Choosing the Right Chart Type
- Bar chart + error bars: Group mean comparisons with SD or SEM
- Scatter plot: Continuous variable relationships
- Box plot: Distribution with median, IQR, and outliers
- Heatmap: Correlation matrices
- Kaplan-Meier curve: Time-to-event outcomes
- Forest plot: Meta-analysis effect sizes
APA 7 Figure Standards
- Figure number and title below the figure.
- Both axes labeled with units.
- Minimum 300 DPI; TIFF format for print.
- Interpretable in grayscale.
Color Accessibility
~8% of males have color vision deficiency. Use ColorBrewer or Viridis palettes. Supplement color with shape or labeling.
Software
GraphPad Prism for biomedical. R ggplot2 for customization. Python seaborn for data science. BioRender for scientific illustrations.