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Kamis, 02 April 2015

Latest modern science | Belated blogiversary: six years on - Si Bejo Science

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Wow, I have been so busy recently that I completely blew past the sixth blogiversary of Better Posters! (The proper blogiversary date was the start of March, not, um, April.)

That this blog is still as active as it is today is thanks to many, many contributors who have been generous enough to share their posters. Thank you all.

Photo by kathryn on Flickr; used under a Creative Commons license.

Latest modern science | Critiques: Icy bodies - Si Bejo Science

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Today's poster is from Terik Daly, and was presented at the last Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. As always, click to enlarge! Enlarging always helps, but this one is particularly enhanced by increasing the size a bit.


My first thought was, �This is going to be a short critique.� That this was a crisp and professional design leaped out right away.

This poster makes excellent use of a grid, with plenty of space between elements.

The typeface is either FF Din, or something very near to it. FF Din is a typeface that is used quite often by professional designers, but almost never by scientists, because... it�s not a standard font in Microsoft Windows. The Din fonts were originally designed for railroad signs, so they have the advantage of being legible from a distance, and are quite compact, too, which is a nice combination for a poster.

While my dislike of logos in titles is well documented, Terik does it right here.The logo is occupying a space that would otherwise by empty, so it is not chewing up any valuable poster real estate. The logo is transparent, leaving no identifiable �box� fingerprint around it. The logo sits comfortably in the poster, rather than fighting for space on it.


I like the idea of having the short summary below the authors� byline. The problem here might be that the summary is a little too similar to the title bar above it. It might benefit from being a different colour, or something to make the text �pop� to let readers quickly identify this as the main text, not the sort of mostly minor details you normally find under the authors� names (institutional affiliation and the like).

The only thing that is a genuine error, in my view, is in the top central graph, where one of the data labels crosses the X axis. The label just needs a slight nudge upward, and it would be more readable and attractive without sacrificing any clarity of which line it�s associated with.

The poster is a little drab right around eye level: it�s black and blue text right across the board where my eyes will glance first, under the title bar.

I like images on posters, and would like to see the pictures here play a more prominent role on the poster. Unlike some posters, I don�t know what I would change on this one to make that happen. There always is another way, naturally, but in this case, it would probably demand a wholescale editing and reworking of the text. The overall layout is so clear that I�m hard pressed to imagine this poster in any other way.

External links

FF Din

Kamis, 26 Maret 2015

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

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It�s hard to ignore an article that claims to have found the �best poster ever made.� It�s below, and you can read more about the author�s approach here. Hat tip to Catherine Scott.


I�ve talked about placeholder text before. Here�s an article about the history of the most common placeholder, lorem ipsum.

Kamis, 19 Maret 2015

Latest modern science | Posters at the front of Science - Si Bejo Science

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It�s a little unusual to see posters mentioned in one of the magazines that likes to position itself as a �journal of record,� namely Science. Here�s what editor in chief Marcia McNutt had to say on posters, which should be familiar advice to all readers of this blog.

I encourage students to request a poster presentation at a large meeting. This format can be less stressful than speaking in front of a large audience. Furthermore, the student personally converses with members of the scientific community who share an interest in his or her research. The back-and-forth is good training and a reminder to students that discussing their research with experts or nonexperts should be a two-way conversation. Another advantage of presenting a poster is that the student can tailor the narrative to the interests of whoever stops by, in a Q&A exchange. I recall years ago when a graduate student was disappointed that her research would be described �only� in this format, until one of the giants in her field spent considerable time at her poster to discuss the work. As he left, he said, �I wish I had thought of that.� She was later hired into his department.

To be effective, posters need to be eye-catching as well as informative. In a convention hall lined with poster boards, scientists will bypass those with large blocks of texts and tables of impenetrable numbers. A cartoon that summarizes the model or findings, attractive displays of data, and photos that illustrate the experiment are good ways to grab attention. Creative ways to display pertinent information are a definite plus. I personally like posters that begin with the motivation for the work and end with the findings, areas for follow up, and broader implications of the results.

McNutt goes on to say:

Training the next generation of scientists to communicate well should be a priority.

This statement causes me a little exasperation, because I hear, �We need to train young scientists to...� more often than the chorus of a top 40 pop song.

�We need to train young scientists two write better.�

�We need to train young scientists to talk to the media.�

�We need to train young scientists to do better statistics.�

�We need to train young scientists in ethics.�

�We need to train young scientists in grantsmanship.�

�We need to train young scientists about social media.�

And everyone is convinced that this training is an urgent priority. To borrow a phrase:


I do completely agree with McNutt that the more established faculty have an important role to play here: go the the darn poster sessions. And don�t just chat with your conference buddies!

And researchers attending meetings should take some time to judge a few student papers, visit student posters, or attend student talks.

Reference

McNutt M. 2015. It starts with a poster. Science 347(6226): 1047. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aab0014

Jumat, 13 Maret 2015

Latest modern science | Critique: Inexhaustible sediment - Si Bejo Science

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Today�s poster comes from Sokratis Papaspyrou. As always, click to get a closer look!


Sokratis notes:

It was designed and made in two days... could be better (always). I used a colour wheel  to select the colours and made use of the �circle draws attention� trick I read in a book and also read in one of your posts.

Sokartis�s deliberate consideration of the use of colours and circles both pay off. Both features work very well. I would have tried making the position of the �callout� circles more consistent. The two left circles just don�t agree on a pattern.


There could be two ways to achieve this. Either you could place them all in the upper right corner:


Or, you could place them all by the margins:


I slightly favour the third of these, but the difference is minor.

The other thing that you might see in my mock-ups above is that I tried to make the blue boxes the same width as the others in the column.

While I�ve stated before that a reader should be able to follow the reading order of a poster without arrows, I don�t mind their use here. I think it�s because apart from the very first transition from the �Premise,� you�re simply moving down the page. The brush strokes used for the arrow bring an nice organic touch.

The only other small thing that comes to mind is to remove the underlining from the headings and author list.

Finally, this poster benefits from simplicity. It has very little text. It has clear highlights in the circles to help browsers through the poster quickly.

Related posts

The eye loves the circle
Don�t hold my hand
Undo the underline

Kamis, 05 Maret 2015

Latest modern science | Are posters a visual aid, or a stand alone document? - Si Bejo Science

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Jason McDermott has an excellent question:

SciTweeps - which camp are you in? The A) �poster as a visual aid to a presentation w/minimal text� or B) �poster as a complete manuscript�?

There are some definition issues here. When I hear �manuscript,� I think that implies a journal article. That, to my mind, is way too detailed and too much stuff. A poster is not be a journal article and should not necessarily follow its conventions.

The other part of option B, though, is �complete.� As I�ve said before, a poster should be self-contained. It should present a complete narrative that does not need a speaker to guide you through it or explain it. A poster should be more than just a billboard or decoration; a poster should have substance.

I am intrigued by the responses. Most responses favoured minimalism.

I prefer (A), but there should be enough text for the reader to understand the results without you being there - Kelsey Wood

A, always A - Auriel Fournier ?

A. Always! That's the difference between a poster and a journal article. Posters are for work in progress. Publish once done - Matthias Lein ?

The contrary point of view is interesting, though:


I don�t want your song-and-dance routine, I want your data; plus, what if you're not there when I am? - Bill Hooker

90% A, 10% B. (Some things really need text.) - Chemjobber

Depends on venue. If you never leave poster, A. Otherwise, needs enough B for people to critically evaluate. - Peter Thompson

Noah wanted to dig deeper:

Can�t we split the difference? C) "poster as cues to provoke interesting questions, answer boring ones."


And from there the conversation went all Game of Thrones:

We already suffer about as much carnage as G.R.R. Martin�s characters - and about as much job security. - Jason McDermott

�The red conference� - noah ?

Book 1: �A trial of tenure.� Book 2: �A lack of funding� - Francois Gould ?

Related posts

Containment

Picture by char booth on Flickr; used under a Creative Commons license.

Latest modern science | The Capra principle - Si Bejo Science

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At the most recent Oscars, Ben Affleck quoted this man, legendary director Frank Capra:


Capra said:


There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.

Despite being a bit of a movie nerd (I paid my way through university working mostly as a movie theatre projectionist), I�d never heard this quote before, and love it. And t applies so well to conference posters as well as films.

About the only rule about poster making is that your poster has to fit within the allotted space. Beyond that... you have free reign.

Yes, conference organizers may tell you that you need to have an abstract. An institution may grumble about whether you have the institution�s logo on the paper. But I have yet to hear anyone say that they were stopped from presenting a poster because of such thing. I often joke, �There are no poster police!� or �Let anarchy reign!�

But... as Capra knew, �no rules� does not mean everything is equally good. Some ideas are better than others, or work better in some contexts than others. And like movies, a dull conference poster is � in either the content or the design � is a sin. The good news is that dullness is only a venial sin. You can do your penance by making your next poster better.
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