Article published In:
Information VisualizationEdited by Isabel Meirelles and Katherine Gillieson
[Information Design Journal 23:1] 2017
► pp. 80–95
Edited by Isabel Meirelles and Katherine Gillieson
[Information Design Journal 23:1] 2017
► pp. 80–95
Proving the value of visual design in scientific communication
This study examines how scientists respond to visual design in scientific communications. Specifically, we determine the impact of visual design on the Graphical Abstract (GA), an overview figure that attracts potential readers and visually summarizes what a paper is about. We show that GAs designed in accordance with classic visual design principles significantly enhance readers’ first impressions of a paper. Well-designed GAs make papers seem more interesting, more clearly written and more scientifically rigorous. These results confirm that visual design enhances rather than detracts from the perception of intellectual and scientific competence.
Keywords: data visualization, scientific communication, fluency, scientific figuresvisual design for scientists, table-of-contents graphic, visual communication design, scientific visualization, graphical abstract, information graphics
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].
References
Agrawala, M., Li, W. & Berthouzoz, F
(2011) Design principles for visual communication. Association for Computing Machinery. Communications of the ACM, 54(4), 60. 
Bauerly, M. & Liu, Y
(2006) Effects of Symmetry and Number of Compositional Elements on Interface and Design Aesthetics. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 50(3), 304–308.
Bornmann, L. & Mutz, R
(2015) Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(11), 2215–2222.
Buriak, J
(2011) Summarize your work in 100 milliseconds or less... the importance of the table of contents image. ACS Nano, 5(10), 7687–9.
Buriak, J.M
(2014) Titles and table of contents images: The candy store analogy. Chemistry of Materials, 26(3), 1289–1290.
Divoli, A., Wooldridge, M., Hearst, M. & Futrelle, R
(2010) Full text and figure display improves bioscience literature search. PLoS ONE, 5(4), E9619.
Fang, J.X., Vainio, U., Puff, W., Würschum, R., Wang, X.L., Wang, D. & Gleiter, H
(2012) Atomic structure and structural stability of Sc75Fe25 nanoglasses. Nano Letters, 12(1), 458–463.
Ghosh, K., Kanapathipillai, M., Korin, N., McCarthy, J. & Ingber, D
(2012) Polymeric nanomaterials for islet targeting and immunotherapeutic delivery. Nano Letters, 12(1), 203–8.
Harrison, L., Reinecke, K, Chang, R., Begole, B., Kim, J., Inkpen, K. & Woo, W
(2015) Infographic aesthetics: Designing for the first impression. Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference, 1187–1190.
Idan, O., Lam, A., Kamcev, J., Gonzales, J., Agarwal, A. & Hess, H
(2012) Nanoscale transport enables active self-assembly of millimeter-scale wires. Nano Letters, 12(1), 240–5.
Kamat, P. & Schatz, G
(2013) How to make your next paper scientifically effective. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 4(9), 1578–81.
Kaplan, R., Kaplan, Stephen & Ryan, Robert L
(1998) With people in mind: Design and management of everyday nature. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Korten, T., Birnbaum, W., Kuckling, D. & Diez, S
(2012) Selective control of gliding micro-tubule populations. Nano Letters, 12(1), 348–53.
Likert, R
(1932) A technique for the measurement of attitudes (Archives of psychology; no. 140). New York: Columbia University.
Lindgaard, G., Dudek, C., Sen, D., Sumegi, L. & Noonan, P
(2011) An exploration of relations between visual appeal, trustworthiness and perceived usability of homepages. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 18(1), 1–30.
Malamed, C
(2009) Visual language for designers: Principles for creating graphics that people understand. Beverly, Mass.: Rockport.
Mikheev, G., Nasibulin, A., Zonov, R., Kaskela, A. & Kauppinen, E
(2012) Photon-drag effect in single-walled carbon nanotube films. Nano Letters, 12(1), 77–83.
Oh, I., Kye, J. & Hwang, S
(2012) Enhanced photoelectrochemical hydrogen production from silicon nanowire array photocathode. Nano Letters, 12(1), 298–302.
Oppenheimer, D
(2006) Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: Problems with using long words needlessly. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20(2), 139–156.
Qiu, Y., Yan, K., Deng, H. & Yang, S
(2012) Secondary branching and nitrogen doping of ZnO nanotetrapods: Building a highly active network for photoelectrochemical water splitting. Nano Letters, 12(1), 407–413.
Reber, R. & Schwarz, N
(1999) Effects of perceptual fluency on judgments of truth. Consciousness and Cognition, 8(3), 338–342.
Rewitz, C., Keitzl, T., Tuchscherer, P., Huang, J., Geisler, P., Razinskas, G. & Brixner, T
(2012) Ultrafast plasmon propagation in nanowires characterized by far-field spectral interferometry. Nano Letters, 12(1), 45–9.
Rolandi, M., Cheng, K. & Pérez Kriz, S
(2011) A brief guide to designing effective figures for the scientific paper. Advanced Materials, 23(38), 4343–4346.
Siozios, A., Koutsogeorgis, D., Lidorikis, E., Dimitrakopulos, G., Kehagias, T., Zoubos, H. & Patsalas, P
(2012) Optical encoding by plasmon-based patterning: Hard and inorganic materials become photosensitive. Nano Letters, 12(1), 259–63.
Smith, D., Dong, B., Marron, R., Birnkrant, M., Elabd, Y., Natarajan, L. & Li, C
(2012) Tuning ion conducting pathways using holographic polymerization. Nano Letters, 12(1), 310–4.
Tuch, Presslaber, Stöcklin, Opwis & Bargas-Avila Javier
(2012) The role of visual complexity and prototypicality regarding first impression of websites: Working towards under-standing aesthetic judgments. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 70(11), 794–811.
Tufte, E
(1983) The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire, Conn. (Box 430, Cheshire 06410): Graphics Press.
Wolfe, J. & Horowitz, T
(2004) What attributes guide the deployment of visual attention and how do they do it? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 5(6), 495–501.
Wong, B
(2011) Points of view: Arrows. Nature Methods, 8(9), 701.
(2011) Points of view: Negative space. Nature Methods, 8(1), 5.
(2011) Points of view: Points of review (Part 1). Nature Methods, 8(2), 101.
(2011) Points of view: Simplify to clarify. Nature Methods, 8(8), 611.
(2011) Points of view: The overview figure. Nature Methods, 8(5), 365.
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Fanton, Silvia & William Hedley Thompson
2023.
NetPlotBrain: A Python package for visualizing networks and brains. Network Neuroscience 7:2 ► pp. 461 ff. 
O’Mahony, Timothy, Jason Petz, Jonathan Cook, Karen Cheng, Marco Rolandi & Kristopher V. Waynant
2019. The Design Help Desk: A collaborative approach to design education for scientists and engineers. PLOS ONE 14:5 ► pp. e0212501 ff.
Stahl-Timmins, Will, Jonathan Black & Paul Simpson
Ying, Zhiyuan
2021. Interactive Film and Television Animation Special Effects Production Techniques in Visual Design. Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1881:2 ► pp. 022020 ff.
Zallio, Matteo
2021. Democratizing Information Visualization. A Study to Map the Value of Graphic Design. In Design, User Experience, and Usability: UX Research and Design [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 12779], ► pp. 495 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 31 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.