Visual hierarchy is about how we look at designs and how the eye processes what it sees on screen. Understanding this will help you create more excellent strategies that will engage users as you will know the best places to put certain visual design elements.
If you haven’t thought about the visual hierarchy of your designs before, then we are here to help you. We will go through what you need to know about it, why it’s essential, and your designs’ advantages.
What Is Visual Hierarchy?
Visual hierarchy indicates how visual design elements have been arranged to show their importance to the user. It is used to structure information to make it easier for people to understand what they are looking at.
By placing certain visual design elements in specific areas, professional design agencies like Clay in San Francisco can guide the user’s eyes through the design and first show them the essential information. This is a great way to control the way people interact with your product and its impressions of it.
What Is Involved In Visual Hierarchy?
Various factors affect the way people see information and process it. Using them together lets designers guide users through the design in the way they intended people to see the information.
Color
Color is used to attract the attention of the user. Usually, brighter colors are used to draw the user’s attention to an area on the screen that has essential information. These colors are used to highlight specific content. At the bottom of the hierarchy is grayscale. This is used to complement the product’s design, not to help content stand out.
Size Of Visual Elements
The larger the visual design element is, the easier it will be for people to see it. Important content is usually placed within or around larger parts. This includes the size of the font that is used as well. Headlines are much larger than the rest of the text because they are intended to capture the reader’s attention.
The size of elements needs to be used strategically. The user should be able to follow the content quickly and not have trouble identifying what is the essential information and what doesn’t need to be read.
Alignment Of Visual Design Elements
If you want to create structure between elements, you need to use alignment. Aligning important content with each other will make it easier for people to find what’s essential. This clarifies what they need to read if they don’t have the time or patience to read everything.
Alignment can be used to put together related information; it’s not only for important content. There are many uses, and designers can use their creativity to communicate whatever they want.
Creating A Contrast
If you use colors that contrast each other drastically, this will easily catch the user’s attention. Contrast is a great way to guide your users through your design and content, as you can decrease the contrast as you go through the procedure. The user’s eyes will drive them from the highest contrast area down to the lowest contrast area.
Whitespace
Using the space in between the design elements can guide the user’s attention to specific content. This is an excellent way to reduce the mess on the screen and not show too much to the user, which could confuse them.
Whitespace is needed in every design to make the procedure easier on the user’s eyes. If there is too much content on the screen, it will be harder to guide the user to where you want them to look.
Proximity
The closer a design element is to another aspect; you can communicate how closely related that content is to one another. This is a good way to group related content and separate content that isn’t. a user interface designing agency will use this method and others to show what the user might be interested in reading quickly.
Organizing Content To Follow Natural Eye Movement Patterns
There are specific patterns that the human eye will follow when viewing a page on a screen. Different places in the world will have different natural ways; for example, some countries read from left to right, and others read from right to left. This is something you need to consider when creating your visual hierarchy. To do this well, you need to understand your target audience.
If you don’t have experience with this, it can be hard to do it well. If you are in this situation, find an interaction design agency to help you understand your users and how they will interact with the different designs you can use. After knowing this, you can choose the best visual hierarchy for your target audience.
The Z Pattern
Designs that don’t have much text will usually cause people to use the Z pattern to scan through the page and look at the content. If your website doesn’t have much text, you can place your content along the natural eye movement pattern to increase the number of people who will see and interact with it. A user interface designing agency can help you map out the best way to display your content for the Z pattern.
The F Pattern
This is for websites that have heaps of text and content. This natural eye movement pattern causes people to scan the page from left to right, starting at the top of the page, then checking downwards on the left; once they find what they are looking for, they will scan from left to right. This creates an F pattern that helps users find what they are looking for quickly.
Conclusion
Visual hierarchies are needed to give the user the best experience when interacting with your product. Create a hierarchy that helps people process your content as you intend them to.
