10 reglas simples para hacer mejores figuras

Un artículo interesante y práctico. Con 10 ideas sencillas, cada una bien explicada e ilustrada con figuras claras. Está en libre acceso AQUÍ. La introducción y la lista de las reglas es:


Scientific visualization is classically defined as the process of graphically displaying scientific data. However, this process is far from direct or automatic. There are so many different ways to represent the same data: scatter plots, linear plots, bar plots, and pie charts, to name just a few. Furthermore, the same data, using the same type of plot, may be perceived very differently depending on who is looking at the figure. A more accurate definition for scientific visualization would be a graphical interface between people and data. In this short article, we do not pretend to explain everything about this interface; rather, see [1], [2] for introductory work. Instead we aim to provide a basic set of rules to improve figure design and to explain some of the common pitfalls.

Rule 1: Know Your Audience
Rule 2: Identify Your Message
Rule 3: Adapt the Figure to the Support Medium
Rule 4: Captions Are Not Optional
Rule 5: Do Not Trust the Defaults
Rule 6: Use Color Effectively
Rule 7: Do Not Mislead the Reader
Rule 8: Avoid “Chartjunk”
Rule 9: Message Trumps Beauty
Rule 10: Get the Right Tool