The better poster

At a poster session, people walk past hundreds of posters. Most are walls of text. They get a few seconds of attention each. Yours needs to say its point before someone decides to walk on.

The #betterposter idea

In 2019, Mike Morrison, then a PhD student, shared a poster design that spread widely through conferences:

• A big central message: your main finding in plain words, in huge type, in the middle.
• A side column with the details: methods, results, figures, for people who stop.
• A QR code linking to the paper, preprint or slides.

Studies of the format are still limited, and many people adapt it rather than copy it. But its key idea is sound: lead with the finding, not with "Introduction".

Classic advice that still holds

Erren and Bourne's "Ten simple rules for a good poster presentation" (2007) agrees on the basics:

• A poster is an advertisement for your work, not the paper printed large.
• Use far fewer words than you think: aim for a few hundred words at most.
• Make the flow obvious: columns read top to bottom, or numbered sections.
• Make figures the stars.

Title and author

Make the title a short statement of the finding, readable from across the aisle. Put your name, affiliation, email and a photo of yourself, so people can find you later.

RememberLead with your main finding in huge type. Keep words few, figures big, and add a QR code to the full work.