We’ve organized all the Points of View columns on data visualization published in Nature Methods and provide this as a guide to accessing this trove of practical advice on visualizing scientific data.

As of July 30, 2013 Nature Methods has published 35 Points of View columns written by Bang Wong, Martin Krzywinski and their co-authors: Nils Gehlenborg, Cydney Nielsen, Noam Shoresh, Rikke Schmidt Kjærgaard, Erica Savig and Alberto Cairo. As we prepare to launch a new column in our September issue we felt this would be a good time to collect and organize links to all the Points of View articles together in one place to make it easier to navigate this wonderful resource that the authors have provided us. For the month of August we will be making all the columns free to access so everyone can benefit from this practical advice on data visualization.

This should not be the end of the Points of View column though. We will be inviting new visualization experts to author articles on new topics that have not been covered so far or which can be expanded on. This page will be continuously updated whenever a new article is published so stay tuned. If you have a suggestion for a topic you would like to see covered in a future points of view article please comment below.

Update of March 28, 2015: A PDF eBook of the 38 Points of View articles published between August 2010 and February 2015 is now available at the Nature Shop for $7.99 under the title “Visual strategies for biological data: the collected Points of View”. The article summaries below provide a nice overview of what is contained in that eBook collection.

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Introduction

Visualizing biological data – December 2012

Data visualization is increasingly important, but it requires clear objectives and improved implementation

The overview figure – May 2011

An economic overview figure to convey general concepts helps readers understand a research study

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Composition and layout

The design process – December 2011

Use good design to balance self-expression with the need to satisfy an audience in a logical manner

Layout – October 2011

Proper layout reveals the hierarchical relationship of informational elements

Gestalt principles (Part 1) – November 2010

Gestalt principles (Part 2) – December 2010

Exploit perceptual phenomena to meaningfully arrange elements on the page

Negative space – January 2011

Whitespace is a powerful way of improving visual appeal and emphasizing content

Salience to relevance – November 2011

Ensure that viewers notice the right content by making relevant information most noticeable

Elements of visual style – May 2013

Translate the principles of effective writing to the process of figure design

Storytelling – August 2013

Relate your data to the world around them using the age-old custom of telling a story

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Using color

Color coding – August 2010

Choose colors appropriately to avoid bias and unwanted artifacts in visuals

Color blindness – June 2011

Make your graphics accessible to those with color vision deficiencies

Avoiding color – July 2011

Improve the overall clarity and utility of data displays by using alternatives to color

Mapping quantitative data to color – August 2012

Color is useful for compact visualizations of large data sets but must highlight salient features

Heat maps – March 2012

Color, clustering and parallel coordinate plots are essential for using heatmaps effectively

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Elements of a figure

Typography – April 2011

Choose typefaces, sizes and spacing to clarify the structure and meaning of the text

Axes, ticks and grids – March 2013

Make navigational elements distinct and unobtrusive to maintain visual priority of data

Labels and callouts – April 2013

Figure labels require the same consistency and alignment in their layout as text

Plotting symbols – June 2013

Choose distinct symbols that overlap without ambiguity and communicate relationships in data

Arrows – September 2011

Use well-proportioned arrows sparingly and consistently as a guide through complex information

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Plot types

Bar charts and box plots – February 2014

Choose the appropriate plot according to the nature of the data and the task at hand

Sets and intersections – July 2014

Euler and Venn diagrams are appropriate for up to three sets but for greater numbers use more scalable plots

Heat maps – March 2012

Color, clustering and parallel coordinate plots are essential for using heatmaps effectively

Temporal data – Feb 2015

Use inherent properties of time to create effective visualizations

Unentangling complex plots – July 2015

Carefully designed subplots scaled to the data are often superior to a single complex overview plot

Pathways – January 2016

Apply visual grouping principles to add clarity to information flow in pathway diagrams

Neural circuit diagrams – March 2016

Use alignment and consistency to untangle complex neural circuit diagrams

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Improving figure clarity

Simplify to clarify – August 2011

Simplify your presentation to improve clarity

Design of data figures – September 2010

Improve figure decoding by using strong visual cues to encode data

Salience – October 2010

Use salience to differentiate graphical symbols and speed up figure reading

Points of review (Part 1) – February 2011

Examples of figure redesigns

Points of review (Part 2) – March 2011

Simple tips to improve pie chart, scatter plot and color scale data displays

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Multidimensional data

Into the third dimension – September 2012

3D visualizations are effective for spatial data but rarely for other data types

Power of the plane – October 2012

Combine 2D plots for effective visualization of multivariate data

Multidimensional data – July 2013

Visually organize complex data by mapping them onto familiar representations of biological systems

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Data exploration

Pencil and paper – November 2012

Quick sketches and doodles of data or models aids thinking and the scientific process

Data exploration – January 2012

Create ‘slices’ of data to enhance the process of pattern discovery

Networks – February 2012

Choose your network visualization based on the patterns you are looking for

Heat maps – March 2012

Color, clustering and parallel coordinate plots are essential for using heatmaps effectively

Integrating data – April 2012

Combine visualizations of multiple data types to find correlations and potential relationships

Representing the genome – May 2012

Limit what is displayed based on the question being asked

Managing deep data in genome browsers – June 2012

Compaction and summarization help find patterns in overwhelming data

Representing genomic structural variation – July 2012

Use arcs, color, dot plots and node graphs to show relations between distant genomic positions

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