Maximizing Data Transparency with Rigor Icons

Scientific meetings are an important venue for disseminating findings, but space and time for experimental design details is often limited. Thus, to facilitate increased transparency in scientific presentations, rigor icons can quickly and easily convey experimental design details as described in this paper.

Rigor icons are simple symbols that can be added to figures to easily convey important experimental design details in scientific presentations.

Different sets of rigor icons will be valuable to different communities. However, a core set of reporting standards, including measures to minimize the risk of bias, are integral experimental design elements that are broadly applicable.

A proposed set of fundamental rigor icons is presented below:

Rigor-related itemDescriptionIcon
Blinding/MaskingExperimenters were blinded/masked to treatment during experimentation and analysis
An outlined face and neck wearing a white blindfold enclosed in a purple circle.
RandomizationSamples were randomly assigned to experimental groups
A single white die enclosed in a yellow-brown circle
Sample Size EstimationSample size/power was calculated in advance
A capital N (white) enclosed in a blue circle.
Data ExclusionsOutliers or other data were excluded according to pre-defined criteria
A white thumbs up thumbs down sign separated by a white slash all enclosed in a green circle.
Exploratory ExperimentThis experiment or analysis was exploratory, observational, or hypothesis-generating
Dark grey binoculars (details outlined in white) enclosed in a red circle.
Data AccessibilityData/code/analysis pipelines are available in a public repository
A dark blue cloud (outlined in white) and a blue symbol for data storage enclosed in a lighter blue circle.
Adding rigor icons to figures in scientific presentations maximizes data transparency and provides important information without taking up additional space:
"Left: bar graph showing data for three groups with ill-defined error bars. Right: graph showing the same groups but as a quantile boxplot. Below, left: three icons depicting blinding/masking, randomization, and sample size calculation.
The same data are represented as (L) bar graphs with vague error bars and (R) a quantile boxplot showing the mean (purple diamond), sample size, individual data points, and the range for data spread. The rigor icons represent (left to right) blinding/masking, randomization, and sample size estimation. The graph on the right, with the same amount of space, conveys more detailed information about the methods and analysis. This figure is modified from Silberberg, et al.

Additional Resources:

  • Flyer(pdf, 365 KB) describing the icons in more detail
  • File repository with the individual icons, the descriptive flyer, and a presentation slide
  • Presentation by NINDS Director Walter Koroshetz about using the icons