Making awesome figures

A large part of human brain is devoted to image processing. So it should not be a big surprise that (human) scientists usually only look at Figures and captions.

Critical points: Communicative goal (Mehrdad)

The main function of a figure is to communicated a point (or multiple points) between the writer and the reader. In a well-designed figure, the reader looks at the figure and immediately understands what the point is - without having to read the caption or paper. These points can help us to get close to this level of clarity.

Decide on the points you want communicate

Decide of the points you want the figure to convay. If you, as the figure-maker cannot verblize the goal of your figure, then your figures are doomed to be messy, and convoluted.

How many points for one figure

You cannot drive home all the points in your paper in one single graph. Sometimes less is more. Done occlude data with data.

Sort the points

Each of your desired points can be convayed with a visual contrast (chance in color, shape, or location of ink). Some of the visual contrasts are easier to percive so pay attention to how you choose the association. Space > color > shape

Fine tuning points (Jörn)

Once you figure out the critical points, your figure should be good enough for communicating your ideas to others. However, there is still a difference between a good-enough figure and the prefect figure. These step can help you make your figures look not only profetional but aesthetically pleasing to look at.

Minimalism

It does not matter if you are looking at a machine, a short story, or a scientific figure. In any system, when you know every part has a role, and there is no redundancy, it gives a special kind of satisfaction. You appretiate the design, and the thoughfull designer. So make sure, you use the minimum amount of ink. Do not put a dot of ink in your plot unsless there is an essential role for it to play.

Color

Not all colors can go with eachother. Some poeple have an instict for it. But some of us don’t. There is something called color theory. Make yourself familiar with it.

Type of figure

The type of plot you choose it highly related to your communicatinve goal. That been said, you don’t see any pie plot in scientific papers. Bar plots are also about to be deprecated. There is a reasone for that…

Consistancy between figures in paper

Make sure you obay your own conventions accross the document.

Font consitency

Stick to one font. People will judge you for being a careless writer if you randomly switch from one font to another.

(Will be depricated) Initial bullet-points

Figures are important in scientific communication.

Many readers will only look at Figures + captions, but bot read the text
Discussions on you paper will focus on the the results in the figures
Figures are what your readers will remember

Some advice on making figures:

Communicative goal

Every figure panel should have a clear communicative goal. What is the point that you want the Figure to convey?

In a well-designed figure, the reader will have look at the figure and immediately understand what the point is - without having to read the caption or paper.