<p>Scientific research is inherently a collaborative task; a dialog among different researchers to reach a consensus understanding of the underlying biology. Information graphics facilitate this dialog because humans are visually wired and can absorb well-executed graphics more quickly than they can absorb the written word or columns of numbers. Visual representations communicate complex ideas quickly and clearly.<br />
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This talk will briefly introduce basic principles of designing interactive graphics, with examples from the genomics community illustrating various points. It will also discuss the lessons learned with our own annotation tools: PAINT—a phylogenetically based functional annotation tool (<a href="https://github.com/geneontology/paint&quot; target="_blank">https://github.com/geneontology/paint</a&gt;) , Apollo—a genomic feature editor designed to support structural annotation of gene models (<a href="http://genomearchitect.org/&quot; target="_blank">http://genomearchitect.org/</a&gt;),&nbsp; and Noctua—a biological-process model builder designed for describing the functional roles of gene products (<a href="http://noctua.berkeleybop.org/&quot; target="_blank">http://noctua.berkeleybop.org/</a&gt;).<br />
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In addition to the graphical elements we summarize the requirements that enable any annotation tool to meet the needs of the research community, including: Real time updates to allow geographically dispersed researchers to conduct joint efforts; Parallel chat mechanisms; Maintaining an evidence trail for all assertions; Well supported history mechanisms and browsing of past versions; Providing different levels of permissions; Facilitating publication; Responsiveness to users’ requests; Documentation and dedicated resources for training and support.</p>