MAILED SUGGESTIONS IMPROVE VISUAL QUALITY OF POSTER PRESENTATIONS

Mailing poster presenters a brochure suggesting ways to improve their posters led to visually better posters. A brochure describing 24 ways to improve poster presentations was mailed to a random sample of prese nters two months prior to the 1994 Annual Convention of the Swedish Me dical Association. Three pairs of observers, unaware of who had receiv ed the brochure, evaluated 146 posters [88 recipients (n=105), 58 nonr ecipients (n=70)]. Brochure recipients made use of more suggestions th an nonrecipients, and they produced posters giving a better over-all i mpression. The procedure best correlated with receiving an above-avera ge rating concerned placing conclusions in the upper left-hand corner of the poster. The results show that it may be possible to improve the quality of scientific posters by empirically deriving standards for p resentations.