In public health research and practice, data visuals play an important role. They are tools for education, awareness, and persuasion. Key health agencies create visual messages to reach people of all literacy and education levels to help them quickly understand information by complementing or replacing text with images. A well-designed infographic on how wash hands in 12 steps is critical for promoting effective hygiene. An image of a plate with the right proportion of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats is a powerful mean for nutrition communication to promote healthy eating habits. But how well do we, as the developers of these images, know whether our visuals are clear, intuitive, and easily absorbed by a reader? How well do we consider human cognition and perception when designing our communication tools?
Humans use drawing to produce a remarkable variety of pictures, from realistic portraits to schematic diagrams. Humans are trying to make sense of large amounts of readily accessible quantitative information. Health communicators recognize the power of visual tools to effectively convey messages. Health researchers utilize the power of scientific visualizations that compress millions of data points into trends and patterns. But how do we know whether our visuals are trustworthy? Do we have a set of rules to guide us in producing compelling and credible visuals for the public and experts?
We need data visualizations to tell stories, ease explanations, guide discoveries, convey emerging patterns and relationships, satisfy innate curiosity, and appreciate the world we are living in. We need data to reflect reality and tell the truth. In this editorial, I want to explore what we can gain from data visuals and where the potential traps lie. I want to share a set of principles we can adapt in creating data visuals and introduce Visual Brief—our new article type—to engage readers in an experiment on how well we can present information in a visual form. (author abstract)
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