Why are (most) academics set on sharing scientific knowledge in the most boring way possible?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RwJbhkCA58

1. Fear of change?

2. Laziness? (Definitely NOT that!) What I must have meant to say is that everyone is just so very busy, stressed, and overwhelmed.

3. This is how things have "always been done"?

4. All of the above, plus what Mike Morrison explains in his video.

Throughout graduate school, I've attended ten conferences - some disease-specific, like NACFC for cystic fibrosis or APOS for oncology, or ones focused on a particular area in psychology - like the Society of Pediatric Psychology. Regardless of the topic, target audience, or size of the conference, the structure of poster sessions remained the same.

This November, I'll be attending ABCT and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the acceptance email included a link to Mike Morrison's video: "This year, we are encouraging poster authors to consider adapting their traditional poster design to an innovative idea proposed by a fellow Psychologist that has gone rather viral online in academic circles."

I was intrigued and watched the video included with the message. If you're not familiar with conference poster sessions and have 20 free minutes, I recommend you watch the video from the beginning.

TLDR (TLDW?): Mike Morrison (@mikemorrison), a graduate student at Michigan State, created this video to explain the current issues with conference poster sessions with a focus on the poor design of academic posters and suggested an alternative design.

I really loved this video and commend Mike for taking the time to make it and to try and change the way we share knowledge in our field. However, I have a comment inspired by The Truthful Art.

Mike's video downplays the importance of design/data visualization/infographics. He calls posters that use nicer data visualization techniques "unicorn posters." Importantly, he also assumes that these posters were made by "professional applied firms or grad students who were designers before coming to grad school or used templates or paid somebody."

However, it is possible to make graphs and figures that are both aesthetically pleasing and easier to read without a graphic design background and in the same amount of time it takes to make the typical Excel graph. I think the problem is we tend to confuse data visualization with "data decoration."

"Good design isn't about embellishment but about structuring information to enable understanding...Aesthetic appeal is a worthy goal, as it can help make our messages more attractive and, as a consequence, more effective.” The Truthful Art

This is an example of the type of graphic I can envision a student (like me) spending way too much time on without actually doing a better job of communicating our message. This type of graph is what scares grad students away!

Dr. Cairo provides a good example of how a simple visualization can be more effective and just as aesthetically pleasing in his comparison of a visualization created by a design company Accurat and a redesign by Dr. Cairo. A more complex graphic isn't necessarily better.

Ultimately, my message is that we shouldn't be scared away from trying to create more visually appealing and creative graphics to display our data. In a future blog, I'd like to talk about helpful resources that we can use to easily make more attractive and more effective visualizations!