1. Know Your Audience; 2. Identify Your Message; 3. Adapt the Figure to the Support Medium; 4. Captions Are Not Optional; 5. Do Not Trust the Defaults, 6. Use Color Effectively; 7. Do Not Mislead the Reader; 8. Avoid “Chartjunk”; 9. Message Trumps Beauty; 10. Get the Right Tool
link to paper in PLoS Computational Biology
link to paper in PLoS Computational Biology