Visual Hierarchy

The largest headline gets the most attention, shouting at you! This might be major headlines, or page titles

Here's another level of hierarchy, in the same size, but not bold

The next size may be a subhead or a less-important item. This size might be used for different sections on the page.

Again, the same size, but not bold

...

The very smallest might be footnotes, or commentary...with or without bolding and italicization...

Another, possibly better way to think of hierarchy is levels of generality, as an outline:

A. The major headings (or maybe the page title)

  1. Sections on a page

a. Text

i. Captions or footnotes

Is it possible to 'read' your web page or your web site on each of these levels? Can you learn something...in increasing levels of detail...by reading just the major headings, or just the section headings, or the captions, or must you always read all of the text?

Remembering that you have a very few seconds to capture your viewer's interest and attention, do you make it easy for the viewer to get your message?

Visual hierarchy can also refer to images, colors, and backgrounds. If your site or page is uniformly exciting, is it confusing? Do you need to help the viewer to focus on what you believe is most important? If the background is too lively, do you really want the viewer to get hung up on the wallpaper and not read the content? Always, the answer is "maybe", but (in truth) not usually!

We'll play with hierarchy of type on Wednesday...