Visual Hierarchy
People read a page in the order its visual weight tells them to.
What it is
Size, contrast, position and whitespace decide what gets seen first, second and never. If the hierarchy matches the argument you want to make, people follow it without effort. If it does not, they read the wrong thing first and leave with the wrong impression.
The research
Eye-tracking studies of web pages consistently show fixation clustering on the largest and highest-contrast elements first, with an F-shaped scan pattern on text-heavy pages.
Nielsen, 2006
How to use it
Three levels, no more
Headline, supporting line, detail. If a page needs a fourth level of type, it needs a second page.
Weight the number, not the label
On a stats row, the figure is large and dark, the label small and grey. People scan the figures first, which is the point.
Whitespace is a signal
The element with the most space around it reads as the most important. Crowd the things you want ignored.
Related
Sources that shaped this entry: growth.design.