We often blog about the significant strides we’ve made to organize and make sense of genomic knowledge contained within the primary evidence of the medical literature. And there is certainly a lot to talk about. But we thought it’d be interesting to give insight into how much attention and effort goes into even the smallest of details when building Mastermind.

We’ve been giving a lot of thought to the icons displayed alongside article results in the “Articles” list of the genomic search results page. These icons enable faster and easier skimming of search results to find the results most relevant to your use-case. These are the icons previously displayed next to article results:

 

• Text-document – either filled in to indicate we’ve indexed the full-text, or outlined (not filled in) to indicate that we have the PubMed data (title and abstract) indexed but not the full-text.

 

• Globe – to indicate the article is published in a foreign language (though these articles are also displayed with square brackets around the title, by convention from PubMed.

 

• Crosshairs/target – to indicate that your searched variant (when doing a search by nucleotide specificity with genomic coordinates, cDNA nomenclature, or rsID) was cited in the article by a nucleotide-specific description (meaning, it’s known to be an exact-match rather than an alternate variant with the same protein effect).

 

• Paperclip – to indicate that your searched variant is cited in the supplemental material for the given paper.

 

While each of these attributes of articles are individually helpful, there is no common thread across all of these attributes, which makes them less intuitive and difficult to remember their meaning and significance.

In terms of inconsistency, notice that the first one concerns whether or not we’ve indexed the full-text of the article, and has nothing specifically to do with your search criteria. Given our industry-leading coverage of the genomic literature, you’ll rarely see the outlined text-document icon anymore, anyway. The third is probably the least relevant criteria for most searches, especially considering many foreign-language articles are or can be easily translated, and given that the information is already apparent in the title of the article.

Finally, the last two icons, the crosshairs and paperclip, are specific to your search and thus the most useful of the bunch.

In the latest update, we’ve overhauled the attributes illustrated with the Article icons to make them more intuitive and useful for every search:

 

 

• Text-document outline – to indicate that your searched variant is cited in the PubMed data (title and abstract); these articles are often highly prioritized as the papers focus more specifically on your variant.

 

• Text-document filled in – to indicate that your searched variant is cited in the full text

 

• Paperclip – as before, to indicate that your searched variant is cited in the supplemental material for the given paper.

 

• Crosshairs/Target – as before, to indicate that your searched variant (when doing a search by nucleotide specificity with genomic coordinates, cDNA nomenclature, or rsID) was cited in the article by a nucleotide-specific description (meaning, it’s known to be an exact-match rather than an alternate variant with the same protein effect).

The updated icons show more relevant information, tailored to each search, allowing faster scanning of article results to speed up and improve the quality of your evidence-based workflow.

We’re always excited to show new developments in Mastermind, however big or small, and to provide insight into our workflow for improving your workflow. As always, please reach out to us with your feedback and ideas.

See the updates for yourself by creating your Mastermind account to start searching or connect with us about multiple licenses or an extended trial for your team.

About Mastermind
The Mastermind Genomic Search Engine identifies every genomic association supported by the medical evidence, drawing informative connections between genes, variants, copy number variants (CNVs), diseases, phenotypes, therapies, and categorical keywords to inform both clinical care and drug discovery. By allowing users to find, connect, explore, and understand the links between genomic concepts of interest, Mastermind elevates the efficiency and accuracy of the clinical decision-making process.