The origins
Visual abstracts, emerging in chemical research journals during the 1970s, are graphical representations of research findings. Their usage in medical research expanded considerably in 2016, with a significant growth in the number of endorsing journals - from around 50 in 2018 to over 1,000 in 2022.

The potential of Visual Abstracts
Over 1.7 million abstracts are added every year just in medical research and the life sciences: Visual Abstracts can help researchers to promote their research among this growing body of knowledge.

We developed a standardized Visual Abstract format with proven efficacy
To harness this potential, we continuously developed and rigorously tested our standardized visual abstract layout: Researchers read a visual abstract 2.6x faster than the corresponding text abstract, while memorizing similar amounts of information. 70% of researchers intuitively followed the designated Visual Abstract reading pattern. These results seemed to be independent of research proficiency level and could be validated in follow-up studies.

Our Visual Abstracts could save decades of research time, every day
Our results suggest: If tomorrow all 7.8 million researchers worldwide would read just 1 of our Visual Abstracts, the research community would save 54 years of research time on a single day. This hypothetical scenario illustrates the enormous potential visual abstracts hold, if they were to become broadly introduced in scientific publishing.

Visual Abstracts that represent our values
Through our design style, we see the opportunity to depict the diverse world in which we live. In addition, we have adapted the graphic design of our Visual Abstracts to increase accessibility for readers with color vision deficiency, glaucoma and poor eyesight.