F-Shaped Pattern and Website Layout Suggestions!

Website layout is like map of a house. As we plan a house according to inhabitant, web layout should also be plan after taking user’s behavior in account.

As indicated back in April of 2006 by the Nielsen group, readers focus hard at the top left corner, and progressively less to the right and down the page. This means that you’ve got a relatively small piece of your total real-estate to both get your readers hooked on your content and to teach them how to use your site.

Users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe. This dominant reading pattern looks somewhat like an F and has the following three components:

·Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F's top bar.

·Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F's lower bar.

· Finally, users scan the content's left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eyetracking heatmap. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F's stem.

Marketing Takeaway:

Users won't read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. You need to optimize the content accordingly to users’ behavior. The first two paragraphs must state the most important information. The information in left column has greater probability of getting spotted, hence placing entry points (links, navigation bar, notice etc.) is recommended.