Poster Guidelines for Presenters

Authors are requested to be available for questions of your poster during the scheduled poster sessions. Poster presentations will be given on either Monday, Tuesday or Thursday; you will be informed on the day of your presentation in July. Please check your poster number in the program closer to the conference.

A freestanding compatible poster board will be provided for your poster. Your poster number will appear on the top right hand side of the board so you can locate your board easily.

One poster session – All posters will be displayed through the whole meeting from Monday till Friday in the poster room.  Poster numbers will be assigned during the registration.

General instructions

• Poster size should be A0 portrait oriented (width: 84.1cm, Length:118.9cm). Do not exceed these dimensions. Providing A4 takeaway versions of your poster is also encouraged
• Apply the KISS principle: ‘Keep it Short and Simple’. Avoid putting too much text and figures on the poster.
• Your poster is a visual aid to present your work. It should contain max. 350 words, preferably less. Visual elements such as graphs, diagrams, figures should dominate.
• Use a light colour background and dark colour letters for contrast. Use 2-3 colours and avoid overly bright colours.
• Your poster should help you convey your message. Prepare a poster presentation of 3 minutes in which you tell your audience your objective, hypothesis, methods, results and conclusions. Be prepared to provide more information to those who ask specific questions.

Font size & type

• The poster must be easily readable from 2 m distance.
• The title should be at least 100 pt, font size the text on the poster at least 36 pt.
• Don’t mix fonts, choose one font for all text blocs in the entire poster. You may wish to use a second font for title + headings and figures and tables.

Text elements

• Use text sparingly. Your poster is not a paper, and there is little time for visitors to read. Let the graphics do the speaking.
• Use columns of max. 70 characters (including spaces) width. Avoid large blocks with text and long sentences (<10 sentences per block; <50 words per block).
• If possible use bulleted statements rather than blocks of text.
• Avoid abbreviations. When abbreviations or codes are necessary, keep them as simple as possible.
• Choose the line spacing such that the use of sub- and superscripts will not affect the layout of text blocks.

Poster sections

• The introduction should contain 3 to 5 sentences outlining essential information necessary to understand the study and why it was done.
• The objectives of the study, the research questions or the hypothesis should be clearly stated in as few words as possible.
• Outline your methods briefly, as short and general as possible.
• Results should be presented preferably as graphs. They should be self-explanatory and therefore please provide a clear legend including symbols. You may also want to provide an interpretation of the results below each panel.
• The discussion and conclusions should be succinctly stated on large type font. Many viewers read the conclusions first, and many viewers read your conclusions only. Hence the main conclusions should be easy to locate and easy to understand.
• Indicate in the conclusions:
  • Do your findings confirm your hypothesis?
  • the novelty your findings.
  • their relevance beyond your study.

Figures and Graphs

Figures are highly preferred above Tables.

• Graphs or tables should be self-explanatory and therefore please provide a clear legend including symbols. Put legends above a table and below a figure.
• Keep legends short (10-25 words).

Figures

• Properly label the x- and y-axis of graphs, include units.
• Keep graphs as simple as possible.
• Include the results of statistical analyses (significance levels) in the graphs by using discriminating letter codes (a, ab, b) or asterisks (*, **, ***).

Tables

• Do not use Tables that contain more than 20 items. Complex data should not be included in your poster but may be provided in a separate information sheet.
• Do not give more decimals than necessary to show meaningful variation.

Reference and further reading

• San Francisco Edit 2013 Developing an Effective Poster Presentation. http://www.sfedit.net/poster.pdf