One of Shocklogic’s most exciting new products is our ePoster Viewer. It is used at scientific conferences to display abstracts and posters containing research to display around the event. Even those that are not being presented, can be displayed through this system!
The technology is an alternative to the technique of printing paper posters, and having them physically available in one place. ePosters save time, and are more environmentally friendly.

I spoke to Alin Ungureanu, a member of our software development team, to find out more about the process of creating one of these systems for a recent event: The National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Congress 2018 in Glasgow.

Can you tell more about the function of an ePoster Viewer?

Not only is the system great for saving paper, but is allows for more abstracts and research to be shown at an event. As the information is condensed on one system it’s not overwhelming for the attendees and is accessed in an easily digestible way. Delegates can also rate the research and retrieve the contact information of the author, should they have any queries about the posters.

What is the process in building one?

First I built a controller, which is used to retrieve the information stored on the system. So this holds the posters, the authors details… everything you see!
I then created the blade files, so the icons, images, titles, all the structural elements of the viewer. This also includes the functionality of the viewer so all the hyperlinks on the pages and the ‘back to the top’ arrow which appears when a delegate has scrolled to the bottom of the page, allowing them to be taken back to the top once pressed.
The next stage was then testing. This included a variety of screen sizes to ensure optimisation.

Any other notable features?

NCRI had requested that the date time and location of the presentation for specific posters be displayed on the viewer. As this isn’t something we normally do on the viewer, this was developed as a bespoke feature.

How did everything go once the systems were up and running onsite?

This was a BIG event. There were over 1,500 registered attendees, 204 exhibitors and a total of 239 ePosters on our system! Over the 3 days of the event, the ePosters were a great success.

This was your first major development for Shocklogic! What are your thoughts on it?

It went really well! I couldn’t have done it without the support and guidance of the team, but I really learnt a lot. It was great to be given this responsibility and I enjoyed the challenge – I can’t wait for the next one!