Contents 4
Sufficient consensus
Visual hierarchy orders attention through size, weight, contrast, spacing and position. Headings, lead paragraphs and white space carry it, and it is the difference between a page being scanned and being skipped.
The rules are stable and well tested.
If position on the page did not decide what gets read, viewing time would spread evenly from top to bottom. The first screen took more than half of it.
| Part of the page | Share of viewing time |
|---|---|
| First screen, above the fold | 57 % |
| Second screen | 17 % |
| Everything further down | 26 % |
Fessenden, T., Scrolling and attention, Nielsen Norman Group, 2018. Eyetracking, more than 130,000 fixations from 120 participants on a 1920×1080 screen.
What the result pages leave out
These belong to the subject. People ask about them. They are missing from the agreed coverage.
- Hierarchy as an editorial decision. The largest element on the page is a claim about what matters most. That claim is usually made by a template.
- Emphasis inflation. When everything is highlighted, the reader reads nothing and trusts less.
- Space as an argument. Room around a sentence tells the reader it was meant. Density tells them it was produced.
- The first four seconds. Orientation happens before comprehension. A page that answers where am I and what do I get here buys the rest of the attention.
- What the design hides. Collapsed sections and tabs remove content from view, and from many machine readings as well.
What people actually want to know
- What are the four things a reader will actually see?
- Is the biggest element on this page the most important thing I have to say?
- What did the template decide for me?
- What is hidden behind a click, and why?
Hierarchy is where editorial judgement becomes visible. A page whose order cannot be defended has no order.