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SciCom – Design Fundamentals
Published 14 days ago • 4 min read
Design for the Scanning Eye
Hi Reader, we have often talked about what to say and how to express yourself.
But today, let’s look at something that happens before your audience can read a single word.
I want to share some fundamental design principles that help you convert strangers into engaged readers.
Here is how I keep things visually clean and easy to scan:
How People Encounter Your Content
If you write a newsletter, your reader opens it somewhere between two other emails.
If you have a blog or website, it opens as the 49th tab.
Litmus analyzed almost 8 billion email opens, and this is the data they collected. People spend only a few seconds on the email newsletters they open. Of note, their analysis focused mainly on marketing newsletters and emails. Read more about visual processing here.
Once it’s open, they scroll down, spending roughly 0.7 seconds on any item that stands out.
That means most readers will never move through your newsletter/website/profile from top to bottom in the order you carefully arranged it.
Of course, this is a little discouraging when you have spent weeks putting everything together.
However, instead of seeing it as a problem, you can understand it as a design instruction.
Actually, once you get the hang of it, you want to help your reader scroll even faster.
The Right Design
Metaphorically speaking, you are not writing a page or assembling an overview to be read line by line.
You are building a shop window that has to work at scrolling speed because you want to help readers find the best content as quickly as possible.
Therefore, you have to guide your viewers’ eyes:
Use sections or boxes Make use of elements that allow you to clearly outline distinct topics. In essence, the reader should be able to see the structure of your newsletter without reading it. Also, when your reader decides something isn’t for them, their eyes should already know where to move next.
This is an example from one of the newsletters I helped put together. As you can see, I stick to a specific set-up to clearly distinguish between different sections. Within each section, there is a strict structure for how many lines each paragraph should have and how pictures should be included.
Establish a repeating hierarchy Have a clear and consistent structure of font sizes, boldness, and colors. For example, each box has one 3–6-word heading in bold 20pt font, one two-sentence subheading in 16pt font, and one picture. You can break this pattern if you enter a new section (e.g., from "news" to “scholarships”), but don’t establish more than two or three such layouts.
Leave white space Don’t be afraid of leaving space empty - you notice it, your reader doesn’t, trust me. Crowded newsletters ask the reader to separate the visual elements before they can understand any of them. Very few people are willing to do that work in an inbox.
It is always scary to leave space empty, but it is worth it. Even the nature briefing newsletter is fairly simple. However, in my opinion, if you use filled boxes for headlines, make them cover the width of the text and images, otherwise, they look like buttons.
Limit color use Two is generally enough; three is acceptable. More than that and nothing stands out because everything is competing.
Include only the key information Every extra sentence in a block makes the block harder to scan. If it is not needed to create interest or explain the value, it belongs on the landing page you are linking to.
Choose relevant imagery The pictures or thumbnails you include are not there to avoid white space. Your reader processes visuals faster than text, so make sure to choose imagery that informs them about your content and, ideally, makes them curious.
In this example, you can see how much more attractive the piece on the left is simply because the picture allows our brains to get an idea of what the section, as well as the first article, is about in a split second.
Check your flyers and graphics If you include an event flyer, look at it on a phone. A sensible amount of information and a font size you can actually read matter more than how nice it looks on your monitor.
My Personal Takes
I would start with the strongest item. The top is the part everyone sees and can set the expectation for whether the rest is worth scrolling through. I normally put what is genuinely most valuable or most intriguing at the very top and at the beginning of every section.
I think this is an example of a really poor choice of both design and content. If I open a newsletter, is the most important thing really which student I don’t know received a scholarship to attend a conference I might not even go to? I see a few unfamiliar faces, with the headline competing with a red headline that repeats the same information, followed by another item that makes me wonder whether it is an advertisement (“Specimen Bags”). Then comes what might be the first relevant piece, which unfortunately is just a news graphic, while the headline below it refers to another topic entirely (and thereby follows a different structure from the one above). Of course, they want to show that they care about students. But then, as we discussed previously, they have to tell me why that matters to me.
Organize by category. I would organize by category because a reader who recognizes the sections can immediately sort what matters to them from what does not.
Yes you can be creative once you mastered the basics. For example, a small thing you can try if you have many sections: include something slightly unexpected. It breaks the pattern of a predictable layout and can add a little bit of intrigue.
It's Worth the Effort
Don't be concerned, none of this requires design skills.
It mostly requires restraint, the willingness to remove things you worked on or the urge to never repeat a design twice.
There are many “good-looking” layouts and templates out there. However, you can just go with a simple picture, text, divider set-up, and you will be totally fine (see my or the nature example we discussed). If you choose a layout like the one shown above, the likelihood that people will simply skip over parts is much too high – the days when people would sit down and read for 30 minutes in a single medium are mostly over.
The good news is that layout is a decision you make once, but it can potentially serve you for years to come.
Pro tip: Before you make a final decision, send yourself a sample, try different browsers, check the mobile version - it is tedious but will pay great dividends.
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