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Molecular visualization is a powerful way to represent the complex structure of molecules and their higher order assemblies, as well as the dynamics of their interactions. Although conventions for depicting static molecular structures and complexes are now well established and guide the viewer’s attention to specific aspects of structure and function, little attention and design classification has been devoted to how molecular motion is depicted. As we continue to probe and discover how molecules move - including their internal flexibility, conformational changes and dynamic associations with binding partners and environments - we are faced with difficult design challenges that are relevant to molecular visualizations both for the scientific community and students of cell and molecular biology. To facilitate these design decisions, we have identified twelve molecular animation design principles that are important to consider when creating molecular animations. Many of these principles pertain to misconceptions that students have primarily regarding the agency of molecules, while others are derived from visual treatments frequently observed in molecular animations that may promote misconceptions. For each principle, we have created a pair of molecular animations that exemplify the principle by depicting the same content in the presence and absence of that design approach. Although not intended to be prescriptive, we hope this set of design principles can be used by the scientific, education, and scientific visualization communities to facilitate and improve the pedagogical effectiveness of molecular animation. 

Visual representations are essential to scientific research and teaching, playing a role in conceptual understanding, knowledge generation, and the communication of discovery and change. Undergraduate students are expected to interpret, use, and create visual representations so they can make their thinking explicit when engaging in discourse with the scientific community. Despite the importance of visualization in the biosciences, students often learn visualization skills in an ad hoc fashion without a clear framework. We used a mixed-methods sequential explanatory study design to explore and assess the pedagogical needs of undergraduate biology students (n = 53), instructors (n = 13), and teaching assistants (n = 8) in visual science communication education. Key themes were identified using inductive grounded theory methods. We found that extrinsic motivations, namely time, financial resources, and grading practices, contribute to a lack of guidance, support, and structure as well as ambiguous expectations and standards perceived by students and instructors. Biology and science visualization instructors cite visual communication assessments as a way of developing and evaluating students’ higher-order thinking skills in addition to their communication competencies. An output of this research, the development of a learning module, the Visual Science Communication Toolkit, is discussed along with design considerations for developing resources for visual science communication education.