Presentation guidelines

Accessibility and inclusivity

Make sure your figures and images are accessible to those with colour-blindness. Where possible, avoid conveying information in colour only. Show difference BOTH in colour and shape (solid and dotted lines, different symbols etc.). In fluorescent double-staining micrographs, DNA chips etc. do not use the combination of red and green. Use magenta (purple) and green instead. Colour-blind individuals often struggle to see a distinction between red and other colours in images. By changing the red to magenta, it will help to distinguish the different colours of the image. For micrographs with three or more channels ensure that you include either a greyscale picture of each channel, or the combination of the most important two channels in magenta and green. For graphs and line drawings, label elements of the graph on the graph itself rather than colour coding them. 

Be mindful of triggering visuals. For example, avoid animated slide transitions as these can cause motion sickness, nausea and headaches. Also, GIFs on an endless loop can trigger epilepsy. You can use them, but just limit the number of times they loop on your slides. 

Use fonts in a clear, readable way. Use large font sizes throughout your slides, including for figure legends. Sans serif fonts are among the most readable. Make sure to leave spaces between letters, words and lines. Use bold for emphasis rather than underlining or using italics because these make letter shapes harder to make out. Avoid using CAPS as this also reduces readability. 

Be mindful of the amount and placement of text on your slides. Be careful about laying text over images.  If you do this, make sure the contrast between the text and image is high. Aim for a ratio of at least 4.5:1. You can check this with online tools like https://contrast-ratio.com/. Avoid too much text in consideration of people with reading difficulties and attention deficiencies.  

Share your slides and record talks where possible. This allows people to re-watch your talk, and look at your slides, in case they missed any images or words you said. If your talk included more detail than what’s on the slides, include speaker notes if possible. Make sure your slides are accessible, with ALT text on images, enough colour contrast, video captions, limited animation looping, and non-triggering slide transitions. 

Provide closed caption. If the event organisers aren’t providing these, MS PowerPoint has a free Presentation Translator plug-in to add real-time captions and foreign language translation to your slides. 

Use video in a way that people with visual or hearing impairments can benefit from. Try to choose videos with descriptive audio soundtracks and provide images to go with audio soundtracks where possible.  

References: 

1. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/learningteaching/learning-and-teaching-support/quickguides/kcl-qg/dl/7-steps-to-inclusive-teaching-technology.pdf
2. https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/11/inclusive-design-accessible-presentations/
3. https://www.vwvj.be/sites/default/files/zien/zien_-_uit_voorbije_vorming/kleurzinonderzoekextratips.pdf 

Guidelines for oral communications

Oral communications are strictly limited to 10 minutes duration (and five for discussion). This will be enforced by session chairs and the use of a traffic light system to help manage timings.  Please ensure that your oral communication begins with an introduction that enables your audience to appreciate its context and the rationale for the study, and ends with a form of conclusion/summary that emphasises the key points. Remain focused upon the experimental procedures and data, and avoid over speculation. Clarity in your presentation, both audio and visual, will ensure the audience is sufficiently informed to be able to appreciate your work and also to be in a position to ask pertinent questions.

In addition, please note the following rules pertaining to oral communications:

• No Oral Communications shall be read either from written script, slides or PowerPoint transmissions
• An Oral Communication shall not occupy more than 10 minutes

To comply with these rules, and to ensure that Communications are presented in a concise and comprehensible manner, the Scientific Programme Committee advises that:

• Not more than six slides or PowerPoint transmissions should normally be shown, NOT including title slide and acknowledgements.
• Any PowerPoint animations should be ‘basic’
• Graphs should not normally contain more than three curves
• Tables should not normally contain more than 30 values
• All Oral Communications should be rehearsed for time, sense and audibility

Guidelines for poster communications

Poster Communications are primarily a tool to allow authors to discuss their research with others. They should contain enough information, together with that in the published abstract, to give readers a good overall understanding of the research. Authors should follow recommendations on font and text size closely. Choice of colours etc. is up to the authors but legibility is paramount – colour clashes (e.g. green text on red background) should be avoided.

Poster dimensions for our meetings are as follows:

• Standard A0 (841mm x 1189 mm)
• Portrait orientation (i.e. height longer than width)