The Shine of Good Design

Coming from a journalism background, you learn a few things.

Newspapers and websites are practically one in the same: both are mediums that contain and distribute information to their readers – some more successfully than others. However, sometimes newspaper and web designers make that a chore.

Having spent some time at the American Press Institute (API) in Virginia, I learned of a study that was conducted that studied how people read. Sounds boring, I know but if you give me a few seconds of your time I’ll tell you why it’s important from a design perspective – and how simple tricks will keep people from leaving your site.

In essence, the study delved into what keeps readers attention longer and focused on the content and noting what style points contribute to eye strain. Eye strain causes the reader to lose interest and move on from the page – something you don't want happening.

Here are some design pointers that will keep those readers eyes glued where you want them:

• Always use a serif font for your body text. A serif font, such as Times New Roman or Century, have flourishes at the end of their letters that reduce eye strain when reading large amounts of text. Sans-serif fonts, such as Arial and Century Gothic, have no flourishes and make for a poor body font.

• Create page design in a “Z” pattern. When the human eye looks at a page; online or hard-copy, it tracks from the left to the right header, diagonally down to the lower left hand corner, then across making a “Z”. Use this to your advantage. I will put catchy or interesting art in the upper right hand and lower left-hand corners to catch my readers attention and keep their interest on the page.

• "This is a sample pull quote. Make sure it's the most interesting quote of the story or entry. Make sure that when you do you either put the quote in italics or just make the font bold."  -- Justin Use interesting headlines and pull quotes to maximum effect. Many blogs simply lose t he plot when it comes to generating headlines that will interest readers. The idea is to write a headline that will make the reader stop and think. The same can be said for pull-quotes, which are essentially interesting tidbits taken from the body copy and put in a prominent spot, for instance:

• Keep paragraphs “justified.” When aligning text, the most common method is allowing the paragraphs in the body of work to have “ragged right” or aligned to the left. This is an error, as a paragraph using ragged right causes more eye strain that a justified paragraph.

• Last but not least, make sure that you are spacing your paragraphs. I've seen to many web pages that seem bound and determined to copy newspapers in that regard. Don't. Lack of spacing between paragraphs actually contributes to eye strain, something you don't want.

Take these tips to heart and watch your pages develop cleaner copy. You'll like it and I'm sure your readers will as well.