Latest modern science | What is the �ePoster� format? - Si Bejo Science

Latest modern science | What is the �ePoster� format? - Si Bejo Science

posters on screens

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I�ve been predicting that we�re going to see a slow decline in paper posters for a while, so I was interested when John Coupland and Lady Scientist drew my attention to the joint annual meeting of (deep breath)...

• The American Society of Animal Science (ASAS)
• The American Dairy Science Association� (ADSA�)
• The Western Section of the American Society of Animal Science (WSASAS)
• The Canadian Society of Animal Science (CSAS)

They are having presentations in an �ePoster� format. Their instructions are here. I can�t quite visualize this yet, but as near as I can tell, it is an illegitimate love child of a PowerPoint slide show and a paper poster.

It�s the size of a poster (about 40 inches wide)... but you can have multiple screens of information, with hyperlinks and videos (like slides). The conference FAQ says:

On average, presenters will normally have 3-�5 pages of content on their e-�posters.

How is this different from a slide show? The conference organizers are squelching the �Click to advance� button, and replacing them with timed animations and navigation buttons.

I am skeptical of this hybrid format. The single sheet of a paper poster enforces discipline. You have to make hard decisions about what to include or not include. I worry that allowing multiple slides will mean that people will upload their standard PowerPoint deck and just give their standard talk repeatedly instead of once. As far as I can tell, the �normally 3-5� comment notwithstanding, the only limit to the number of slides is the total size of the PowerPoint file.

On the other hand, presenters do have to upload the poster in advance, so you won�t see PowerPoint decks that were cobbled together on the plane trip on the way to the conference.

The conference provides two templates. Here�s a sample of one (with instructions intact):

And another, which I think is less effective:

I�m not a fan of these templates. For one, the blue background and text are fairly low-contrast. Because these are on a monitor, white text will be more effective than black: it will glow from the light behind it. The columns on the first seem rather wide. Displaying all the sections on the second seems rife for confusion.

And a conference logo. In prime real estate. I know what meeting I�m at, I�ve already paid the fee, there�s no need to advertise it any more.

Based on the conference documents, this is all being run by a company called ePosterboards, who are new to me. One of their services is they will provide design assistance to poster authors, for an unspecified fee. You have to contact them for a quote. This makes me super curious as to how much they are asking for.

Latest modern science | Link roundup for May 2016 - Si Bejo Science

Latest modern science | Link roundup for May 2016 - Si Bejo Science

link roundup posters on screens

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Matthew wins for best poster design cartoon this month:

You can see more of his cartoons at Errant Science. His inspiration for this one?

Just looked at a draft of a poster, there was text in size 2 point�

Just to drive the point home, let me say: Writing text in a 2 point font on a poster is dumb. Do not do that.

James Hamblin, writing for The Atlantic, has a fascinating article about using colour to increase the readbility of text. Here�s an example, where colour is used as a cue to tell you what the next line is:

This specific example is from a company called BeeLine. They have plugins for Chrome for the web and PDFs. Here�s this blog viewed in Beeline:

I haven�t had success with reading my PDF reprints in BeeLine colour yet.

The Atlantic article suggests there are many more possibilities to improve the reading experience beyond what we have learned from the printed page. I would not recommend trying it for a poster quite yet, because the unfamiliarity might be confusing or annoying for readers. A browser plugin is not like a poster: the reader has the control in the former, but not the latter.

The Atlantic article also mentions the Microsoft typeface Sitka (sample at right):

(Microsoft researcher Kevin Larson�s) team also recently launched a new font that was designed for the best possible readability. Called Sitka, it went through a multistep, iterative design-test process. Each letter was changed and adjusted to maximize ease of reading � as opposed to most other fonts, which are made to mimic typefaces that existed in print media. �Times New Roman was designed to work very well with the technology of the era,� Laston explained. (I asked him if he has, then, created the most legible font in history. He said he �wouldn�t go that far.�)

I might just try Sitka on my next poster.

I really enjoyed this blog post by Stephen Few about 3-D graphs. You know, like this one:

Not only is the article thoughtful, there are some great one-liners:

(P)oking holes in Edward Tufte�s work in particular now qualifies as a competitive sport.

And I like the conclusion:

It is important to realize that what is often claimed by infovis researchers is just plain wrong, due to bad science. I wholeheartedly agree... that we should not accept any data visualization principles or practices as gospel without confirming them empirically. However, we should not throw them out in the meantime if they make sense and work, and we certainly shouldn�t reject them based on flawed research.

Today in �Colour is a subtle thing,� Ed Hawkins looks at how �rainbow� coding for maps led to some incorrect interpretations.

Hat tip to Rob Simmon.

I�ve followed the fate of �dynamic posters� at the Neuroscience meeting since they were first announced. I think a fee to have one is new:

$150 fee to present a Dynamic Poster #SFN16? pass. - Drugmonkey

And the question remains how many people are genuinely using the format to its fullest:

80% of those are just people who wanted to give a talk. Rarely actually need video. - Dr. Becca

Michael Hoffman is looking for new graphics software:

Wish I had something that made it as easy to make diagrams as PowerPoint but still publication quality like Illustrator.

In the replies to this tweet, people bring up xfig, Sketch, Drawio, Omnigraffle, Canvas, Graphic, and Pages.

QUote of the moment:

�Typography is frozen sound.��Ran Zheng

Hat tip to Ellen Lupton.

Another university, another new logo freak-out.

Latest modern science | Link roundup for November 2015 - Si Bejo Science

Latest modern science | Link roundup for November 2015 - Si Bejo Science

link roundup posters on screens

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Posters are a visual medium. But not everyone sees equally well, and I�ve written about taking factors like colour blindness or presbyopia into account in design. But I had not considered the challenges faced by a blind presenter, which makes this article absolutely fascinating.

Ashleigh Gonzales (pink blouse on left) is blind, and her poster is on converting flat images to three-dimensional ones that could be felt by blind students. I�m fascinated that Ashleigh�s poster (abstract here), has Braille in the title and headings. I can�t make out whether this is actually readable Braille (i.e., raised paper) or not, but would love to find out more.

The Society for Neuroscience introduced �dynamic posters� a few years ago, and the response has been... well, flat. As it happens, I have not made it to this conference since these have been introduced, so I haven�t had a chance to see, or create, one myself. I�m tickled that the Neuwrite blog has a long post detailing the creation of a dynamic poster. To be honest, dipping into the process of creating something that truly exploits the dynamic format is intimidating:

My goal this year was to make my �dynamic� poster interactive. ... I didn�t know how to do any of this, but I new it is possible and that, with a bit of effort, I could figure it out. A �bit of effort� turned out to be 6 weeks of sleepless nights(.)

But the results are pretty amazing. Go to the post to see these in models that you can rotate and zoom.

The PLOS Paleo blog has started a series about academic conferences. Their first entry tries to characterize the type of people who attend conferences.

With this potential range of attendees in mind, there is no single uniform audience at a scientific conference.

Looking forward to more!

Apple has long been recognized as a company that spends a lot of time thinking about design. But former employees takes the company to task for forgetting the user (not to mention a few swipes at other products, like Google Maps):

Gone are the fundamental principles of good design: discoverability, feedback, recovery, and so on. Instead, Apple has, in striving for beauty, created fonts that are so small or thin, coupled with low contrast, that they are difficult or impossible for many people with normal vision to read. We have obscure gestures that are beyond even the developer�s ability to remember. We have great features that most people don�t realize exist.

Probably the deepest article in this month�s round-up. Hat tip to Clause Wilke and Leonard Kruglyak.

Vox magazine makes the argument that Y axes shouldn�t always start at zero.


I try not to be a zealot about things, but in general, starting axes at zero is a better practice than not. Will there be exceptions? Sure. As the Vox video points out, if you have negative numbers, you have to extend past zero.

One thing that Vox overlooks is that there is a standard way to extend a section of a graph: it�s to insert a break in the axis. It alerts a viewer to the non-standard start.

KatieSci on Twitter:

Presentation Preference choices for #EB16 abstract submission: Oral, Poster, Indifferent. The �Indifferent� is kind of cracking me up.

The �indifferent� abstracts are like this:

PeachPit Press asked Jim Krause for typography tips. I like these:

Explore your font choices THOROUGHLY before picking a winner.

Combine fonts that are either clearly alike or clearly different. Middle-ground=bad

Hat tip to Garr Reynolds.

Latest modern science | Link roundup for November 2014 - Si Bejo Science

Latest modern science | Link roundup for November 2014 - Si Bejo Science

link roundup posters on screens reuse

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November is the biggest conglomeration of posters in the world: the Neuroscience meeting. And there are always interesting poster-related tweets arising from that!

Here is a nice �Tips and tricks� for poster presentations blog post from Caitlin Kirkwood. She has obviously been to the rodeo that is neuroscience a few times:

(F)for those that appear in front of you haggard, with a glazed-over look in their eyes (the telltale signs of SfN-itis: too many posters, too little time), it is nice to have an abbreviated synopsis of your work ready.

Winner of �best new way to present a poster� (hat tip to MBF Bioscience):

Winner of �worst new way to present a poster� (hat tip to Jason Snyder):

Winner of �best new re-use of a poster� (hat tip to Rodrigo Braga):

Eric encapsulates how important the poster experience is to Neuroscience:

Feel naked without a poster tube. Thumb drives just don�t identify you as an #SFN14 attendee in the same way.

Jordan Gaines asks and interesting question about assessing your audience:

How do you like to assess someone's knowledge of your poster topic as you're presenting? Ask upfront, or read their body language?

The Cellular Scale has advice for poster audience members:

If you want a 5 min poster summary, ask for a 2 min one.

Neurd Girls ?reports a crime to sfnpolice:

I�d like to report a criminal offense. Poster entirely in Comic Sans on bright purple background.

DrugMonkey reminds us of good design principles:

Font size people, font size. #sfn14 #oldeyes

Michael Carroll makes an observation on poster presenters:

Interesting seniority gradient within the poster rows here at #SfN14: students and postdocs at the posters, PIs and greybeards in the center

I�ve followed Neuroscience�s introduction of �dynamic posters� for some time now. Benjamin Saunders thinks people are still not making full use of the medium:

Seeing some better #SfN14 dynamic posters this year but most are still just a poster. On a video screen. Get it together people.

Jason Pipkin found one dynamic poster he liked:

Title, intro, and conclusions always visible while large central area used for displaying series of movies.

Then there was that flight out that was stopped by posters! Fear them! Fear the posters! (Hat tip to Joshua Burda.)

American Airlines flight grounded due to unruly poster-wielding SFN�rs!! So many posters!!!

Finally, a two part article by Erik Kennedy about designing user interfaces that has some good lessons for posters. I particularly appreciate rule 2:

(D)esign black and white first. Start with the harder problem of making the app beautiful and usable in every way, but without the aid of color. Add color last, and even then, only with purpose.

And rule 3:

If you want to make UI that looks designed, you need to add in a lot of breathing room.

Sometimes a ridiculous amount.

Rule 5 is particularly interesting, because it talks about text in a way I have never heard before, about combining emphasis (�up-pop�) with de-emphasis (�down-pop�). I think I might try this in some of my next posters.

This link goes to part one; this link goes to part two.

Latest modern science | Dynamic posters at Neuroscience 2013 - Si Bejo Science

Latest modern science | Dynamic posters at Neuroscience 2013 - Si Bejo Science

conferences posters on screens

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As one of, if not the, biggest scientific meeting and poster presentation venue in the world, the Neuroscience meeting has every incentive to be at the forefront of developing new ways to give posters. Previously, I�d noted they had plans to allow authors to show posters on a screen. These have been dubbed �dynamic posters.�

Stavros Hadjisolomou shares his experience with dynamic posters at the most recent Neuroscience meeting in San Diego.

The Society for Neuroscience asked presenters to upload their presentations in Powerpoint or PDF files only to a specific website. Each presenter had to create an account and once logged in there were certain steps to be followed:

�Poster Submission Steps�

• Instructions: guidelines on creating and submitting posters, details on file formats, appropriate text size, section content, videos etc.
• Poster templates: They offered 3 possible templates, I chose to work on a previous poster I had.
• Upload poster: Poster file.
• Upload dynamic poster assets: media to accompany poster.
• Preview poster: a chance to preview the poster before the meeting

Although they provided extended details on font sizes for headings and content, there were no instructions on poster dimensions. This was a bit of a problem since my initial draft was organized on a 48 inch by 36 inch slide, which looked really bad in �presentation mode� once uploaded. When viewed in presentation mode, the poster was stretched sideways and compressed vertically to fit the screen. This rendered the poster unreadable to say the least. I found from the offered templates that the dimensions are 52 by 29 inches.

In �presentation mode,� you can view the poster and bring up a gallery made up of the uploaded media files so the presenter could choose one to play.

Once finished, I uploaded 10 videos to be used for the poster. One important thing here: the site allowed for a lot of different media file types which made my life easier. Also, each file could be up to 900 megabytes, a pretty reasonable size. Having said this, some files did not stream well with certain browsers. I had to test the ones that worked best (Firefox and Chrome).

My presentation was on Sunday and generally it was a great experience. The poster was about squid behavior (startle escape response � startle chromatophore changes).

Having videos to show to visitors made my life easier and, from what I have heard from people, more enjoyable to them. When it comes to animal behaviour, having videos to showcase your points allows for better communication. I did not spend as much time on creating editing videos as on the poster itself; I kept videos to a max number of 10 (with a couple of �bloopers� for people who had enough time to stay and watch.)

People visited the poster in bursts. The types of people ranged from colleagues, to researchers in different fields but interested in cephalopods and people who had no idea about the poster but were drawn in by the videos; when I did not have any visitors, I ran a playlist of all the videos and soon enough, people would come and ask for a presentation. I had quite a few people who were on their way to another poster, yet stopped and asked for a quick presentation.

Sadly, the provided laptop, WiFi dongle, and display were not adequate for presenting the poster appropriately:

• The screen did not match the laptop�s resolution. Although the presentation looked great on the laptop, the poster was slightly compressed on the display which made it unreadable. When I inquired with a technician, I was told that all dynamic posters had the same problem and it was to be fixed later. Most of the visitors commented on this issue. Having a printed poster is definitely one less headache, especially since you find out at the last minute.
• The videos could not be streamed online efficiently. Since my videos were more than 500 megabytes, they did not stream fast enough, even though I was given access to a private wireless account. I brought three flash drives with me (just in case!) with the poster and video files and decided to play videos locally while displaying the poster in presentation mode.

Aside from this glitch, the dynamic poster presentation was great and would do it again in a heartbeat, assuming the display works properly next time. A lot of people showed interest to present their posters in this way for next year. Lastly, while this is a first step towards �dynamic� posters, I wish this would allow for more interactive presentations (something similar to, but not necessarily the same as Prezi).

Bakermind�s description seems a little different than Stavros�s:

This year they opted for conventional posters + iPads. Hope to receive more traffic.

Are dynamic posters ready for the main hall? Drugmonkey asked:

Anyone impressed by a �dynamic poster� yet?

Reactions on Twitter were... ambivalent, at best. Both Dr. PMS and SciTriGrrl reacted with an emphatic, �No.� Benjamin Saunders didn�t like them:

These dynamic posters just seem really dorky to me, not seeing the added value.

Taking a Cat Apart had a similar sentiment:

Still not entirely sure what�s dynamic about a dynamic poster.

 SciTriGrrl adding:

It�s a poster with zooming. WHERE ARE THE VIDEOS?

Apparently, not many presenters took advantage of the videos like Stavros did. However, Bashir noted that some posters did use videos, though maybe not well:

As far as I can tell dynamic posters are just a poster with a YouTube video added.

Observing the crowd, Bakermind noted that this format doesn�t seem to appeal:

Dynamic posters at #sfn13 often isolated... look lonely and I think some people scared away.

Dynamic posters are still a work in progress. There is no doubt in my mind that the technology exists to make a great dynamic poster. The question is whether even a big organization like the Society for Neuroscience, and authors, are willing to make the investment.

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