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Paula Emilia Reimann, Zehra Sude Altunok, Benito Campos, Lars Rønn Olsen (University of Münster, Münster, Germany; VAVisual Abstract GmbH, Mannheim, Germany; Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Department of Health Technology, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark)
Graphical research summaries, so-called visual abstracts, have been received with enthusiasm by journal editors and publishers. However, their efficacy as a communication tool has not been thoroughly studied. Here, we aimed to develop a standardized visual abstract layout and to test its impact on abstract reading speed and content memorization. In a cohort of medical and life science researchers (n=10), we show that researchers on average read a visual abstract in 33.1s (95% CI [24.9 - 41.3s]) as compared to the corresponding text abstract, which they on average read in 85.0s (95% CI [58.66 - 111.3s]). That corresponded to a 2.6x increase in reading speed (p<0.01). At the same time, researchers were able to memorize the same amount of abstract information as assessed in a subsequent multiple-choice questionnaire. Our results where validated in a second cohort of researchers (n=10) and suggest researchers could save 51 seconds every time they read a standardized visual abstract instead of the corresponding text abstract. Thus, if tomorrow all 7.8 million researchers worldwide would read just 1 standardized visual abstract, the research community would save 54 years of research time