We describe the development of a graphical abstract for lay summaries of clinical trial results. The new graphical summary serves the same purpose for a lay summary as an abstract does for a scientific publication. Lay summaries are intended to inform the general public about the results of clinical studies. Consequently, they need to be understandable to people without specific knowledge of the disease or knowledge of the clinical research process. Visual displays have been shown to greatly support the under standing of complex data. With the support of patient organisations, we first determined the information items that were to be included in the graphical abstract and then transformed them into visual representations on a single page preceding the lay summary. Review and feedback from stakeholders and patient representatives helped derive a final graphical abstract template for all lay summaries across therapeutic areas. The generally positive feedback from patient representatives emphasises the usefulness of the graphical abstract in conveying key information of clinical trials.