2021 UPDATE: The sequel to this cartoon has new layouts, research, and principles. If you loved this, or even if you didn't, there's probably something you'll like in the #betterposter Generation 2 cartoon: th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.html P.S. - Thank you all for being open to improving your posters!
You probably dont give a shit but does someone know of a way to log back into an instagram account? I somehow forgot my password. I love any tips you can offer me.
@Nash Forrest thanks for your reply. I got to the site through google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff atm. Takes quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
Glad you broke it down like that. The first 10 minutes I'm just waiting for the video to get to the point. Still, the wait was worth it. This is a lovely simple solution to creating a poster in a hurry.
Thanks you saved me even more time!! Now we need him to make a video on how to make an efficient video explaining how to make an even more efficient video on how to make a better science poster.
As someone who's helped managed, coordinate, and run multiple poster sessions in my field, I can confirm the first half of this video accurately describes the poster session experience 😂 No doubt, many academics will hate this design. Some supervisors probably won't even approve it (because it's too clear, too to-the-point and too comprehensible not just to scientists, but if done well, the general public too). Scientists/researchers need a MASSIVE push towards more effective and efficient communication, and I think this is a step in the right direction! Here's to the next generation of scientists who exercise just as much rigor in their work as they do in their communication - well done!
Well said, Erich! First, some updates to this design here: th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=mhzCnBFTIreM65sk And more recent (2024), more nerdy updates on the broader challenge of changing posters here: th-cam.com/video/QU8HMU8A3ns/w-d-xo.htmlsi=W4EVbBUzHG3dhflC But I think you're right that researchers need a massive push towards rigorous communication design. I got a little lucky with this video helping to destabilize posters a little when it went viral, but the effect is waning. Any ideas for how we could create that massive push?
@@MikeMorrisonPhD Thanks for the update! I'm using the updated designs for a poster on some asteroid research I've been doing for the past year...can't wait to see how it turns out! For the massive push, I think you'd need to get this in front of as many undergrads and grad students as possible earlier in their careers. To help with that, I'm passing your most recent content along to a student volunteer network I help coordinate...hopefully they take it on and rock their next poster session! (Getting it into student-run, science clubs/networks is probably a lot easier/faster than encouraging a faculty to switch paradigms). A lot of grad students I know mimic their supervisors, which I think is part of what's keeping the wall-of-text design alive (which you actually mentioned in the video haha). To me, it seems easier to simply train the next generation to do better than to convince seasoned supervisors to switch things up. I know some faculty who would love this, but they're the ones already interested in science communication anyways haha I think we'll see rapid progress if today's undergrads/grads are shown more effective, evidence-based communication tactics and begin to model them to their students in the future! 🙂
As someone about to go into my first poster session next week this is MASSIVELY HELPFUL! I was so nervous about presenting but now I know how I should be making my poster and I feel like I’m making it WITH A PURPOSE!! I’ll definitely be watching the updated video but so far I’m feeling a lot better about this
My Professor replied to me when I shared this video to her: "Thanks for sharing.....saw this earlier, knew it made ripples... I wondered what impact it would have on poster sessions. I was at a poster session on Saturday evening--I saw several QR codes, but definitely none going so far as this in design. I heartily agree that titles should be informative, and I'd love to see those improve! However I disagree with this person's assertion about what the "point" is of attending a session. I hear he's disappointed that he isn't "learning" 60 things in 60 minutes. Doesn't sound like critical examination to me, just grazing, which misses a lot of the value of a poster session (or oral presentation)...both form of pre-publication presentations allow constructive feedback to be exchanged in both directions. Deep communication and extended dialogue between small numbers of people at small numbers of posters is often highly productive. When we feel overwhelmed, the abstract book is helpful. I usually scan it, pick about five posters and feel very satisfied to get to some of those! I wish you all happy poster making and I hope you enjoy your poster session. Enjoy those few powerful conversations!"
I think that's a fair reply, and the deep conversations are Absolutely inportant! But if I can't understand in 10 seconds what your major conclusion is (or even area of research sometimes!), I'm just as likely to miss an important opportunity to connect as I am to stop by. I almost never stop at any posters nowadays until I've "grazed" each one for that reason- nothing worse than your friend telling you later about a poster you missed that could have been perfect for you to find.
Thank you for putting this out there. This video was a bit slow to get to the point.... Ironic. But still nicely done. The ideas are good, especially the QR code, but the Twitter approach to posters seems to go too far. Here's what I tell my students: 1. Always end your poster with simple, clear bullet point conclusions in a super-large font that can be read from 5 feet away. I think that captures the main spirit of your video. 2. When presenting your poster ALWAYS be respectful of your audience's time. Your presentation should take no more than 3 min to go through without questions. Use the extra time for those who might have questions.
Edward Ruthazer as a designer who vaguely knew this problem existed, I watched the whole video from start to finish and enjoyed knowing all of the back story. Plus, I imagined hearing this on NPR over the radio. Anyway, the video was super entertaining and it gave a lot of credibility to the creator and the content and problem.
Edward Ruthazer I think the reason it is slow to get to the point was that it has to explain what the problem is and why it’s a problem. To me it might be slightly over simplified but the final design is basically sound. There’s always room for originality but it’s premise is spot on.
I am designing my dissertation poster using the "traditional way" and I found out this while looking for tips for designing a poster. This is a simple and creative idea! I want to apply it but I am worried it will fell out the marking criteria of my university. Either way, I think this idea has lots of potential for future academia, at least I hope so.
Mike, I watched this some time ago and have come back to it again. The video is very good but I do seem to see many people in the comments with no real understanding of what you have done. This in no way impedes serious conversation between the presenter and viewer. It doesn't make the posters weaker or dumbed down. And, in my experience it's a bit naïve to believe that your scan of the abstracts beforehand is sufficient to tell what you can get out of a poster session. Something missed in an abstract may jump right out in a poster session like you've proposed. I think that the aspect of delight and surprise could come into poster sessions to a much greater degree if some of your ideas were broadly followed. As someone who spent a lot of work designing posters in the early 90's with nice graphics and saw the advent of the poster on a single printed sheet as both a boon and a curse I appreciate what you've done. When you had to print everything on separate pieces of paper and lay it out when you get to the session there was opportunity for great design that many people took but there were a lot of terrible posters too. The biggest problem I see in comments on this (here and elsewhere) is that people seem to be taking the design ideas far too seriously in their specifics. One could have a shorter main message and have it take up less space, be nice and readable from afar, and include more close up information to the left and bottom. I see what you've done as spreading a very valuable idea, not a canonical set of rules for poster layout. I will say that it might be nice to mix your ideas a bit with the infographics folks. One issue with the particular infographics examples you showed is that they could be pared down as well.
This comment should be on top. You succeeded in pinpointing what's the aspect that a lot of people in the comments missed in their interpretation of the ideas in the video. Thank you for your input. It helped put words on the reflexions I had when reading the criticisms of Mike's model.
"Maybe the research in your field isn't really important - and I'm in Psychology, so I get that..." As a fellow psychologist I can agree whole heartedly.
Most of those "conclusions" in the center could be a traditional poster's title to achieve the same thing. I feel like putting some much space into the conclusion is putting a lot of faith in the creator of the poster. I've read many conclusions from posters that are not at all supported by the evidence presented in the poster. If I just went around and "absorbed" just the conclusions from each poster at a conference, I'd come away with some helpful information yes, but also a lot of misleading information. It's the same as a manuscript - you should never just skip to the conclusion (or only read the abstract), because those two areas are by far the most biased parts of a paper.
This point that you and others here have made seems worth careful consideration. However, as researchers, we should always be skeptical of assertions by other researchers, so you could just think of the big-text part as the big takeaway that you (1) quickly understand, (2) log in your memory as something someone is claiming to have shown, (3) and decide whether to engage further to judge for yourself the veracity of the assertion and what nuance needs to be added to it. Really, this process is how I'd want to approach any poster, and the suggested redesign just makes the first step *much more efficient*. Most posters probably won't be relevant enough to you for you to take the time to judge the assertion's accuracy, and the faster you can determine that, the better.
@@WBradleyKnox I'm wondering if the center could include a couple of key pieces. Like the conclusion, but also a brief description of methodology. Like "This is the conclusion we have" and then below "From a retrospective cohort study of a single institution..."
@@briank7890 That's interesting. So roughly you're proposing adding a middle tier, that has more detail than the short takeaway and less than the bar on the left? That seems like a reasonable alteration.
@@WBradleyKnox I'm thinking what I personally would want a quick summary of. It would be their conclusions plus a brief summary of the study. I spend 80% of my reading a paper on the methodology, so it should be similar for posters.
This is wonderful. Ten years from now we’re going to look back and marvel at how long old the status quo lasted. As a side note, thank you for taking the immense amount of time it took to make this. I’m sure you got a lot of “shouldn’t you be focusing on your research?”
Haha I definitely got some weird looks from people when I tried to explain where I was spending my time. Happily, most people in my PhD program are used to me doing weird projects that somehow pay off, so they were pretty supportive. But that "shouldn't you be focusing on your research?" worry was a constant nagging self-accusation in my mind throughout this entire process. Now that the video blew up and people are starting to adopt the new design and succeed with it, that voice has finally gone quiet.
Why am I surprised, but not really surprised, to find @acapellascience in the comments. Now I'm thinking we need a song about making better conference posters.
Already 4 years in, how widely is it spread ? I'm an european PhD student in electrical engineering, ending its 3rd year, I only attended to one online conf due to covid, and I just discovered this new design !
Brilliant. This should be a poster at a design conference. So much to learn, presented in such a real and interesting manner. Love your use os humour and language too.
I LOVE this. I come from a communications background and am about to present my first clinical psych poster at a conference (of my own research, rather than someone else's) - I always wondered why posters were so user-unfriendly. I'm going to try a version of this, perhaps not as bold and brave as these here, but I will take a step into what is a more engaging and memorable sharing space using your tips. Thank you!
@MikeMorrison. THANK YOU so much for your generosity of sharing, and to those of your friends and colleagues who have done the same. For years I have hated Poster sessions, hated making them, hated doing them, bored to death looking at walls and walls of fine print and indecipherable graphs. A total waste of time - might as just write the bloody paper and go through the journal submission process. Posters do have their place - and someone has FINALLY developed a way to make Posters shine - reflect the important work presented, while not pretending it's anything other than..... a Poster.
A wise psych professor told me 25 years ago “you can never have too few words on a poster” and I’ve always stuck to that. So I’ve been using minimal words plus QR codes for a while now, it’s definitely the way to go. I hardly ever stop at a wall-of-text poster and can never believe that people really still do that! I like this idea but have two fears: now everyone uses the same template and it becomes hard to stand out (possible); and the other I have already seen on your RTs, which is people are making the side bars too big (splitting into thirds instead of narrow bands at the side) - this seems to defeat the purpose and makes it look like a wall-of-text with engineering issues 😉 The practice definitely is long overdue a shake-up though and if this even gets people thinking twice about their design your job is done.
Thank you! We all need help lol. So much blocked science. And definitely check out the sequel!! th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=fC-40DT5HzIdyLNZ
Thank you for a brilliant, funny presentation. You completely changed my view of effective public presentation of information. And you have an authentic voice. Watching this was like going on a fascinating ride.
Haha trust me I know how it feels to have your poster completely ignored. This video wouldn't exist if I hadn't suffered first haha. And check out the newer layouts in the PART 2 video! th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.html&lc=UgwbKVUXSVDwCcDMjM94AaABAg&ab_channel=MikeMorrison%2CPhD
OMG, mind = blown! I typically had one of the few unicorn posters and therefore sucked up most people - so I was one of the few people having a good poster experience. But I never thought about the overall session and how this is detrimental to the scientific process in general. And that I was the one person who sucked up those 30mins of people's time because they would flock to me because my poster looked like a nice infographic instead of a boring wall of text. Doh! Really, this year of your life was *very well spent*! Congrats and thank you! I have already forwarded this to our whole institute.
OMG, I can't believe I watched the entire 20 minutes of this video - you nailed it, so insightful, and more people should watch this. I can not agree more as a designer.
I am doing a science poster for school for the first time ever, I have been searching for something that works for me and this is the best thing I could have found on internet
I used this for a poster at the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry - the conference organizers sent out this video ahead of time and I'd estimate that 20% of the posters used this format. MUCH better for strolling through and the layout itself elicited many comments - thanks!!
Many of them do! And lots of them don't use this or the PART 2 layouts (see generation 2 cartoon), but DO put a big takeaway on their poster or make their data/figures bigger after seeing one of these videos. I'll take any impact I can get! We'll change the system eventually with enough research & iteration!
Just love this poster design. You are teaching to focus on essentials and good organization of content instead of just stuffing as much information as possible into one poster. Great video.
This is a fine idea but there is no consideration given to the fact that many attendees (like myself) spend days *before* the conference to select specific posters to interact with. In a scientific world of greater and greater sub-specialization, there is often no time to just walk along and randomly interact with dozens of posters in different fields.
I think your format is an excellent idea for folks who come unprepared, and want to walk around and learn new ideas by osmosis. For me, it would not be useful because all the detailed graphs/figures I am coming to see on the poster would be too small to see, and discuss with the author.
@@arturcideciyan I think by adjusting the size of the ammo bar you would still have enough room for the detailed graphs and figures when viewed up close. Also if the main result is best described by a single image then I would imagine the main summary text and the main image could share space
It's of course great if you can look through the posters (online) before the conference, but is that commonly possible in your field? I only know about Morressier.com that supports conferences to make the posters discoverable online before the conference takes place, but not all conferences use Morressier.
Artur Cideciyan how big to illustrations or charts need to be if you’re standing two feet away? This format is designed to draw you in from 10 feet away. The charts would certainly be readable as long as they’re not literally the size of a postage stamp. Side bars 12 inches wide would give ample room.
Fantastic storytelling! Love the way you broke down the problem and presented the better solution. I'm learning more about UX and this is a great example of improving the UX of everyday stuff :)
We are currently considering using this approach on a Teacher Education Programme in the UK. We have about 600 trainee teachers attending a Conference each year, where each has written a paper on the teaching of their subject. This looks like a powerful way for them to share their ideas. If we do it, I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks, Mike. Great work!
That's amazing! Yes please let me know how it goes! Also, you might find the template and example image helpful on the OS repo. Here's the new example image I added last night: osf.io/8ajqs/
Adding a QR code is undoubtedly a revolution! I always make my slides with as few words as possible. I am going to do my poster presentation in July and I gonna adopt your ideas. I will let you know how it works. Thanks for all these brilliant ideas!
Thanks so much Mike! I'm presenting a poster for the first time at the National Conference on Family Relations and they linked your video as a reference. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to watch it. Definitely helped with the anxiety behind creating a boring poster that no one will read. Thanks again
This is so interesting! I teach poster creation at a big university and I plan to experiment with this idea. Librarians and faculty are having conversations about it.
I'm a graphic artist at the University of Nebraska. I also teach two classes in poster production. I love, love, love this concept and going to introduce it ASAP. Keep it simple ... Don't be afraid of negative space.
I propose an idea: For the price of two fabric posters you can get a 50" screen. Use that for fullscreen clickbait to lure in the suckers then blast them with data when they get closer.
Good stuff, Mike. I'll even use the word brilliant. As I am preparing for my first poster presentation in quite some time, for APA convention, so I thank you for this.
@@MikeMorrisonPhD Will do. And I have recently learned about end screens, which you can easily add to your video and gives viewers a clickable link to go to the next video you recommend. Easy peasy and is definitely helping me expand my TH-cam channel.
Thank you MIke! As a researcher with a graphic design background, I dreaded every poster session. When I suggested change I was laughed at from tradition and routine. Thanks for sharing, I look forward to seeing the impact these posters have!
Our professor shared your video to us just few days before we head to conference. This video was really insightful, wish we could move towards this change in design.
YES!! THANK YOU! I am a graphic designer working for a scientific company. I have been fighting these "too much content" battles since I started with the company. This is such a good explanation w/ great reasoning behind it. I will be sharing this with my colleagues & implementing these design changes immediately.
This is an very interesting idea, I accept that the way posters are generally presented is not ideal, but honestly this is like presenting a tweet of your work. When I go to a poster session I never read the posters, I ask the presenters" so could you please tell me your story?" I like the idea of having a "in a nutshell" statement as a predominant feature of the poster, but I feel does not have to be the "dominant feature" of the poster.. I can see now everybody with the phone's out clicking to posters and never interact with the speaker. The cool idea of presenting a poster is not to talk to 100 people, is to have few but fruitful conversations about your work.
I think from the presenter's point of view, that might be a valid goal. But I think the description of the attendee's point of view is spot on here. I would want to be exposed to as many findings/ideas as possible.
Maria Gonzalez you say you never read the posters but ask the presenter for their story. I think that’s the premise of this design alternative. Starts conversations by keeping it super simple but with enough data on the side bars to talk about. You’ll notice in many magazine articles there will be solid color boxes with extra bold type. They’re called “call outs” because it grabs the eye gives the gist, increases curiosity and nudges you to read the full article. That’s the idea here. A giant “call out” box.
Thank you! The humor and honesty of this video was so refreshing got me excited about doing a better job on the poster I procrastinated and need to produce this weekend.
This is a really awesome and entertaining video. Thank you for making it and answering all my frustrations towards scientific posters. My next one is going to be wayyyyyy better because of this.
Want another good idea? Replace posters with 50" screens. You can get one such screens for as little as the price of two fabric scientific posters. That way you can have a fullscreen clickbait to lure in the audience then slam them down with data. We could even have touchscreens so you can tap on that graph to see more.
In addition to the problems Mike explains so well, I also have found that poster presenters will typically assume you know more than you do and talk over your head, making the process time inefficient and mentally more tiring. As a postdoc, I learned to ameliorate this problem by saying "Can I have the 30-second version, explained to me like I just finished the undergraduate introduction to [insert field here] course?". Then the presenter will often give me a 1-5 minute version and explain it to me like I'm a grad student in their field, which is MUCH better than without me providing that prompt.
A lot of your points are well-taken, and damn, this is a bold, novel take on the poster that I think would make for a lot of better experiences. But I also have to question the idea that posters should focus so much on what people can retain as they are walking by. A lot of the point of a poster is to get people to engage with the work and the presenter (which is what makes them so different from the 20+10 talk format that is so common, at least in my field) -- in some sense, they aren't actually meant to be walked past, and I think one of the things that makes them interesting is that there are so many different ways to consume them. Putting information off to the side like that is clever, but I worry it limits the number of people who can read the information on the poster at the same time (which is important for those cases where you have to talk to seven people at the same time as a presenter and need them all to see the same thing at the same time). Also, you should get a Beamer template up, too. There's more to life than Powerpoint.
"Putting information off to the side like that is clever, but I worry it limits the number of people who can read the information on the poster at the same time (which is important for those cases where you have to talk to seven people at the same time as a presenter and need them all to see the same thing at the same time)." That's why there's the QR Code. If your poster is reaaaally interesting and you have more than 3 people on it, they can access it on their phone. It's just about readability. You need a poster to get attention but you don't need a poster to be read. People can read that same poster on their phone.
@@alexandrehuat773 I mean, hopefully not? The poster is basically useless beyond being an ad and looking at it on a phone wouldn't be very useful. You would probably just send them to the relevant stuff off on the side.
@@gryphonavocatio I think we should not confuse the poster as a unique media, the A0 paper, with the poster as its content, the information. As a researcher you don't care about the A0 paper, exactly like you don't care whether people read your journal articles on a paper sheet or on their computer screen. It just matters whether they get the content. So if people read your poster on their phone after having seen the poster on a A0 paper, you're happy.
@@alexandrehuat773 Yes, exactly. It is an ad. It's the cover page with the index page peeking out at the side. Nobody has time to exchange email addresses with 300 people in an hour. A quick QR scan gives you more time to eat, meet and have something to read later on.
FurnitureFan the problem is that "later on" tends to never really happen. Unless you got a bit more than a bunch of qr code generated links saved to your ever growing bookmark file. Imo, it's a good idea to put enough of your content onto the sidebars and spend a little bit more time on making that look pretty and interesting, too. Ideally, the sidebars would look like the unicorn poster. Because you know, when you come home from a conference, you're jet lagged, you need to unpack and do laundry, you need to catch up on all the work backlog etc. So, that bunch of qr codes isn't going to get looked at unless there's a little bit more you remember than just that text punch line. Preferably some graph or graphics. Because, remember, those conferences are international - and for non native speakers it's harder to remember just from a written sentence.
I am howling at this. 😂😂 You’re sooo funny and talk so fast, but total sense. Love it. Thank you. From a conference organiser who was asked to submit a poster. “What, it’s next week!!” 😱 💩
I just want to thank you so much for this amazing video! This was incredibly helpful, I searched this after a few panic attacks with creating my first research poster. Thank you so so so much!
Thank you! Cool of your lab class to show it! Sounds like a professor who appreciates science communication! Also make sure to check out the Generation sequel cartoon, which includes more evidence and also a dabbing unicorn.
This was extremely helpful. I am using one of the powerpoint templates from the link you provided. A sincere thank you for sharing this great information!
I am going to use this design as well. Thanks for explaining the psyche of attendees and presenters. I enjoyed watching this video a lot. This is the most useful academic video. It breaks down the current mayhem in the scientific community where scientists are producing work without caring enough about their duty to society.
Mike, good idea. But your video presentation wasted too much time going over the obvious. You should get to your main point at 11:33 right away? Why not listen to your own advice in creating an animated video?
Holy fucking christ this is genius!!! I spent five years building a design firm before going back to grad school. I take pride in making those rare unicorn posters, but watching this video made me realize that while I retained the software skills from designing, I abandoned all of my design principles in the transition to academia. I am totally sold and will be using this strategy from here on out.
If, as an attendee, you're approaching a poster session the way Mike describes it, you're doing it wrong. Obviously it's best to skim the titles and read abstracts in the program prior to the conference. Remember that boring talk that had nothing to do with your research? That was the perfect opportunity to do so. Then you can seek out the posters you're interested, take a targeted approach to reading the data and ask specific questions of the presenter. Budget your time at each poster and give yourself some extra time for more conversation or to browse the other posters. Failing all that, at least use the first few minutes to take a walk through the entire session to skim titles and identify posters you want to come back to.This way you can avoid the pitfalls of the approach suggested in the video. Oh, and this also works with the new poster format!
That is absolutely possible at a conf. with catch-back poster sessions (another hour later or after official conference time) with or without presenters, except tons of attendee travel or 'presenter blackouts'; the posters never look the way they did 5 months prior, right? So...how have you made it so (searchable by index X morphable) in spite of that?
There are a lot of wonderful ideas and strategies, but a 20 minute video explaining how things need to be succinct and to the point so people don't drift away is a bit... faulty? Is there any way you could introduce the video with the result and then work backwards? Found myself skipping forward *quite* a bit. Like you said, "start with the punch line" ~ begin with the before/after example and then explain why. Thanks!
Hey Logan, 0. Shorter 2-minute 'punchline' version is coming soon-ish. A friend of mine with the same length criticism put it well: This isn't JUST video about poster design. It's a video about why poster sessions suck and how to fix them. When I release the 2-minute version, I'll give that video the "How to design..." title and call this something like "Why poster sessions suck and how to fix them." 1. The old, wall-of-text design is so entrenched that I needed 20minutes to dig out all the biases that kept people holding onto it. I actually started off thinking a screenshot of the template would be self-explanatory enough. It's too different. People just got lost in their existing schemas and said things like "I dunno...there's so much extra space. I thought I was supposed to fill up the space!" When these same people see this full video, it convinces them. 2. I selfishly wanted to make jokes about poster sessions. *shrugs* 3. FWIW: I very nearly did exactly as you suggested --- started with the before and after, then explained the rest. Ultimately, I got the suggestion to do that too late (a week before my target 'premier') and didn't want to reframe the whole thing right before release (adding something to an animation can mean shifting/redoing a cascade of things over dozens of hours), so figured I'd launch this version as-is, then do another punchline-first version. Did NOT expect the quick success of this. I expected to be emailing conference chairs one-by-one for YEARS, using a variety of videos and visuals, trying to convince them to try a new design. Now that this caught in a damned week, I'll have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life now haha. Anyhow, it's a very fair criticism and one I will definitely keep close in mind for future videos.
@@nursepaulakay It's easy when everybody has been so constructive about it! Also, what I actually care about is boosting insight per poster poster sessions, not any one solution to it, including mine. I of course have a 'parent to creative baby' attachment to some variant of this design, but I'm trying to suppress that as much as I can (it's hard though!).
@@MikeMorrisonPhD - the video length was no problem for me. I'm planning on watching it again. Part of my job is to create and teach scientific posters. This is a wake-up call for me.
TH-cam will play at multiples of the "normal" speed. With a little practice you can watch anything in less time. I rarely watch anything at less than 1.5 x these days, and a lot at 2 x
This is fantastic, I didn't want to watch the whole 20-minute video but I couldn't help it once I started. It makes SO MUCH SENSE. I just made (and submitted, sadly) my first poster and although I did a pretty decent job of avoiding the wall of text, I definitely see a missed opportunity to make the finding the biggest part rather than a "headline." Thanks for working so hard on this! I hope it starts to catch on!
I think you are really misstating the purpose of a poster session for an attendee from the start. The purpose of a poster session should not be, as you state at the beginning, to try and gain knowledge and insight from every single poster. If you were to actually do that, the knowledge you gain would be only superficial and entirely dependent on researchers accurately presenting their findings (which they sometimes fail to do). The purpose of a poster session, in my experience, is to give you a chance to interact with a select few posters and scientists who are researching in fields similar to yours, and get a deeper understanding of what they are doing, how they are doing it, and to see their findings before they make it into a publication. By making all the graphs and data really small and shoving it to one side of the poster, you are essentially saying "don't look too closely at what I've done, none of the underlying data is that important, what's important is my big conclusion that may or may not be correct". That's the exact wrong solution. A better solution to the current problems with poster sessions is for presenters to do a better job of creating titles for their posters that summarizes their work. That is actually what you do with several of the posters, where the "key point" that you put in the middle of the poster should actually be the title of the poster from the get go.
I think you can still make charts and graphs in a more-than-legible size; they don't have to be "really small." Most posters that I create are in the 3 x 6 feet size. There is plenty of room for the main visuals and for bullet-point sections. Too many presenters want to put hundreds of words in 24-point type paragraphs. These are posters, not reproductions of scientific journal articles. Titles and the "key points" should be close to the same thing. I believe Morrison's main example may be a tiny bit extreme, however, it sells the objective that one should be able to distill that main point of the poster presentation to one, maybe two sentences. This is a good trend for the tired scientific poster. Less is more.
Here is a radical, revolutionary idea: Use 50 inch screens for your posters and switch between the clickbait and the research. Nobody looking at your poster? Fullscreen clickbait. Someone looking? change to an infographic-like poster. How to pay for the screens? rent screen time for half the price of printing a normal poster. WELCOME TO THE NEW MILLENIUM.
Don't generally comment on things but here I am cramming making my poster and this was the first TH-cam Video re: Research Poster. It's taking me a long time and I'm bored by it - just making it! Thanks for the tips!!!
As someone who has both presented at and been an attendee at many poster sessions in several unrelated fields, this idea is great. Your description of how it feels to attempt to find interesting posters is spot on. All the times I have been wandering around I inevitably end up getting stuck at a handful of posters, and only realize later I'm out of time and can't see anything else. Plus standing there silently reading while the presenter tries not to be awkward is like pulling teeth. If my PI is willing, I think I'll be trying out something akin to this the next time I do a poster.
So something I do as the attendee is, instead of really trying to read their poster (too much text, too much noise), I just walk up and ask them to tell me about it. It really saves time and improves engagement. Also! If you think that you have something really important to share, do a talk, not a poster. I went into this skeptical, but but I have to say, I fairly impressed. Jamming the equivalent of a masters thesis into a poster really is visually overwhelming. I like the idea of a hook instead of a dense wall of text. So long as it has references and the relevant info to back up the claim, not a bad idea.
That behavior has a name! It's called social information foraging. When the interaction cost of an interface is too high, we look to other people to determine information scent or gain value. So the old "tell me about your poster!" is actually a symptom of the bad design.
2021 UPDATE: The sequel to this cartoon has new layouts, research, and principles. If you loved this, or even if you didn't, there's probably something you'll like in the #betterposter Generation 2 cartoon: th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.html
P.S. - Thank you all for being open to improving your posters!
pin this?
@@maximilianv.w.955 Good call! Done!
You probably dont give a shit but does someone know of a way to log back into an instagram account?
I somehow forgot my password. I love any tips you can offer me.
@Bowen Darius Instablaster =)
@Nash Forrest thanks for your reply. I got to the site through google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff atm.
Takes quite some time so I will reply here later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
Why traditional academic posters are bad 0:00-11:35
What is a good design 11:35-12:08
The redesign 12:08-16:14
Examples 16:14-17:28
Conclusion 17:28-19:31
Glad you broke it down like that. The first 10 minutes I'm just waiting for the video to get to the point. Still, the wait was worth it. This is a lovely simple solution to creating a poster in a hurry.
It felt like one of those this product solves your problems. Watch for ever!
Thank YOU!!!
Thanks you saved me even more time!! Now we need him to make a video on how to make an efficient video explaining how to make an even more efficient video on how to make a better science poster.
Bless you
My PI would kill me if I used this but I love the concept lol
some national conferences (at least in my field -- healthcare/clinical psychology) are moving to this!
In my field (medical research/epidemiology/nursing) the conferences actually prohibit any format other than the traditional! It's maddening.
As someone who's helped managed, coordinate, and run multiple poster sessions in my field, I can confirm the first half of this video accurately describes the poster session experience 😂
No doubt, many academics will hate this design. Some supervisors probably won't even approve it (because it's too clear, too to-the-point and too comprehensible not just to scientists, but if done well, the general public too).
Scientists/researchers need a MASSIVE push towards more effective and efficient communication, and I think this is a step in the right direction!
Here's to the next generation of scientists who exercise just as much rigor in their work as they do in their communication - well done!
Well said, Erich! First, some updates to this design here:
th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=mhzCnBFTIreM65sk
And more recent (2024), more nerdy updates on the broader challenge of changing posters here:
th-cam.com/video/QU8HMU8A3ns/w-d-xo.htmlsi=W4EVbBUzHG3dhflC
But I think you're right that researchers need a massive push towards rigorous communication design. I got a little lucky with this video helping to destabilize posters a little when it went viral, but the effect is waning. Any ideas for how we could create that massive push?
@@MikeMorrisonPhD Thanks for the update! I'm using the updated designs for a poster on some asteroid research I've been doing for the past year...can't wait to see how it turns out!
For the massive push, I think you'd need to get this in front of as many undergrads and grad students as possible earlier in their careers. To help with that, I'm passing your most recent content along to a student volunteer network I help coordinate...hopefully they take it on and rock their next poster session!
(Getting it into student-run, science clubs/networks is probably a lot easier/faster than encouraging a faculty to switch paradigms).
A lot of grad students I know mimic their supervisors, which I think is part of what's keeping the wall-of-text design alive (which you actually mentioned in the video haha). To me, it seems easier to simply train the next generation to do better than to convince seasoned supervisors to switch things up. I know some faculty who would love this, but they're the ones already interested in science communication anyways haha
I think we'll see rapid progress if today's undergrads/grads are shown more effective, evidence-based communication tactics and begin to model them to their students in the future! 🙂
As someone about to go into my first poster session next week this is MASSIVELY HELPFUL! I was so nervous about presenting but now I know how I should be making my poster and I feel like I’m making it WITH A PURPOSE!! I’ll definitely be watching the updated video but so far I’m feeling a lot better about this
My Professor replied to me when I shared this video to her: "Thanks for sharing.....saw this earlier, knew it made ripples... I wondered what impact it would have on poster sessions. I was at a poster session on Saturday evening--I saw several QR codes, but definitely none going so far as this in design. I heartily agree that titles should be informative, and I'd love to see those improve! However I disagree with this person's assertion about what the "point" is of attending a session. I hear he's disappointed that he isn't "learning" 60 things in 60 minutes. Doesn't sound like critical examination to me, just grazing, which misses a lot of the value of a poster session (or oral presentation)...both form of pre-publication presentations allow constructive feedback to be exchanged in both directions. Deep communication and extended dialogue between small numbers of people at small numbers of posters is often highly productive. When we feel overwhelmed, the abstract book is helpful. I usually scan it, pick about five posters and feel very satisfied to get to some of those! I wish you all happy poster making and I hope you enjoy your poster session. Enjoy those few powerful conversations!"
I think that's a fair reply, and the deep conversations are Absolutely inportant!
But if I can't understand in 10 seconds what your major conclusion is (or even area of research sometimes!), I'm just as likely to miss an important opportunity to connect as I am to stop by.
I almost never stop at any posters nowadays until I've "grazed" each one for that reason- nothing worse than your friend telling you later about a poster you missed that could have been perfect for you to find.
Thank you for putting this out there.
This video was a bit slow to get to the point.... Ironic. But still nicely done.
The ideas are good, especially the QR code, but the Twitter approach to posters seems to go too far.
Here's what I tell my students:
1. Always end your poster with simple, clear bullet point conclusions in a super-large font that can be read from 5 feet away. I think that captures the main spirit of your video.
2. When presenting your poster ALWAYS be respectful of your audience's time. Your presentation should take no more than 3 min to go through without questions. Use the extra time for those who might have questions.
Edward Ruthazer as a designer who vaguely knew this problem existed, I watched the whole video from start to finish and enjoyed knowing all of the back story. Plus, I imagined hearing this on NPR over the radio. Anyway, the video was super entertaining and it gave a lot of credibility to the creator and the content and problem.
Edward Ruthazer I think the reason it is slow to get to the point was that it has to explain what the problem is and why it’s a problem. To me it might be slightly over simplified but the final design is basically sound. There’s always room for originality but it’s premise is spot on.
i put bullet points everywhere. readable bullet points.
I am designing my dissertation poster using the "traditional way" and I found out this while looking for tips for designing a poster. This is a simple and creative idea! I want to apply it but I am worried it will fell out the marking criteria of my university. Either way, I think this idea has lots of potential for future academia, at least I hope so.
Can you tell me how it went afterwards, I'm doing my poster right now
How did your poster go? 🙏 @@robertjv
disappointed none of the QRs are for Rick Astley, a perfect opportunity missed.
Tom Gallacher I was SO tempted.
Yah, but the presenter is LEEEEEEEROY JEnkins! Tip o the hat there!
Mike, I watched this some time ago and have come back to it again. The video is very good but I do seem to see many people in the comments with no real understanding of what you have done. This in no way impedes serious conversation between the presenter and viewer. It doesn't make the posters weaker or dumbed down. And, in my experience it's a bit naïve to believe that your scan of the abstracts beforehand is sufficient to tell what you can get out of a poster session. Something missed in an abstract may jump right out in a poster session like you've proposed. I think that the aspect of delight and surprise could come into poster sessions to a much greater degree if some of your ideas were broadly followed.
As someone who spent a lot of work designing posters in the early 90's with nice graphics and saw the advent of the poster on a single printed sheet as both a boon and a curse I appreciate what you've done. When you had to print everything on separate pieces of paper and lay it out when you get to the session there was opportunity for great design that many people took but there were a lot of terrible posters too.
The biggest problem I see in comments on this (here and elsewhere) is that people seem to be taking the design ideas far too seriously in their specifics. One could have a shorter main message and have it take up less space, be nice and readable from afar, and include more close up information to the left and bottom. I see what you've done as spreading a very valuable idea, not a canonical set of rules for poster layout.
I will say that it might be nice to mix your ideas a bit with the infographics folks. One issue with the particular infographics examples you showed is that they could be pared down as well.
This comment should be on top. You succeeded in pinpointing what's the aspect that a lot of people in the comments missed in their interpretation of the ideas in the video. Thank you for your input. It helped put words on the reflexions I had when reading the criticisms of Mike's model.
A video all about making your relevant point more obvious that takes 15 minutes to make its most relevant point.
1 week to the Conference
Me : watching this video.
LOL
same here
Same😂
Same day of e-poster presentation here, I really want to do it well, first time ever and only at 19 years old, I'm super nervous...
Same! First conference in 6 days, virtual e-poster presentation of Thesis! Freaking out a little bit!
i've never had anybody articulate EXACTLY what i feel as both presenter and attendee of a poster session. THANK YOU!!!!
Of course! Bad design at scale will do that to you haha. Glad you enjoyed it!
"Maybe the research in your field isn't really important - and I'm in Psychology, so I get that..."
As a fellow psychologist I can agree whole heartedly.
First time trying to create a poster presentation. Will do exactly as this video! Thank you!
My goodness - what a better way to make a poster and get your message across. I'm sold! Will always use this approach. Thanks, Ian
WHOA! I am blown away by how useful and important this video is. Thank you so much! Definitely going to use it for my next poster.
Most of those "conclusions" in the center could be a traditional poster's title to achieve the same thing. I feel like putting some much space into the conclusion is putting a lot of faith in the creator of the poster. I've read many conclusions from posters that are not at all supported by the evidence presented in the poster. If I just went around and "absorbed" just the conclusions from each poster at a conference, I'd come away with some helpful information yes, but also a lot of misleading information. It's the same as a manuscript - you should never just skip to the conclusion (or only read the abstract), because those two areas are by far the most biased parts of a paper.
This point that you and others here have made seems worth careful consideration. However, as researchers, we should always be skeptical of assertions by other researchers, so you could just think of the big-text part as the big takeaway that you (1) quickly understand, (2) log in your memory as something someone is claiming to have shown, (3) and decide whether to engage further to judge for yourself the veracity of the assertion and what nuance needs to be added to it. Really, this process is how I'd want to approach any poster, and the suggested redesign just makes the first step *much more efficient*. Most posters probably won't be relevant enough to you for you to take the time to judge the assertion's accuracy, and the faster you can determine that, the better.
@@WBradleyKnox I'm wondering if the center could include a couple of key pieces. Like the conclusion, but also a brief description of methodology. Like "This is the conclusion we have" and then below "From a retrospective cohort study of a single institution..."
@@briank7890 That's interesting. So roughly you're proposing adding a middle tier, that has more detail than the short takeaway and less than the bar on the left? That seems like a reasonable alteration.
@@WBradleyKnox I'm thinking what I personally would want a quick summary of. It would be their conclusions plus a brief summary of the study. I spend 80% of my reading a paper on the methodology, so it should be similar for posters.
You could scan the QR code and read the whole paper(s) if you find it interesting...
This is wonderful. Ten years from now we’re going to look back and marvel at how long old the status quo lasted.
As a side note, thank you for taking the immense amount of time it took to make this. I’m sure you got a lot of “shouldn’t you be focusing on your research?”
Haha I definitely got some weird looks from people when I tried to explain where I was spending my time. Happily, most people in my PhD program are used to me doing weird projects that somehow pay off, so they were pretty supportive. But that "shouldn't you be focusing on your research?" worry was a constant nagging self-accusation in my mind throughout this entire process. Now that the video blew up and people are starting to adopt the new design and succeed with it, that voice has finally gone quiet.
Why am I surprised, but not really surprised, to find @acapellascience in the comments. Now I'm thinking we need a song about making better conference posters.
@@askquestionstrythings Oh man. I also vote for that being a thing!
Already 4 years in, how widely is it spread ?
I'm an european PhD student in electrical engineering, ending its 3rd year, I only attended to one online conf due to covid, and I just discovered this new design !
That's the best poster design tutorial that I've seen! Thank you
Thank you! Be sure to check out sequel!
Brilliant. This should be a poster at a design conference. So much to learn, presented in such a real and interesting manner. Love your use os humour and language too.
Thank you! Be sure to check out the sequel here!
th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=-jhLuPb9ekSM5BM0
I LOVE this. I come from a communications background and am about to present my first clinical psych poster at a conference (of my own research, rather than someone else's) - I always wondered why posters were so user-unfriendly. I'm going to try a version of this, perhaps not as bold and brave as these here, but I will take a step into what is a more engaging and memorable sharing space using your tips. Thank you!
@MikeMorrison. THANK YOU so much for your generosity of sharing, and to those of your friends and colleagues who have done the same. For years I have hated Poster sessions, hated making them, hated doing them, bored to death looking at walls and walls of fine print and indecipherable graphs. A total waste of time - might as just write the bloody paper and go through the journal submission process. Posters do have their place - and someone has FINALLY developed a way to make Posters shine - reflect the important work presented, while not pretending it's anything other than..... a Poster.
A wise psych professor told me 25 years ago “you can never have too few words on a poster” and I’ve always stuck to that. So I’ve been using minimal words plus QR codes for a while now, it’s definitely the way to go. I hardly ever stop at a wall-of-text poster and can never believe that people really still do that!
I like this idea but have two fears: now everyone uses the same template and it becomes hard to stand out (possible); and the other I have already seen on your RTs, which is people are making the side bars too big (splitting into thirds instead of narrow bands at the side) - this seems to defeat the purpose and makes it look like a wall-of-text with engineering issues 😉
The practice definitely is long overdue a shake-up though and if this even gets people thinking twice about their design your job is done.
Before this approach no one stood out and you learnt nothing from walking past these posters in the limited time you had.
this is the most incredible thing i've seen in a long time. YES YES YES. Those epidemiologists need help, man. I've shared widely!
Thank you! We all need help lol. So much blocked science. And definitely check out the sequel!! th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=fC-40DT5HzIdyLNZ
Thank you for a brilliant, funny presentation. You completely changed my view of effective public presentation of information. And you have an authentic voice. Watching this was like going on a fascinating ride.
This is awesome. I like how you talked about how poster sessions really feel, cause you nailed it. I'll give this poster layout a try.
Haha trust me I know how it feels to have your poster completely ignored. This video wouldn't exist if I hadn't suffered first haha. And check out the newer layouts in the PART 2 video! th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.html&lc=UgwbKVUXSVDwCcDMjM94AaABAg&ab_channel=MikeMorrison%2CPhD
Simply brilliant. You've changed how I will present my posters from here on out. A well spent year in creating this. Thank you!
OMG, mind = blown!
I typically had one of the few unicorn posters and therefore sucked up most people - so I was one of the few people having a good poster experience. But I never thought about the overall session and how this is detrimental to the scientific process in general. And that I was the one person who sucked up those 30mins of people's time because they would flock to me because my poster looked like a nice infographic instead of a boring wall of text. Doh!
Really, this year of your life was *very well spent*! Congrats and thank you!
I have already forwarded this to our whole institute.
Me one day before my poster presentation .... watches this video
Literally me, my presentation is at 9:45 am and it’s currently 21:58 the night before
layna May the odds be in your favor 🙏
Arianna Renteria thank you so so much
Same here
I have a poster presentation in 3 days and I don’t know if i should do this
OMG, I can't believe I watched the entire 20 minutes of this video - you nailed it, so insightful, and more people should watch this. I can not agree more as a designer.
I am doing a science poster for school for the first time ever, I have been searching for something that works for me and this is the best thing I could have found on internet
I’m creating my first academic poster and I’ll use your design process. It’s simple and effective!
Awesome! Have fun! Be sure to check out the new designs too:
th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.html
I used this for a poster at the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry - the conference organizers sent out this video ahead of time and I'd estimate that 20% of the posters used this format. MUCH better for strolling through and the layout itself elicited many comments - thanks!!
I so WISH academics used this idea you suggested...Ingenious idea really!
Many of them do! And lots of them don't use this or the PART 2 layouts (see generation 2 cartoon), but DO put a big takeaway on their poster or make their data/figures bigger after seeing one of these videos. I'll take any impact I can get! We'll change the system eventually with enough research & iteration!
Just love this poster design. You are teaching to focus on essentials and good organization of content instead of just stuffing as much information as possible into one poster. Great video.
This was terrific. I'm moving forward with many of the concepts in this video! Thank you for making this incredible video!
This video just created a soul-level exhale for me, THANK YOU! I'm excited & scared to do this with my poster!
Honestly, this is genius. I teach others how to do poster design... am going to try it with them.
This is a fine idea but there is no consideration given to the fact that many attendees (like myself) spend days *before* the conference to select specific posters to interact with. In a scientific world of greater and greater sub-specialization, there is often no time to just walk along and randomly interact with dozens of posters in different fields.
Doesn't this format still allow you to accomplish those goals? title and abstract will still be published
I think your format is an excellent idea for folks who come unprepared, and want to walk around and learn new ideas by osmosis. For me, it would not be useful because all the detailed graphs/figures I am coming to see on the poster would be too small to see, and discuss with the author.
@@arturcideciyan I think by adjusting the size of the ammo bar you would still have enough room for the detailed graphs and figures when viewed up close. Also if the main result is best described by a single image then I would imagine the main summary text and the main image could share space
It's of course great if you can look through the posters (online) before the conference, but is that commonly possible in your field? I only know about Morressier.com that supports conferences to make the posters discoverable online before the conference takes place, but not all conferences use Morressier.
Artur Cideciyan how big to illustrations or charts need to be if you’re standing two feet away? This format is designed to draw you in from 10 feet away. The charts would certainly be readable as long as they’re not literally the size of a postage stamp. Side bars 12 inches wide would give ample room.
Fantastic storytelling! Love the way you broke down the problem and presented the better solution. I'm learning more about UX and this is a great example of improving the UX of everyday stuff :)
Thank you! You can see even more UX principles explained (and applied to posters) in my more recent videos!
We are currently considering using this approach on a Teacher Education Programme in the UK. We have about 600 trainee teachers attending a Conference each year, where each has written a paper on the teaching of their subject. This looks like a powerful way for them to share their ideas. If we do it, I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks, Mike. Great work!
That's amazing! Yes please let me know how it goes! Also, you might find the template and example image helpful on the OS repo. Here's the new example image I added last night: osf.io/8ajqs/
Adding a QR code is undoubtedly a revolution! I always make my slides with as few words as possible. I am going to do my poster presentation in July and I gonna adopt your ideas. I will let you know how it works. Thanks for all these brilliant ideas!
Thanks so much Mike! I'm presenting a poster for the first time at the National Conference on Family Relations and they linked your video as a reference. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to watch it. Definitely helped with the anxiety behind creating a boring poster that no one will read. Thanks again
One of the best videos I've ever seen, thank u for sharing!
This is so interesting! I teach poster creation at a big university and I plan to experiment with this idea. Librarians and faculty are having conversations about it.
I'm a graphic artist at the University of Nebraska. I also teach two classes in poster production. I love, love, love this concept and going to introduce it ASAP. Keep it simple ... Don't be afraid of negative space.
I propose an idea: For the price of two fabric posters you can get a 50" screen. Use that for fullscreen clickbait to lure in the suckers then blast them with data when they get closer.
Good stuff, Mike. I'll even use the word brilliant. As I am preparing for my first poster presentation in quite some time, for APA convention, so I thank you for this.
Thank you! Check out the generation 2 sequel cartoon too, and have fun at APA!
@@MikeMorrisonPhD Will do. And I have recently learned about end screens, which you can easily add to your video and gives viewers a clickable link to go to the next video you recommend. Easy peasy and is definitely helping me expand my TH-cam channel.
I absolutely love this.... seriously, great job!!!!!
Watching this under Covid19 lockdown. The presentation will be online, I wonder if I can still apply this template or go with the standard one :)
Love your new poster presentation design!
This... freaking blew my mind. Thank you very much.
Thank you MIke! As a researcher with a graphic design background, I dreaded every poster session. When I suggested change I was laughed at from tradition and routine. Thanks for sharing, I look forward to seeing the impact these posters have!
Our professor shared your video to us just few days before we head to conference. This video was really insightful, wish we could move towards this change in design.
YES!! THANK YOU! I am a graphic designer working for a scientific company. I have been fighting these "too much content" battles since I started with the company. This is such a good explanation w/ great reasoning behind it. I will be sharing this with my colleagues & implementing these design changes immediately.
this is brilliant, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO DO THIS!!!
Thank you for investing time in solving this important issue! Will use the template in the future. Way to go!!!
This is a great suggestion and as a PI of studies, I will definitely encourage this format moving forward!
This is an very interesting idea, I accept that the way posters are generally presented is not ideal, but honestly this is like presenting a tweet of your work. When I go to a poster session I never read the posters, I ask the presenters" so could you please tell me your story?" I like the idea of having a "in a nutshell" statement as a predominant feature of the poster, but I feel does not have to be the "dominant feature" of the poster.. I can see now everybody with the phone's out clicking to posters and never interact with the speaker. The cool idea of presenting a poster is not to talk to 100 people, is to have few but fruitful conversations about your work.
I think from the presenter's point of view, that might be a valid goal. But I think the description of the attendee's point of view is spot on here. I would want to be exposed to as many findings/ideas as possible.
Maria Gonzalez you say you never read the posters but ask the presenter for their story. I think that’s the premise of this design alternative. Starts conversations by keeping it super simple but with enough data on the side bars to talk about. You’ll notice in many magazine articles there will be solid color boxes with extra bold type. They’re called “call outs” because it grabs the eye gives the gist, increases curiosity and nudges you to read the full article. That’s the idea here. A giant “call out” box.
Bravo, Mike! Thank goodness for your insight,...will add my suggestions to our component organizations!
This is a BRILLIANT idea. MAJOR props to you for this!
Thank you! The humor and honesty of this video was so refreshing got me excited about doing a better job on the poster I procrastinated and need to produce this weekend.
This is a really awesome and entertaining video. Thank you for making it and answering all my frustrations towards scientific posters. My next one is going to be wayyyyyy better because of this.
"and that's if you showed up on time...which you didn't" - didn't think I would laugh that hard haha
Awesome, Mike! Entertaining yet informative. Spot on. Thanks for the links !
Sure thing Jay! Make sure to check out the updated Gen 2 cartoon and layouts too!
I love this, and will be looking at it in class with my engineering students.
Mike thanks a lot for your video (TIME, EFFORT, MATERIALS ETC), it really helps A LOT!
My jaw is on the floor, this is SUCH a good idea. Bravo.
Want another good idea? Replace posters with 50" screens. You can get one such screens for as little as the price of two fabric scientific posters. That way you can have a fullscreen clickbait to lure in the audience then slam them down with data. We could even have touchscreens so you can tap on that graph to see more.
In addition to the problems Mike explains so well, I also have found that poster presenters will typically assume you know more than you do and talk over your head, making the process time inefficient and mentally more tiring.
As a postdoc, I learned to ameliorate this problem by saying "Can I have the 30-second version, explained to me like I just finished the undergraduate introduction to [insert field here] course?". Then the presenter will often give me a 1-5 minute version and explain it to me like I'm a grad student in their field, which is MUCH better than without me providing that prompt.
This is great advice!
A lot of your points are well-taken, and damn, this is a bold, novel take on the poster that I think would make for a lot of better experiences.
But I also have to question the idea that posters should focus so much on what people can retain as they are walking by. A lot of the point of a poster is to get people to engage with the work and the presenter (which is what makes them so different from the 20+10 talk format that is so common, at least in my field) -- in some sense, they aren't actually meant to be walked past, and I think one of the things that makes them interesting is that there are so many different ways to consume them. Putting information off to the side like that is clever, but I worry it limits the number of people who can read the information on the poster at the same time (which is important for those cases where you have to talk to seven people at the same time as a presenter and need them all to see the same thing at the same time).
Also, you should get a Beamer template up, too. There's more to life than Powerpoint.
"Putting information off to the side like that is clever, but I worry it limits the number of people who can read the information on the poster at the same time (which is important for those cases where you have to talk to seven people at the same time as a presenter and need them all to see the same thing at the same time)."
That's why there's the QR Code. If your poster is reaaaally interesting and you have more than 3 people on it, they can access it on their phone. It's just about readability. You need a poster to get attention but you don't need a poster to be read. People can read that same poster on their phone.
@@alexandrehuat773 I mean, hopefully not? The poster is basically useless beyond being an ad and looking at it on a phone wouldn't be very useful. You would probably just send them to the relevant stuff off on the side.
@@gryphonavocatio I think we should not confuse the poster as a unique media, the A0 paper, with the poster as its content, the information. As a researcher you don't care about the A0 paper, exactly like you don't care whether people read your journal articles on a paper sheet or on their computer screen. It just matters whether they get the content. So if people read your poster on their phone after having seen the poster on a A0 paper, you're happy.
@@alexandrehuat773 Yes, exactly.
It is an ad. It's the cover page with the index page peeking out at the side.
Nobody has time to exchange email addresses with 300 people in an hour. A quick QR scan gives you more time to eat, meet and have something to read later on.
FurnitureFan the problem is that "later on" tends to never really happen. Unless you got a bit more than a bunch of qr code generated links saved to your ever growing bookmark file. Imo, it's a good idea to put enough of your content onto the sidebars and spend a little bit more time on making that look pretty and interesting, too. Ideally, the sidebars would look like the unicorn poster. Because you know, when you come home from a conference, you're jet lagged, you need to unpack and do laundry, you need to catch up on all the work backlog etc. So, that bunch of qr codes isn't going to get looked at unless there's a little bit more you remember than just that text punch line. Preferably some graph or graphics. Because, remember, those conferences are international - and for non native speakers it's harder to remember just from a written sentence.
This was wonderful, every bit of it is as motivating and entertaining as it could be! God bless Mike Morrison. Thank you so much!
What I really like is that there’s science behind that. It’s not just suggestions of one PhD student. It’s rooted in facts.
I am howling at this. 😂😂 You’re sooo funny and talk so fast, but total sense. Love it. Thank you. From a conference organiser who was asked to submit a poster. “What, it’s next week!!” 😱 💩
I just want to thank you so much for this amazing video! This was incredibly helpful, I searched this after a few panic attacks with creating my first research poster. Thank you so so so much!
Wow! This blew my mind. Sadly I already printed out my poster. Moving forward I'll incorporate these ideas next time. Thanks for sharing.
im watching this for my lab class and oh, my, god, this is groundbreaking!!!
Thank you! Cool of your lab class to show it! Sounds like a professor who appreciates science communication! Also make sure to check out the Generation sequel cartoon, which includes more evidence and also a dabbing unicorn.
This was extremely helpful. I am using one of the powerpoint templates from the link you provided. A sincere thank you for sharing this great information!
Oh thank god for this! It's like you read my mind and a huge weight has lifted.
This is awesome. The build up and explanation of the problem and it's potential magnitude is definitely worth the watch. Good job!
Posting this comment in 2021, in a world where conferences became virtual! Does this format work for an E-poster?
Yeah! Let's get a version of this for virtual conferences!
I have a poster presentation via zoom in a week!!! Is there a video like this???
Thanks man. I'm using your template in my presentation. Thanks for sharing.
I am going to use this design as well. Thanks for explaining the psyche of attendees and presenters. I enjoyed watching this video a lot. This is the most useful academic video. It breaks down the current mayhem in the scientific community where scientists are producing work without caring enough about their duty to society.
This is so brilliant!!! Revolutionary! Sharing with all of my students! eternally grateful to you!👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Mike, good idea. But your video presentation wasted too much time going over the obvious. You should get to your main point at 11:33 right away? Why not listen to your own advice in creating an animated video?
This is so mind-blowing! I'm definitely using this for my next conference. Thanks so much!
Holy fucking christ this is genius!!!
I spent five years building a design firm before going back to grad school. I take pride in making those rare unicorn posters, but watching this video made me realize that while I retained the software skills from designing, I abandoned all of my design principles in the transition to academia. I am totally sold and will be using this strategy from here on out.
i really like this design more. it is easy to read and learn from but most supervisors won't agree on it they want the busy poster
If, as an attendee, you're approaching a poster session the way Mike describes it, you're doing it wrong. Obviously it's best to skim the titles and read abstracts in the program prior to the conference. Remember that boring talk that had nothing to do with your research? That was the perfect opportunity to do so. Then you can seek out the posters you're interested, take a targeted approach to reading the data and ask specific questions of the presenter. Budget your time at each poster and give yourself some extra time for more conversation or to browse the other posters. Failing all that, at least use the first few minutes to take a walk through the entire session to skim titles and identify posters you want to come back to.This way you can avoid the pitfalls of the approach suggested in the video. Oh, and this also works with the new poster format!
That is absolutely possible at a conf. with catch-back poster sessions (another hour later or after official conference time) with or without presenters, except tons of attendee travel or 'presenter blackouts'; the posters never look the way they did 5 months prior, right? So...how have you made it so (searchable by index X morphable) in spite of that?
There are a lot of wonderful ideas and strategies, but a 20 minute video explaining how things need to be succinct and to the point so people don't drift away is a bit... faulty? Is there any way you could introduce the video with the result and then work backwards? Found myself skipping forward *quite* a bit. Like you said, "start with the punch line" ~ begin with the before/after example and then explain why. Thanks!
Hey Logan,
0. Shorter 2-minute 'punchline' version is coming soon-ish. A friend of mine with the same length criticism put it well: This isn't JUST video about poster design. It's a video about why poster sessions suck and how to fix them. When I release the 2-minute version, I'll give that video the "How to design..." title and call this something like "Why poster sessions suck and how to fix them."
1. The old, wall-of-text design is so entrenched that I needed 20minutes to dig out all the biases that kept people holding onto it. I actually started off thinking a screenshot of the template would be self-explanatory enough. It's too different. People just got lost in their existing schemas and said things like "I dunno...there's so much extra space. I thought I was supposed to fill up the space!" When these same people see this full video, it convinces them.
2. I selfishly wanted to make jokes about poster sessions. *shrugs*
3. FWIW: I very nearly did exactly as you suggested --- started with the before and after, then explained the rest. Ultimately, I got the suggestion to do that too late (a week before my target 'premier') and didn't want to reframe the whole thing right before release (adding something to an animation can mean shifting/redoing a cascade of things over dozens of hours), so figured I'd launch this version as-is, then do another punchline-first version.
Did NOT expect the quick success of this. I expected to be emailing conference chairs one-by-one for YEARS, using a variety of videos and visuals, trying to convince them to try a new design. Now that this caught in a damned week, I'll have to figure out what to do with the rest of my life now haha.
Anyhow, it's a very fair criticism and one I will definitely keep close in mind for future videos.
Mike Morrison I LOVE that you’re open to feedback! You did an outstanding job on this video! (Proverbial pat on the back.)
@@nursepaulakay It's easy when everybody has been so constructive about it! Also, what I actually care about is boosting insight per poster poster sessions, not any one solution to it, including mine. I of course have a 'parent to creative baby' attachment to some variant of this design, but I'm trying to suppress that as much as I can (it's hard though!).
@@MikeMorrisonPhD - the video length was no problem for me. I'm planning on watching it again. Part of my job is to create and teach scientific posters. This is a wake-up call for me.
TH-cam will play at multiples of the "normal" speed. With a little practice you can watch anything in less time.
I rarely watch anything at less than 1.5 x these days, and a lot at 2 x
This helped me A LOT! Thank you so much for that video!
This is honestly so amazing, preparing for a poster and this is giving me such comfort :)
This is fantastic, I didn't want to watch the whole 20-minute video but I couldn't help it once I started. It makes SO MUCH SENSE. I just made (and submitted, sadly) my first poster and although I did a pretty decent job of avoiding the wall of text, I definitely see a missed opportunity to make the finding the biggest part rather than a "headline." Thanks for working so hard on this! I hope it starts to catch on!
this is so good, im just scared i wont be allowed because it isnt what my professors are used to
24 hours left for the submission and I'm watching this now!
This definitely helped me
Same here but 8 hours left still 😑
@@sindhukm459 damnnnnn! All the best!👋😊
I think you are really misstating the purpose of a poster session for an attendee from the start. The purpose of a poster session should not be, as you state at the beginning, to try and gain knowledge and insight from every single poster. If you were to actually do that, the knowledge you gain would be only superficial and entirely dependent on researchers accurately presenting their findings (which they sometimes fail to do). The purpose of a poster session, in my experience, is to give you a chance to interact with a select few posters and scientists who are researching in fields similar to yours, and get a deeper understanding of what they are doing, how they are doing it, and to see their findings before they make it into a publication. By making all the graphs and data really small and shoving it to one side of the poster, you are essentially saying "don't look too closely at what I've done, none of the underlying data is that important, what's important is my big conclusion that may or may not be correct". That's the exact wrong solution. A better solution to the current problems with poster sessions is for presenters to do a better job of creating titles for their posters that summarizes their work. That is actually what you do with several of the posters, where the "key point" that you put in the middle of the poster should actually be the title of the poster from the get go.
I think you can still make charts and graphs in a more-than-legible size; they don't have to be "really small." Most posters that I create are in the 3 x 6 feet size. There is plenty of room for the main visuals and for bullet-point sections. Too many presenters want to put hundreds of words in 24-point type paragraphs. These are posters, not reproductions of scientific journal articles.
Titles and the "key points" should be close to the same thing. I believe Morrison's main example may be a tiny bit extreme, however, it sells the objective that one should be able to distill that main point of the poster presentation to one, maybe two sentences. This is a good trend for the tired scientific poster. Less is more.
Here is a radical, revolutionary idea: Use 50 inch screens for your posters and switch between the clickbait and the research. Nobody looking at your poster? Fullscreen clickbait. Someone looking? change to an infographic-like poster.
How to pay for the screens? rent screen time for half the price of printing a normal poster. WELCOME TO THE NEW MILLENIUM.
Don't generally comment on things but here I am cramming making my poster and this was the first TH-cam Video re: Research Poster. It's taking me a long time and I'm bored by it - just making it! Thanks for the tips!!!
just sent this to all my colleagues in the Dept. we have a dept poster day - we'll see how well this percolates to the students
As someone who has both presented at and been an attendee at many poster sessions in several unrelated fields, this idea is great. Your description of how it feels to attempt to find interesting posters is spot on. All the times I have been wandering around I inevitably end up getting stuck at a handful of posters, and only realize later I'm out of time and can't see anything else. Plus standing there silently reading while the presenter tries not to be awkward is like pulling teeth. If my PI is willing, I think I'll be trying out something akin to this the next time I do a poster.
This is mind-blowing!
Haha thank you! You may like the sequel!
th-cam.com/video/SYk29tnxASs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=pxOwQbpjmh_xchUr
So something I do as the attendee is, instead of really trying to read their poster (too much text, too much noise), I just walk up and ask them to tell me about it. It really saves time and improves engagement. Also! If you think that you have something really important to share, do a talk, not a poster. I went into this skeptical, but but I have to say, I fairly impressed. Jamming the equivalent of a masters thesis into a poster really is visually overwhelming. I like the idea of a hook instead of a dense wall of text. So long as it has references and the relevant info to back up the claim, not a bad idea.
That behavior has a name! It's called social information foraging. When the interaction cost of an interface is too high, we look to other people to determine information scent or gain value. So the old "tell me about your poster!" is actually a symptom of the bad design.
Dear Mike, thank you for these brilliant tips.
I will implement it in my project.