Using effective visual aids is important for getting across your message when describing data. This can be in a presentation, poster or paper. This talk goes through some basic design tips that can help your visual aids look professional and work effectively.
Written for the Enabling Excellence ETN. https://eetraining.wordpress.com/
2. What is a visual aid?
Figures Talk slides
Posters
3. What is a
Figures
Talk slides
Posters
• Helps your audience understand
• Often simple
• Interesting
» Humour / Different / Interactive
good visual aid?
4. What is a
Figures
Talk slides
Posters
good visual aid?
• Target audience / Content focus
• Good impressions / Visual aids
• Data visualisation / Workshop
5. Planning
• Target audience
» One size does not fit all
» Be sympathetic - put yourselves in their shoes
» Aim for the lowest common denominator
• Content planning
» Plan from the top down, not from the details up
» Write down an outline before you start
» Think about an “elevator pitch”
9. Phil Ewels - Challenging samples for NGS / 20
Sample Setup
9
SciLifeLab ID Library Prep Starting amount Sequenced Reads
P1102_101 Manual 1000 ng 38,995,594
P1102_102 Manual 1000 ng 37,663,274
P1102_103 Manual 1000 ng 39,666,722
P1102_104 Manual 500 ng 35,332,272
P1102_105 Manual 200 ng 40,568,034
P1102_106 Manual 50 ng 47,044,650
P2011_1005 NeoPrep Run 1 25 ng 93,316,971
P2011_1006 NeoPrep Run 1 25 ng 115,648,988
P2011_1007 NeoPrep Run 1 25 ng 118,489,187
P2013_1004 NeoPrep Run 2 25 ng 72,128,476
P2013_1005 NeoPrep Run 2 25 ng 62,774,142
10. Phil Ewels - Challenging samples for NGS / 20
Sample Setup
10
Sample Library Prep Starting amount (ng) Sequenced Reads (M)
1 Manual
2 Manual
3 Manual
4 Manual
5 Manual
6 Manual
7 NeoPrep Run 1
8 NeoPrep Run 1
9 NeoPrep Run 1
10 NeoPrep Run 2
11 NeoPrep Run 2 25
25
25
25
25
50
200
500
1000
1000
1000
0 30 60 90 120
13. Introduction
• Don’t underestimate the impact of your first few slides
• Fonts and visual presentation immediately set the
tone for your audience
• Anchor your work in the context of your audience’s
work
• Go slow - everyone will thank you for it
• This includes not using too much content
• Try not to read every bullet point from the screen -
talk around your slides instead
• Don’t put all of your bullets up at once, the
audience will read them instead of listening to you
• Now is the perfect time to use a visual aid
14. Visual Design
• Visual design is important
• Visual design is easy
» Clear message
» Focussed
» Easy to read and interpret
» Honest and true reflection of the data
• Fonts. Colours. Layout.
17. Fonts
• Pick a font and stick to it
• Avoid MS defaults
» https://www.google.com/fonts
• Make use of font weights
Open sans
Lato
Roboto
(Arial)
Bold
Medium
Regular
Light
Thin
Hairline
Cambria
Calibri
18. Every time you use Comic Sans,
Faye will punch this adorable little bunny.
comic sans criminal.com
21. Google Material Design Guidelines
Set of guidelines about design
Aimed for app developers
Includes some nice colour palettes
Lots of good stuff about design theory
https://www.google.com/design/spec/style/color.html
24. Choosing a plot
• What type of graph best represents the
argument that you’re trying to make
• Which data are necessary
Relationship
Comparison
Composition
Distribution
25. What are you trying to show?
Distribution
Relationship / Comparison / Composition / Distribution
26. What are you trying to show?
Relationship
Relationship / Comparison / Composition / Distribution
27. What are you trying to show?
Composition
Relationship / Comparison / Composition / Distribution
28. What are you trying to show?
Comparison
Relationship / Comparison / Composition / Distribution
36. Making Comparisons
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2
3
4
5
6
7
• Angles are bad for comparison
• Legend is disassociated from plot
• Requires colour link for series identification
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1.5
2
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46. Features of a good plot
• Minimalistic
• Suitable plot type
• Big and clear
• Attractive (avoid defaults)
• The test - can you draw it from memory?
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2.5
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47. Using a graph
• Hold audience focus
» Talk through your data
» Don’t show everything at once
• Use layering for complex plots
» Progressively add data
49. Colour
• Colour can be used to:
» Highlight specific data
» Group categories of data
» Encode quantitative values
• The more selective you
are with colour, the
greater its effect
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56. Colour Blindness
• Common in Northern European men
• Colour schemes such as Magenta – Green
designed to be colour blind friendly
22% chance at least one colour blind
3 NE male
reviewers
61. Summary
• Decide your key points early
» Build around target audience
• Show only what you need to
» Bullets, not prose
» Suitable graphs
» Avoid defaults
• Use data as a visual aid
colorbrewer2.org
google.com/fonts
flaticon.com
coolors.co
Adobe
Illustrator
Inkscape
(free)
62. Credits
Course written by Phil Ewels. Some material developed
whilst working at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge,
UK. Now working at the National Genomics Infrastructure,
part of the Science for Life Laboratory in Stockholm,
Sweden.
Find more at http://phil.ewels.co.uk