Figure Style Guide — Neuro 2026 Poster Plots

Overview

Strip-chart style: bar showing group mean with individual data points overlaid. No error bars — for N=4–8, the scatter is more informative and more honest than SD bars (which imply normality that cannot be verified at small N).

Files in this folder

File	Task	Y-axis range	Step
lunge-support-instability.svg	Lunge — Foundation Integrity	0–16°	2
isolate-trunk-shear.svg	Isolate — Trunk Shear	0–16°	2
tilt-trunk-shear.svg	Tilt — Trunk Shear	0–100°	10
tilt-arm-decoupling.svg	Tilt — Arm Decoupling	0–45°	5

SVG template dimensions

SVG:          360 × 520 px
Left margin:  95 px   (tick labels + axis label)
Right margin: 25 px
Top margin:   70 px   (title)
Bottom margin: 85 px  (x-axis group labels)
Plot area:    x = 95–335 (width 240), y = 70–435 (height 365)

Bar positions

Trained bar center:   x = 155  (bar x = 130, width = 50)
Untrained bar center: x = 275  (bar x = 250, width = 50)

Coordinate formula

px_per_unit = plot_height / y_range   (e.g. 365 / 16 = 22.8125)
zero_y      = 435
bar_top_y   = 435 - (mean × px_per_unit)
bar_height  = mean × px_per_unit
dot_y       = 435 - (value × px_per_unit)

Dot jitter

Dots are sorted ascending by value and spread evenly across the bar width.

• N=4: x positions at bar_center ± 15 and ± 5 (e.g. 140, 150, 160, 170)
• N=5: x positions at bar_center − 20, −10, 0, +10, +20 (e.g. 135, 145, 155, 165, 175)
• N=8: x positions evenly from bar_center − 23 to bar_center + 19 in steps of 6 (e.g. 252, 258, 264, 270, 276, 282, 288, 294)

Colors & style

Element	Value
Bar fill	#2dc2f3 (solid, no opacity)
Dot fill	#000000
Axis / tick lines	#333333, stroke-width 1.5
Gridlines	#e0e0e0, stroke-width 1
Background	white (implicit)
Chart style	Open (no top or right spine)

Font sizes

Element	Size
Title	20px bold
Y-axis label (rotated)	15px
Y-axis tick numbers	16px
X-axis group labels	18px
Font family	Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif

Y-axis label placement

<text x="20" y="[plot_vertical_center]" text-anchor="middle"
      font-size="15" fill="#333333"
      transform="rotate(-90, 20, [plot_vertical_center])">
  PV Coupling Error (°)
</text>

Plot vertical center = top_margin + plot_height / 2 = 70 + 182.5 = 252

Choosing Y-axis range and step

• Set top of range to the next clean tick above the maximum data value.
• Choose step so that there are roughly 8–10 tick marks:
  • Range ≤ 20: step 2
  • Range 20–60: step 5
  • Range > 60: step 10 or 20

Gridlines

Draw a gridline at every tick (excluding y=435 / zero line, which is the x-axis itself).

Notes

• Means used for bar height are computed from individual data, not provided separately (verify any externally supplied averages against the raw data).
• The Tilt Trunk Shear plot uses step 10 because two untrained participants reached ~90–93°; step 2 would have produced ~50 gridlines.
• SVG files render correctly in any browser, Finder Quick Look, Affinity Publisher, Illustrator, and Inkscape.