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Final Project Poster

Your Final Project Poster should be a powerpoint or pdf file on a 30" x 40" page. Please use portrait (not landscape) orientation so we can fit all the posters in the 5th floor hallway. A poster should communicate visually the main ideas from your project. It should also attract and engage your audience, since it will be competing with many others in a large space (same at conferences). You are free to innovate in your poster design, and the format is less constrained than the other project submissions.You can certainly reuse content from your slide presentation. But the poster is a different format and here are some guidelines that should help:

  • Use a large (font) and create an engaging title. It should be short and to the point. Its fine to use humor, puns etc. Something like "Large Gains in RL from Prioritized Experience Replay" or "Prioritized Experience Replay not Very Rewarding" This is the first thing audiences use to decide what posters to look at, and they often only see a fraction of the posters in a large conference. So make sure your title draws people in. Think of a newspaper headline.
  • Include your team name and members. Assuming you want to get credit for your poster :) .
  • Use good visuals. A poster is a visual medium. Visuals: graphs, system diagrams, flowcharts etc. make for a great poster. Unlike a paper, where its bad practice to make captions too long, captions in a poster should be self-explanatory, and as self-contained as possible. People often "graze" posters looking for interesting results, they don't read them end-to-end, so try to make your graphics independent. Use emphasis/annotations - it should be clear on any graphic what its message is - if the graphic itself doesn't do it, add annotations or emphasis.
  • Don't use bad visuals. You can also ruin and otherwise-great poster with poor attention to detail. Number one problem is missing labels or legends. Graphics must be readable independently - you will have multiple people looking at it and you cannot be explaining personally to all of them and axis labels and legends are essential for understanding. Missing legends and labels are also *really* annoying for an audience and will drive them away in frustration. The number one problem (just as bad) is fonts too small in legends or labels. Make sure they are all readable from a distance of 3-4 feet (you want people lining up to see your poster several deep). Also some people will have forgotten their glasses. The number two problem is too much clutter (too many plots on one axis, or graphs too small, or too many edges in a directed graph).
  • Use tables if appropriate. Generally graphics (e.g. bar charts) are better than tables, but sometimes (e.g. to show small differences) tabular numerical data is better. Again use captions, emphasis and annotation to make very clear what the message of the table is.
  • Use text sparingly. Above all, don't write a paper. Use structured text as much as possible - text boxes attached to figures, bulleted and numbered lists. For lists, use a boldface heading.
  • Make sure all text is readable from 3-4 feet away.
  • Use math as appropriate. But make sure everything you use is defined. Simplify as much as possible.
  • Use spatial structure. A poster is a less constrained format than anything else, but people will still try to read it like a newspaper. Therefore it should normally have a two- or three-column structure that reads top-to-bottom and left-to-right. Its helpful, but not essential to have your columns line up nicely with the content, e.g. problem/dataset, approach, results for the three columns.
    Make sure the message is divided up logically - use strong headings, and don't be afraid of whitespace. If you can manage 20-30% whitespace (emptiness or background texture, not images), your poster will look like it was professionally designed.
    It can also be very effective to depart from this format, e.g. use a central column with the main message, with several "sidebars" such as "dataset prep", "training details", "model details", "related work" etc. Make sure the central story stands out (strong fonts) and that the sidebars are clearly such (e.g. enclose them in shaded boxes). This will help get the message across even to people who only stop by briefly.

These principles are there to help you draft an effective poster. But they may correlate with your score on this assignment :)

Oral Presentation

Given the number of posters and the inevitable chaos at poster sessions, we wont attempt to grade your oral presentation of your poster. We also encourage your team members to roam and look at other posters, but please always keep at least one team member by your poster at all times. Nevertheless, here are some tips on presentation:

  • Deliver the main point of your poster in a couple of sentences. That may be the only thing your listeners take away. Emphasize anything surprising or particularly interesting.
  • Clearly define the problem you are solving. This is the easiest place to lose your audience, and once lost its very difficult for them to re-connect. If its an unusual or unfamiliar problem, the audience will take a while to understand it. Also make clear why its worth working on.
  • Explain your approach and results. This is an interactive format, so look for listener reaction. Pause if they look confused and try to explain. Give your listeners time to ask questions.
  • Adapt to Feedback. Over time, you should be able to figure out (a) what parts are most difficult for the audience, and (b) what results are the most interesting. Adapt your presentation accordingly.

 

Submission

Please submit here by Saturday, December 3rd so we have Sunday to print the posters. The deadline is set to Monday December 5th, but if you submit later than Saturday night you will be responsible for printing the poster yourself. Please have someone in your group check email regularly on Sunday in case we have any problems with your poster. We will provide easels and posterboard.