Creating Effective Posters

Content and Presentation: A High-Level View

HCI Graduate Student OrganizationIowa State University

February 8, 2005Steven Pautz

Two Key Elements

Content

Presentation

Both are necessary

Two Key Elements

Content

Presentation

Both are necessary

Two Key Elements

Content

Presentation

Both are necessary

Content

Chef Customer

Storytelling

Conciseness

Visuals

Chef Customer

Focus on the final outcome,

not the ingredients or recipe.

They’re here for the meal, not the kitchen

This project helps people:

• Avoid mistakes

• Stay relaxed at work

• Communicate better

• Have more fun

To create this project, we used:

• C++

• VR Juggler

• GLSL

• Who cares?

Chef Customer

Storytelling

Grab their attention,

Build interest,

Then reward it.

Relevant? Memorable? Engaging?

90% of Big Important Things have major problems.

This is not a good thing.

Here’s what we’re doing to help:

• Random cool idea

• Progress towards solution

Storytelling

Here’s what we did:

1. Random cool idea

2. Build it

3. See if it works

4. Do the steps really matter?

Conciseness

Appetizers first.

Keep the signal; lose the noise

Long text passages discourage reading and reflection.Concise passages encourage it.

Conciseness

Gosh, there’s a lot of text over here. Do you really want to read all of it? Is this actually going anywhere? The only way to find out is to trudge through the whole thing! Skimming could help, but it’d work much better if this passage were actually written to be skimable. In any case, text exists to be read, so if a passage doesn’t encourage reading then it might as well not exist. To make effective—and rememberable—content, then, we have to encourage reading. Needlessly-long passages of text don’t do this; shorter ones usually do.

Visuals

Words + Pictures > Words

The C4 in widescreen mode

Visuals

When in widescreen mode, three of the C4’s screens line up to form a single wall with a single, extra-wide image displayed across it. This opens up the C4 space, giving viewers significantly more room.

Presentation

Contrast

Repetition

Alignment

Proximity

Presentation

C ontrast

R epetition

A lignment

P roximity

Contrast

If two elements aren’t similar,

make them very different.

Concord, contrast, or conflict

Don’t be a wimp”“

Contrast

First Heading

Boring old text. Nothing to see here. It just goes on and on, saying nothing. Seriously, stop reading.

Second Heading

Boring old text. Nothing to see here. It just goes on and on, saying nothing. Seriously, stop reading.

First HeadingBoring old text. Nothing to see here. It just goes on and on, saying nothing. Seriously, stop reading.

Second HeadingBoring old text. Nothing to see here. It just goes on and on, saying nothing. Seriously, stop reading.

Repetition

Repeat the same visual elements

and features.

Recognizable consistency

Repetition

ObjectiveMore boring old text. Nothing to see here. At least it’s not Latin.

Method

More boring old text. Nothing to see

here. At least it’s not Latin.

ResultsMore boring old text. Nothing to see here. At least it’s not Latin.

Objective

More boring old text. Nothing to see here. At least it’s not Latin.

Method

More boring old text. Nothing to see here. At least it’s not Latin.

Results

More boring old text. Nothing to see here. At least it’s not Latin.

Alignment

Create visual connections

among all elements.

Nothing should be arbitrary

Alignment

A Major ProjectWith a fancy subtitle!

What We Did

We’ve made a lot of progress. The end of the presentation should be coming up soon.

We’ve made a lot of progress. The end of the presentation should be coming up soon.

What We’ll Do Later

More free food, and some better text, hopefully. Then class.

A Major ProjectWith a fancy subtitle!

What We Did

We’ve made a lot of progress. Theend of the presentation should becoming up soon.

We’ve made a lot of progress. Theend of the presentation should becoming up soon.

What We’ll Do Later

More free food, and some bettertext, hopefully. Then class.

Proximity

Related items should be grouped together.

Unrelated items should not.

Closeness implies relationship

Proximity

• Design• Purpose

• Behavior

• Interface

• Implementation• Backend

• Frontend

• Evaluation• Analysis

• Formative

• Summative

• Design• Purpose

• Behavior

• Interface

• Implementation• Backend

• Frontend

• Evaluation• Analysis

• Formative

• Summative

Content

Chef Customer

Storytelling

Conciseness

Visuals

Presentation

Contrast

Repetition

Alignment

Proximity

The Big Picture

Content and Presentation

Start with the purpose

Develop content and presentation together

It’s about the viewer’slearning experience(bon appétit!)