15 Years Later…the F-Shaped Pattern Still Exists
For the most part, every single person reading this sentence doesn’t actually read web pages, graphics, or ads in their entirety: they skim. In fact, it would be surprising if you read this far. It starts with text headings, the eyes gravitate towards images, sometimes captions of images, and then they skim through the text body of what you were looking for in the first place. This isn’t news to anyone. What is interesting is that we know how people skim new content: in the shape of a capital ‘F’, for the most part.
Neilson’s studies revealed this way back in 2006 - they tracked the eye movement of study participants as they read content on a computer screen. The heat map that was created was eventually dubbed the ‘F-Shaped Pattern’ as it somewhat resembled a capital ‘F’ where the viewer scanned across the top, then skimmed a bit on the next section, then a little more on the next, and then basically went straight down the left-hand margin to the bottom. The interpretation of what to do with this data at the time was: don’t put anything important in the bottom right corner of your page, it’ll be ignored.
So what’s changed between then and 2021? Well…simply put: mobile. Responsive, mobile web design has changed the priorities of web design. Circa 2007, Apple made a big deal about how ‘now the user could have the full desktop web experience in their pocket’. It didn’t take long for the novelty of pinching and zooming to get old, and users began to crave a different, simpler viewing experience: the single, scrollable column. So effectively, every single webpage must now have two separate, yet somewhat cohesive, designs: a rich desktop experience and a one-column scrollable mobile experience.
Did we think people would start reading all of the words with this new design? Because in theory, now there’s nothing in the lower-right corner of the page, so…nothing could possibly be missed, right? Well, not exactly. What we’ve found is people still skim. In fact…they skim even more. On mobile they skim and scroll quicker than ever, and on desktop they still skim to effectively the same degree as they had in the 2006. The only thing that’s changed is we have even less of an opportunity to grab people’s attentions. Their eyes gravitate to headings, photos/videos, and then they skim the actual text that they came for in the first place.
While this seems like semi-pessimistic information, it’s actually very insightful. If we know the behaviors of our audiences, we can tailor our design and content strategies to their behaviors. Can you put the photo/video content they care about the most front-and-center and interrupt their average browsing experience? Can you integrate that content into your mobile-friendly site/landing page as well? Can you design your site hierarchy to support a brand-awareness strategy that appeals to those who skim your site? I think the answer to all three questions is: yes. It takes a significant amount of effort to successfully accomplish those goals, but at least you already know what your audience is expecting when they navigate to your site, now it’s your chance to capture and retain their attention.
