2.1 Types of visual representations in science

There are three common types of visual representations in science: scientific illustration, infographics, and data or information visualization.

Scientific Illustration

A scientific illustration is a graphic representation that is informed by data, but not driven by it.

Below is the cover of the June 28, 2018 Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, which includes an image that illustrates a chemical process. There is no data involved in the image, but the image has been informed by research.

Cover image of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry which includes a scientific illustration.

Image caption: A potent 4-quinoline derivative of brequinar forms a novel electrostatic interaction with the mitochondrial enzyme dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (PDB code  6CJF). Image credit: Stephanie King (Madak, J. T.; et al. J. Med. Chem. 2018, 61, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jmedchem.7b01862 Links to an external site.)

 

Infographic

The book "Designing Data Visualization" by Julie Steele and Noah Iliinsky (2011)  has a good checklist for determining if you are looking at an infographic.

"We suggest that the term infographics is useful for referring to any visual representation of data that is:

  • manually drawn (and therefore a custom treatment of the information);
  • specific to the data at hand (and therefore nontrivial to recreate with different data);
  • aesthetically rich (strong visual content meant to draw the eye and hold interest); and
  • relatively data-poor (because each piece of information must be manually encoded)."

The XKCD comic on the first page of the module is an infographic. Here is an example of an infographic that compares the University of Michigan social media presence to other schools.

Infographic comparing University of Michigan social media presence to other universities.

An infographic highlighting the social media rankings of the University of Michigan and our competitors. https://socialmedia.umich.edu/blog/infographics/ Links to an external site.

 

Data or Information Visualization

Data visualization (data viz) or information visualization (info viz) is different than an infographic. Another checklist from Steele and Illinsky (2011) contrasts this visualization type from infographics in that it is:

  • "algorithmically drawn (may have custom touches or but is largely rendered with the help of computerized methods);
  • easy to regenerate with different data (the same form may be repurposed to represent different datasets with similar dimensions or characteristics);
  • often aesthetically barren (data is not decorated); and
  • relatively data-rich (large volumes of data are welcome and viable, in contrast to infographics)."

Note that data visualizations can also be hand-drawn, but they are easier to render using a computer and do not often have any added stylistic flare that an infographic may have.

We'll see examples of data viz throughout section 4.

 

Reference: Steele, Julie and Iliinsky, Noah. Designing Data Visualizations. O’Reilly Media, 2011. Available online through U-M Library: https://search.lib.umich.edu/catalog/record/013601970 Links to an external site.