1. Presenting research visually: a poster design overview
Presented by Rachel Dueck, University Marketing
Northern Arizona University

2. Importance of posters EXPLAIN your project visually SHOW outcomes
RELAY the project to your audience
In general, your poster should serve as a visual explanation to your research project, using a combination of text, images, and charts/graphics. Be sure to explain the outcomes of your project and/or your next steps, and remember to speak in terms that your audience will easily understand. If you are speaking with folks who are unfamiliar with your field, be sure to avoid using jargon and technical lingo. If you are speaking with others who are very familiar with your work, you’ll want to speak to them in their terms, allowing yourself to be more technical.

3. Poster design basics EDIT your story MAINTAIN balance
CONTRAST your background and your foreground
CHOOSE FONTS wisely
CHECK your work from a technical standpoint
The design basics covered in this presentation are listed here.

4. EDIT your story BOLD HEADINGS VISUALS CHARTS
Point 1
Point 2
Point 3
Edit your story: Be sure to condense your research paper into key highlights to display on your poster. Create an outline for your poster, including the key takeaways you want the user to remember after they have reviewed your poster, and be sure to include any required information. Break your story into key messages using large, bold headings, visuals that can help explain relationships, steps in a process, or otherwise difficult information to relay in a narrative, and charts for tabular data. In PowerPoint, there are several tools available to help create these visuals.
CHARTS

5. MAINTAIN balance GOOD BAD
Remember to maintain a balance between your text, images, and charts, as well as white or “blank” space. The poster on the left—though not a perfect example of poster design—does a good job of creating balance. The poster on the right, however, is very unbalanced, showing only images. There is no indication of the project goals, outcomes, or even the name of the presenter. Be sure to include—at a bare minimum—all required information.

6. CONTRAST
GOOD
BAD
Make sure text and imagery maintain a high level of contrast.
Make sure text and imagery maintain a high level of contrast.
Be sure to choose colors that allow a high level of contrast. If you have a dark background, create very light or white text, and vice-versa. Avoid mid-tones (for example, the middle-green against the blue is very difficult to read), and keep in mind that printing a poster with a dark background may wind up costing more than a lighter alternative would.

7. CHOOSE FONTS wisely Choosing Fonts Choosing Fonts GOOD BAD
Make sure all fonts are highly legible for both headings and body text.
Be sure to choose a size that will be legible from a distance as well.
Make sure all fonts are highly legible for both headings and body text.
Be sure to choose a size that will be legible from a distance as well.
Whenever possible, try to stick to basic fonts that are easily legible. The fonts used in the “good” example are Arial and Times New Roman—both of which are easy-to-read, and freely available on most computers, which will avoid any mistranslation from computer-to-computer or during the printing process. Remember to keep your fonts large enough to be readable from a distance of 4-5 feet, where most of your poster reviewers might approximately stand.

8. CHECK your work, technically
From a technical standpoint, it’s advised that you your poster to yourself, and open it an another computer. For an extra technical check, open it on the opposite platform (if you designed on a Mac, open it on a PC, and vice-versa). When you pull it up on the other computer, be sure to look for things like replacement fonts, missing images, or anything that generally looks different than you expected. Correct these issues prior to sending your work to be printed.

9. CHECK your work, technically
Remember to ZOOM to 100% to check graphics and text size
GOOD
BAD
As you design your poster, keep in mind that your screen size is much smaller than your actual poster will be. To check the size and resolution of your text and graphics, be sure to “zoom” to 100%--an option in the lower-right corner of your PowerPoint dashboard. Once you’ve zoomed in, look for pixelated or “fuzzy” graphics, and be sure to swap them for high-resolution images (images that are 300dip or better, or most images taken personally from a digital camera). As a general rule, any image pulled off of the internet will be very low-resolution, and will get pixelated when enlarged.

10. Critique:
Good things:
Title is large and clear
Numbers allow the user to follow the proposed “flow” of the poster
Nice use of charts/visuals
Things to improve:
Contrast is difficult—white on a middle-blue could be improved by darkening the blue or lightening the background and using black text
Visually, it’s not very compelling—it looks as though someone pasted slides from a PowerPoint onto the poster—remember to reformat any previous work so it is best displayed in poster format.
Could benefit from large, bold headings to help the user flow through the poster more easily

11. Sarah Fuller, Bridgewater State University
A Slip of Paper in a Black Walnut Box:
An Examination of the Suffrage Debate
in Beverly, Massachusetts
Sarah Fuller, Bridgewater State University
4th of July Celebration, 1920, Dodge Street in North Beverly, Helen Wales and Beverly Dunham (L to R)
…the hand of woman/a frail hand it is true/But it can rock the cradle and drop the ballot too…And though against that fragile hand/Distrust and doubt are hurled./Still, the hand that rocks the cradle/ Should help to rule the world.
Woman Suffrage is the opening wedge to Socialism and Feminism, propagandas antagonistic to everything held dear in Christian civilization.
…she is not capable, has never shown herself and never will show herself capable of sustaining alike the life of the family with all its profound and absorbing demands, and the laborious technique of public life.
…the decline and fall of great nations and civilizations in our world history…three symptoms invariably attend the period of decay…the coming of women into public life and political prominence. This last factor…the fever of the diseased civilization.
The Beverly Beacon: A Woman's Newspaper
11/1/1913
Mary Boyden, Anti Suffrage Secretary and Treasurer Records , 1915
Thesis: By presenting never before analyzed primary source documents recently discovered in the archives of the local Beverly Historical Society in Beverly, MA, this study shines light on the local narrative, a missing piece of the state and national suffrage picture. Pro- and anti-suffrage women of Beverly, MA focused their attention on three major arguments: national economic changes and how these affected female responsibility within the home and family, whether or not female moral superiority had a role to play in politics, and finally, the social and political consequences that might result if women were allowed to vote.
If the polls are such vile, disorderly places as is claimed, then it is time woman purified them by her presence. Surely the affairs of state need to be conducted with decency and sobriety.
Critique:
Good things:
Text is large and bold—easy to read from a distance
Nice use of images to add visual interest
Thesis front and center—easily the first thing to read
Nice contrast: black text on a white background
Things to improve:
Beyond the thesis, it’s difficult to determine where to go or how to make sense of the outcomes
Large, bold headings could help tell this “story” and relay the outcomes more easily

12. A Mathematical Model for the Effects of Plaque Aggregation on the Neuronal Network
Thomas Howard with mentor Dr. Irina Seceleanu
Generating the Neuronal Network using a Fractal Tree
Path of Signal through Neuronal Network without Plaque Deposits
Identifying Deteriorated Neuronal Connections due to Plaque
Simulating the Impact of Learning on Neuronal Degeneration due to Plaque
Each vertex is assigned a high or low number of receptors using a Bernoulli distribution with parameter p. The probability p decreases from 1 to 0.8 as we move downstream along the neuronal network.
Deposit 5000 plaque granules.
Identify the closest edge in the fractal tree for each plaque granule and compute distance from plaque granule to edge.
If distance is less than 5 we record this in a counter and delete those edges whose counter exceeds a certain threshold value. Edges downstream are subsequently deleted from fractal tree.
The image below shows which neuronal pathways (in red) have been deteriorated by plaque granules deposited on the network.
The frequent use of the neuronal pathways in the human brain due to learning and memory exercises helps strengthen the neuronal connections which become more resistant to plaque degeneration.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
If a vertex has a high number of receptors, the signal passes through the neuron with probability 0.9. If the vertex has a low number of receptors, the signal only passes through the neuron with a probability of 0.3.
Image in orange depicts the path of the signal in a healthy neuronal network.
We simulated these effects in our model by increasing the threshold value for the number of plaque granules in the vicinity of an edge required for deletion of that edge.
Table below shows the average of the number of neurons the signal reached for each of our three models having run the simulations a large number of times.
(a) Program begins by plotting a horizontal line. (b) This line branches to form 3 new lines half the original length and extended straight out and perpendicular to it. (c) Each newly formed line branches in three more lines as in step (b). (d) The jy new iteration generates new line segments of length (e) Horizontal and (f) vertical offset can be manipulated to realize different geometries. (g) The fractal tree is skewed using randomly generated coefficients to ensure a realistic representation of the neuronal network.
200
400
Depositing Plaque Granules using a non-homogeneous Markov Chain
(e)
(f)
(g)
-200
Path of Signal
Neurons Reached
without Plaque
413/1093
after Plaque
279/1093
with Learning
329/1093
Path of Signal through Neuronal Network after Plaque Deposits
Integrating Fractal Tree with Graph Theory Package
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(a) During the first iteration, a cell is randomly chosen with uniform probability from an grid where n was chosen to be 400. A high probability box is defined around the cells immediately adjacent to the first cell. (b) A cell is chosen from within the high probability box and a new box is positioned relative to the new cell. (c) Most cell deposits will occur in the high probability box as a result of our probability distribution. (d) In a minority of cases, cells are chosen from the complement of the previously defined high probability box. A new box is formed around this last deposit.
Image in green shows the path of signal through the neuronal network that has been affected by the plaque deposits
Identify and label vertices and edges of the fractal tree, where each vertex represents a neuron. Similar to the neuronal network in the human brain, a signal travels in one direction. For ease of representation, we use a symmetric fractal tree.
Critique:
Good things:
Title is large and clear
Numbers allow the user to follow the proposed “flow” of the poster
Nice use of charts/visuals
Things to improve:
Again, it looks as though someone pasted slides from a PowerPoint onto the poster—remember to reformat any previous work so it is best displayed in poster format.
Could benefit from large, bold headings to help the user flow through the poster more easily
Text is “justified”—could improve readability by making it “left justified”
Text is very small—could be very difficult to read at a distance
It looks as though this person had problems finalizing their project—some of the sentences are chopped off. Remember to check your work technically by reviewing it on another computer.
Contrast and choice of font at the bottom could be improved for better legibility.
Image of Neuronal Network with Plaque Deposits
Probability distribution for the location of the next plaque granule in the matrix A:
given the current location SPA of the plaque, the next granule will be deposited in spacwith the following probabilities:
each cell in adjacent high probability box is picked with probability
all other cells are picked uniformly with total probability of
Computer generated image using our mathematical model.
Photograph, imaging from human hippocampus.
Compare with image in orange in and note that the signal reached less neurons than in a healthy brain.
We used this probability model to allow for realistic clustering of plaque granules.
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts

13. Critique:
Good things:
Title is large and clear
Charts/visuals used to explain complex narrative.
Things to improve:
Overall, the poster has too much information—it is visually overwhelming
The use of color could be beneficial to aid in explanation, but it’s not clearly obvious why it was chosen. Remember to explain graphic choices easily, so someone can interpret it without your presentation.
Text is very small, including text on some of the graphics. If you include text on graphics, make sure they are large enough to read, and of high enough quality to be crisp/clear.
Use of color with the text may be difficult to read for someone who is colorblind.

14. Additional resources nau.edu/ugr
nau.edu/Research/Undergraduate/Poster-Presentation-Tips/
nau.edu/ugsymposium
nau.edu/CEFNS/Forestry/Student-Resources/Information- Technology/Plot-a-Poster/