In symposia and conferences for the scientific and medical sectors is an established practice to use posters to disseminate information.
Typically, attendees at symposia, exhibitions and conferences will spend only 90 seconds on a poster before moving on. During such events, the challenge is to create a lasting first impression.
90 seconds is all you have to engage your audience
Within 90 seconds, your posters must:
- Making the information stand out
- Capture the attendees’ attention
- Customize specific content for the target audience
According to a recent whitepaper released by ICON, a world-leading clinical research organization, it is not the end of the road for posters. It can go through an overhaul to attract eyeballs and successfully communicate medical and scientific information as they are intended to.
Check out the whitepaper for tips on making poster communication relevant again. You can download the whitepaper here: https://iconplc.com/insights/transforming-trials/best-practices-to-increase-engagement-with-medical-and-scientific-poster-content/
The tips are very useful, relevant, and applicable even for other forms of communication.
Some of the suggestions may be just common sense, but current communication strategies can be too cluttered and varied for commonsense to prevail.
One standout tip: The User Experience (UX) Design
User experience (UX) design aims to improve usability and pleasure user experiences when interacting with a product. Good UX design can remove barriers to comprehension and thus support the communication of information more efficiently.
How to increase engagement for your content?
- Pay close attention to the established reading patterns of users to remove potential roadblocks to information absorption.
- Streamline content
- Adopt the inverted pyramid model by providing the most important information first.
- Pay attention to the use of colour, contrast, font size, line length and spacing etc.
- Use images and infographics where possible in place of text.
Multilingual Desktop Publishing is all about User Experience (UX) Design
For those who are new to this, Multilingual Desktop Publishing is the process of arranging texts and graphics on the page using a wide range of cutting-edge desktop publishing application tools like InDesign, Framemaker, Photoshop, Illustrator, QuarkXpress, Word, Powerpoint, etc. Acrobat etc., for different language versions of your global documentation.
It is crucial to ensure the international audiences accept and feel comfortable with the communication materials. The local look and feel of the communication documents must speak to them like it is written and layout originally in their language just for them.
In Multilingual Desktop Publishing, you must have an eye for a good layout. It is also important to know how the design is deemed proper for the different languages. In general, a Multilingual Desktop Publishing process includes the following:
- Fonts – Choosing the appropriate fonts and size
- Font style – Appropriate use of bold, italics, underline etc.
- Line Spacing – Appropriate space between lines
- Kerning – Appropriate space between words and characters
- Pagination – Ensure pages look even and aesthetically pleasing
Just like the traditional poster can no longer be presented alone, multilingual desktop publishing is an important part of a holistic global communication plan to produce aesthetically pleasing print and online content.
When done professionally and as part of your global communication strategy, it will help build this sense of connection with your potential international customers. It tells them that you are serious about engaging them and they are important to you and your organization.
Multilingual Desktop Publishing is the origins and the beginning of what UX design is all about. To cut through all the noise and clutter in the multitude of communication platforms and methods available today, consider relooking into your UX design strategy and include Multilingual Desktop Publishing as part of your global communication strategy to reach out to your global audience attract their eyeball.