image is so wide that it will not make it easy to make every image the same width. So to create an orderly grid, we want all the smaller images to be an even fraction of the top one (e.g., one third, one quarter).

Here is the first version I tried. The layout created a space in the lower right, where I put a description of figures.

The images in the bottom rows are not the same height, so I filled in the background with a similar colour using the eyedropper tool. (Other tricks to harmonize shapes in a grid are in the Better Posters book!)

Here is another option:

Speaking of alignment, it would sure be nice if “Background,” “Analysis,” and “Discussion” were all on the same line instead of “Analysis” dipping below the other two. There are lots of other places where more attention to alignment would significantly improve the poster.

If I were making deeper revisions, I might try to put all the imagery together, instead of one set in the left column and another set in the right column.

Another possibility to clean-up the images is being more selective. For instance, on the left side, there are four images of temples. True, they are different temples, but maybe only one is needed to represent that category. Similarly, there are four examples of "linguistic symbolism" on the right. Maybe one is enough.

The central figures both show the same thing: an increase in Mormon symbols over time. Again, maybe only one is needed. Alternately, maybe try to change the second graph to emphasize the increase in the types of symbols, not just the raw number of them.

Both graphs might have an indication when two events mentioned in the introduction happened: temple construction in 1945, and the change in church teachings in 1972.

As for the text, I’m not a fan of the bullet lists, particularly using the visually complex “black diamond minus white X” (❖). 

The “Background” section currently lacks a clear problem that explains why the research was undertaken. The “Discussion” section suggests a possibility when it mentions, “The frequency of LDS symbols indicated increased community representation before it was reflected in the census.” Oh, now why would that be? Can we see some census data in the “Analysis” section for comparison?

The “Methods” are so short and simple that they might be moved into figure captions.

After I shared an earlier version of some of these comments, changes were made. Click to enlarge!

 Definitely better!

Thanks for reading, and remember: Make a grid whenever you can!

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
 

Lessons from political parties: More points means less clarity

One of the major American political parties shared this on their social media accounts this weekend.

I saw this post not in its original form, but from critiques of it. And it deserves those critiques.

The design emphasizes (the appearance of) quantity over quality. This is not for reading. It is meant to look busy.

I was struck by how much this reminded me of many conference posters: no overarching narrative or message and dense to the point of being unreadable.

The one good thing that this does is that the headline is big and readable. But the headline conveys no key point. It announces that it is a list and nothing else. I cannot stress enough the importance of having a singular narrative.

What might that singular narrative be? The first three points on the list suggest a better headline:

• Every House Democrat voted against Trump’s budget that slashes Medicaid.
• House Democrats introduced the Taxpayer Data Protection Act to permanently protect the American people’s data from Elon Musk and Trump.
• Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit to stop Elon Musk from accessing Americans’ data.

All of them concern the federal government. Two individuals are mentioned twice. A more powerful headline might be, “How Democrats fought to protect Americans from Trump and Musk last month.” That’s a headline I wouldn’t even rate as good. I would rate it as barely adequate. But it’s better than, “Here’s a list.”

Likewise, there are 32 bullet points. Pick just the ones that reinforce the headline. The three above are probably enough. There are more points that begin, “Every Democrat voted against...”. Those could be combined into “Every Democrat voted against Trump’s [adjective] cabinet choices.”

Yes, focusing on the federal government in this graphic means ignoring the state governors here, but so what? Make more graphics. One for each state if you must.

Sometimes, we get so caught up in our own research and the academic way of doing things that we are maybe too forgiving of these problems. I am hoping that when you see someone else making these decisions, it’ll be easier to recognize how ineffective the result is.

Old school numbers have advantages

“Why aren’t there lowercase numbers?”

Well, there are. 

I’ve mentioned the excellent MyFont manuals about typography before. Their latest is about the different ways that numbers are shown in type.

Early typographers used numbers that, like lowercase letters, varied in height and whether they descended below the base line. They’re not called oldstyle letters.

 

We are used to lining numbers, which are the equivalent of all capital numbers. By historical accident, they have become out default for what numbers are accessible to us most of the time.

The tidbit that jumped out at me in the article:

Lining numerals may appear to be more legible than their more senior brethren, but a variety of legibility studies have proven that this is not the case: lowercase numerals are moderately more legible than lining numerals when isolated, and considerably more legible when set in groups.

On a poster, legibility is such a critical factor that I recommend people consider trying oldstyle numbers.

But I freely admit that using those numbers forms can be a little complicated.

First, you usually need a font that includes alternate number shapes. OpenType fonts often include them. For example, the sample above is the ubiquitous Arial. 

Second, you need software that lets you access those advanced OpenType features. Many dedicated graphics programs will let you do this. I changed the numbers in CorelDraw.

But if you’re stuck with Microsoft Office, unfortunately, Microsoft’s support for those alternate types is very patchy (even though they helped create the format). The same is true for Google tools or Canva (but here.s a workaround for Canva).

Some typefaces, however, just use oldstyle letters for everything. Corbel, for example.

External links

The story of typographic numbers

Change your poster title when publishing the paper

A recent paper by Prasad and colleagues (2025) provided some advice on how to turn a conference poster or presentation into a publication. For the most part, these are common sense if you understand both formats. For example, you will need far more detail in the Methods section to a journal manuscript.

The authors write:

The title of the final manuscript may occasionally and sometimes may need to be different from the title of the conference abstract.

This undersells the problem. I think that every poster, presentation, and publication should have a unique title.

First, someone reading a CV may underestimate the number of presentations, or think that you have made a mistake by including the same presentation twice.

Second, conference abstracts are uploaded, read by machines, and included in indexing services. You do not want citations to one project being misdirected to another, or combined, or anything else that might happen.

It just reduces confusion.

And do not tell me that your work can only be described by one possible title! Here are some conference presentation and poster titles I used during my PhD work:

1. Analysis of digging movements by the sand crab Blepharipoda occidentalis.
2. Digging by the sand crab Blepharipoda occidentalis.
3. Digging by the sand crabs Blepharipoda occidentalis and Emerita analoga: a comparative analysis using movement notation and EMGs.
4. Integrating movements and motor patterns in sand crab digging.
5. Interjoint coordination and muscle activity in legs of digging sand crabs.
6. Sand crab digging: a neuroethological study of the evolution of a “new” behaviour.
7. Coupling of different locomotor rhythms in sand crabs.
8. Sand crab digging is not homologous to reptantian walking.
9. Sand crab digging: an evolutionary mosaic of disparate ancestral locomotor modules?
10. Digging in pearly sand crabs, Lepidopa californica: does size or phylogeny determine coordination?
11. “New” behaviours as evolutionary mosaics.

The obvious change is that the first titles mention just one species, and more species get added into they mix as we studied them. And none of those titles are the same as the final published papers.

Reference

Prasad S, Garg A, Saini J. 2025. Turning your presentations/posters to publications. Indian Journal of Radiology and Imaging 35(S01): S143-S147. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0044-1800864

In search of an online and hybrid poster session that works

Over the last few years, I’ve had a lot of discussions about conference accessibility and online conferences. The advantages of online conferences became almost immediately apparent in 2020, when the pandemic quickly forced the issue. Since then, many conferences have stepped back from the online experience, which I think is a shame.

I think there is still room to innovate! A recent paper by Moss and colleagues (2024) steps up to the challenge of how to make a large hybrid conference. And by large, we’re talking about over 2,600 participants, with 600 online.

Poster session has seemed to be the one part of a conference that has proved hardest to translate into a positive online experience.

Here’s how this team did their poster session:

An example of (freedom to experiment) was the hybrid poster set-up where online and in-person presenters and participants could interact freely in real time via Zoom. When it became clear that existing commercial providers could not realize this vision in a cost-effective way, a custom approach was devised that involved purchasing 100 sets of equipment, managed by the (organizing committee) and a dedicated set of volunteers. The physical set-up was fairly straightforward, incorporating digital screens, Raspberry Pis, mice, keyboards, webcams and ethernet connections. While this experimental approach was not without challenges, it successfully enabled hybrid posters in an unprecedented and innovative way.

I would have liked to hear from conference attendees about their poster experience. Did they feel it was close to a face-to-face session? Was it easy to navigate? Were there genuine interactions from both the in person and online attendees?

Regardless, I commend the organizers for their generosity:

This approach also led to a sustained and lasting impact on the community: because the equipment sets were purchased outright rather than rented, they are being donated to schools across South Africa, bringing benefits to people well beyond the (conference) and facilitating educational opportunities that would have otherwise been inaccessible.

Now, you might read that and think, “Wait, they bought all this equipment for the poster sessions for use at one conference? Surely that was a money loser for this conference!” The authors don’t think so:

(N)o more than 18% of the total conference costs can be in any way attributable to online attendees (but) this is a substantial overestimate, as (audio-visual) equipment is necessary for all participants, not just those online. When removing (audio-visual) costs from the calculation, hybrid costs were only 3% of the budget — considering that online registration covered 6% of the total budget, it is likely that IAU more than broke even with its online registrations. ...

Far from adding excessively to conference costs, the experience of the IAU GA demonstrates that hybrid can greatly increase reach (for instance, more than 10,000 unique viewers on YouTube) for a small fraction of the conference budget.

It can be done, and it can be done better. I would very much like to see more organizations pushing harder to develop a great online poster session.

Reference

Moss VA, Venugopal R, Govender K, Hotan AW, Kobayashi R, Rees GA, Tasker EJ, Vertue DG, Le Jeune A, Kerrison EF, Roux J, Blumenthal K, Ekers RD, Peel MW, Takalana CM, Barocci-Faul S, Benkhaldoun Z, Binneman A, Breytenbach H, Chibueze JO, Cunnama DC, Kubheka DV, Mdhluli JE, Macfarlane SA, Zamxaka M, van Zyl L. 2024. Accessible hybrid conferences are possible and affordable at large scale. Nature Astronomy: in press. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02448-9