Background: Visual summaries of Cochrane Reviews have the potential to make reviews accessible to a wider audience and increase people’s understanding of the evidence. Research has shown that people have difficulty understanding statistical information, and that health professionals are not exempt from these problems. These difficulties can be reduced by displaying information in a visual format.

Objectives:
- To design visual summaries of reviews in the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth NIHR Programme Grant.
- To make the reviews more accessible, by presenting the 'Summary of findings' table and Plain language summary as an infographic.
- To use data visualisation to communicate the main findings of the reviews.

Methods: The infographics we have designed are based on cognitive psychology theories of data visualisation, and on principles of graphic design. We plan to trial the infographics with consumers, to explore which aids understanding and accessibility of Cochrane Reviews.

Conclusions: Infographics and data visualisation could make Cochrane Reviews more accessible. However the process of balancing simple communication and research complexity is challenging. It is impossible to include every detail of a review in an infographic, but removing too much detail can distort the message of the original review.

We have produced and disseminated visual summaries of several Cochrane Reviews (Figs 1, 2 and 3). We would like to share them with you, discuss the process of developing them, and invite feedback.