From first results to first poster: what two PhD students learned about scientific communication
05/26
Presenting research in the form of a scientific poster may seem straightforward at first glance. One page, a few figures, a title.
In reality, the exercise is far more demanding. It requires a set of skills quite different from those needed to write a paper or deliver an oral presentation. This format is widely used in academic conferences and PhD training as a key tool for scientific communication.
The Physics PhD Day, held each year at the Université de Liège, offers doctoral researchers the opportunity to present their ongoing work and engage with peers in a setting that is both scientific and informal.
On this occasion, two PhD students from LeidenForce, Gauri Patki and Cheikh Tidiane Dioum, presented their very first poster. A key milestone in the PhD journey, highlighting what it truly means to communicate research effectively.
A formative… and demanding exercise
For many PhD students, the scientific poster is a first step into directly sharing their work with a community of peers. Unlike a research article, it requires condensing and structuring information while capturing attention at first glance.
The challenge is clear: turning several months of research into a single page… and a conversation.
But how can this be achieved in practice?
Selecting what matters in a scientific poster: saying less to show more
Deciding what to include is often the most difficult part.
For this first experience, Cheikh and Gauri relied on the guidance of their supervisor, Stéphane Dorbolo (coordinator of LeidenForce), who helped them clarify their message without imposing a specific direction.
He also gave us the freedom to include or discard his suggestions.
Gauri
At an early stage in their research, they had to make key decisions: focus on the most relevant results, and prioritize conclusions over intermediate steps.
The main difficulty was condensing complex results into a single page without losing clarity or scientific meaning.
Cheikh
This selection process is far from trivial. It requires stepping back from one’s own work and asking a fundamental question: what should the reader understand first?
In this context, clarity often comes at the expense of exhaustiveness.
Designing a scientific poster: a tool for understanding research
In a poster session, each contribution competes for attention. Design therefore becomes a central lever in scientific communication.
But structuring a poster is not just about organizing content. It is about guiding the reader’s eye, creating a clear path, and building a visual narrative.
I skewed the boxes between the top and the bottom half of the poster so that the reader always goes left to right and top to bottom.
Gauri
The goal is to attract attention visually then complete people’s understanding by reading the description.
Cheikh
Good design is not just aesthetic. It shapes understanding. It tells the reader how to navigate the content, and therefore what to take away from it.
Figures as entry points, content as anchoring
In a scientific poster, figures are often the primary entry point, and sometimes the only one. They convey complex information quickly while capturing attention.
Aware of this, both PhD students paid particular attention to the clarity of their visuals. A well-designed figure can replace several paragraphs.
However, visual effectiveness also requires careful choices: which figures to include, in what order, and how to caption them.
Beyond visuals, the content plays a key role in anchoring the message. It provides the level of rigor and precision needed to support and validate the results presented.
I tried to use a simple language and made figures self-explanatory.
Cheikh
The process itself was iterative: between three and six versions were needed to reach a final poster. Testing an A4 version beforehand proved especially useful in identifying readability issues.
First interaction with the scientific community
Presenting a scientific poster at an academic conference is often one of the first exercises in scientific communication for PhD students.
But a poster is not only meant to be read, it is meant to be discussed.
During the session, the PhD students had to explain their work to a variety of audiences, with different levels of expertise. While Cheikh felt relatively comfortable addressing a largely specialized audience, Gauri recalls the uncertainty of this first experience:
That I was presenting a poster for the first time and I didn’t know how these things are usually done in conferences.
Gauri
As discussions unfolded, explanations became clearer and confidence gradually grew.
More so as the session progressed my confidence improved with repetition.
Cheikh
These interactions can be a source of stress, especially when facing an unfamiliar format or communicating in a non-native language.
Will the questions be understood? Will one be able to answer them clearly? Added to this is the implicit comparison with other posters.
To navigate this, several strategies can help: preparing a clear and concise pitch, practicing in advance, and testing explanations with audiences of varying backgrounds. These approaches make it easier to anticipate questions and refine the message.
Benefits and lessons learned from presenting a scientific poster
This first experience proved highly valuable. It allowed them to engage with researchers beyond their immediate environment, to expose their work to new perspectives, and to generate interest within the scientific community.
At the same time, it highlighted gaps between intention and perception.
Some design choices that seemed obvious during preparation turned out to be ambiguous when viewed by others. For instance, a color scale led to confusion, with certain areas appearing hotter than they actually were.
On the image the hottest part was in orange but the slightly colder was in red, so people were confused it the red part was hotter than the rest.
Gauri
Such feedback underscores the importance of adapting not only visuals, but also language, adjusting the level of jargon to suit the audience.
Key advice for a first scientific poster
From this experience, several practical recommendations emerge:
Always draw out a draft version before starting. It helps with removing the mental inertia of having to start working on something.
Gauri
- Be selective: not everything belongs on a poster
- Prioritize figures over text
- Design for readability and discussion
- Test your poster early (even in A4 format)
- Expect to adapt your explanation during interactions
Cheikh recommends being as clear as possible, prioritizing visuals over text, and designing the poster to support discussion.
As Stéphane Dorbolo also points out, incorporating a simple interactive element can further enhance audience engagement.
Conclusion
This first poster represents an important milestone in the doctoral journey. It is not only about presenting results, but about learning how to make research accessible, engage with the scientific community, and communicate findings in a clear and compelling way.
More than just an exercise, it is an entry point into scientific communication ; a skill that develops, evolves, and improves with each new interaction.
