ABSTRACT
Well-designed figures can illustrate complex concepts and patterns that may be difficult to express concisely in words. Figures that are clear, concise, and attractive are effective – they form a strong connection with the reader and communicate with immediacy. These qualities can be achieved by combining data-encoding methods, to quantify, with principles of graphic design, to organize and reveal. Scientific figures are often judged by how well they function as a diagram. The scientific process works because all its output is empirically constrained. The human visual system, from retina to cortex, is extraordinarily complex. It is more productive to think about visual communication from the top down rather than the bottom up. The data figure is different from the concept figure in that it is based on quantitative information that can be numerically transformed, can be accompanied by measures of uncertainty, and whose proportions can be mathematically compared.
