A Decade of SBOL Visual

Welcome to the SBOL Community’s retrospective on SBOL Visual!

Since its introduction in 2013, the SBOL Visual standard has played a key role in ensuring that diagrams of genetic designs are clear, consistent, and easily understood.

Our community conducted a retrospective analysis of every ACS Synthetic Biology manuscript published between 2012 and 2023 to assess how well SBOL Visual has been adopted.

Our Approach

For each manuscript, we:

• Reviewed the Main Manuscript: Focused on the published figures.
• Counted the Figures: Recorded the total number of images per paper.
• Assessed SBOL Visual Compatibility: Identified which figures could be considered as SBOL Visual images.
• Checked Compliance: Determined whether SBOL Visual compliant figures followed the SBOL Visual standard
• Checked Best Practices: Determined whether SBOL Visual compliant figures followed recommended SBOL Visual best practices.

We have also listed the guidelines we followed while evaluating the figures.

Explore the Data by Year

We have created dedicated pages that summarize our findings for each year. These pages include:

• The total number of images (per paper)
• The number of images compatible with SBOL Visual
• The number of images following SBOL Visual standard guidelines
• The number of images following SBOL Visual best practices

Please explore the individual summaries below:

• 2012 Analysis
• 2013 Analysis
• 2014 Analysis
• 2015 Analysis
• 2016 Analysis
• 2017 Analysis
• 2018 Analysis
• 2019 Analysis
• 2020 Analysis
• 2021 Analysis
• 2022 Analysis
• 2023 Analysis

About Our Work

This effort accompanies our upcoming manuscript, “A Decade of SBOL Visual: The Adoption of a Diagram Standard,” and reflects the collective work of the SBOL Community. By tracking how genetic design diagrams have evolved over time, we aim to both celebrate progress and highlight areas where further improvements can support clear scientific communication.

Get Involved

We welcome your feedback and ideas on how to further improve the clarity and usability of SBOL Visual. Feel free to reach out to us or join the discussion in our community forums.

Thank you for being part of our journey to make synthetic biology diagrams more accessible and standardized!