How to Create a Visual Abstract in 5 Easy Steps
Visual abstracts are becoming more and more popular ways to share research through social media. Using images can create a higher impact on platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. It can catch the eye of stakeholders that may not be used to reading through long research articles. Here is an example of a visual abstract we’ve designed and the steps we used to create it.
Working Sandwich Generation Women Utilize Strategies within and between Roles to Achieve Role Balance by Evans et. al. (2016) Visual Abstract Sample.
Create an outline of your research using as few words as possible.
This will help eliminate unnecessary text on a visual abstract that can be hard to read. There is a very short window to catch your audience’s attention and the less text the better.
2. Find the main takeaways or points your audience would want to know.
Think about your audience and what information they would want to understand and use in their clinical practice. They may not care what type of study design you used but specific clinical interventions and assessments are usually very interesting to practicing clinicians.
3. Use a templates to create your design.
Some examples of helpful resources include
4. Find icons to replace chunks of words that represent the essence of those words.
You can find royalty free icons on:
Creative Market (affiliate link)
5. Post where your audience spends their time.
If you’re looking to reach parents, a facebook groups for Mom’s might be the best place to share your work. If you want to reach more healthcare professionals looks into sharing at national conferences, if you want to reach out to students, Instagram is a more popular platform.