🧠 Take advantage of your lazy brain

Hey there,

Welcome back to the 14th edition of Brandish

Your guide to crafting an iconic brand

Very sorry for the late send of this newsletter. The creative juices weren’t flowing properly this weekend, and I didn’t want to send out something I wasn’t proud of.

But…

Now we’re here, and I couldn’t be more excited to send this email

In this week's newsletter, I'm talking about UI & UX.

Right after branding, this is probably my favorite topic to talk about.

Without further ado,

Kick up your feet, grab your brez, and let’s get into it

The most important principle you must know when it comes to UI/UX and web design

People DO NOT read website copy

Or rather… The majority of people don't.

Instead, what they do is scan the page - looking at the most important / or highlighted words and then make a decision as to whether it’s worth their while or not.

But…

Does that mean you shouldn’t focus on your website copy at all?

NO.

Instead, what you should do is: Understand the human brain, and then adapt your content to that.

And that’s exactly what I’ll show you in this newsletter.

The F-Shaped Design

According to THIS research, humans read website copy in a F-shaped structure as shown below.

Their eyes naturally follow a pattern of going horizontal, then vertical, then horizontal again, and then vertical.

Now, what this means for you is that you need to convey your MOST important message in the first and second horizontal scan.

Because ultimately… that will determine whether the user will continue to read the rest of the website or not.

The human brain deos not raed every leter by itslef, but the word as a whole.

Did you get that?

If not, go back and read that sentence again.

This is always a fun exercise to show people how their brain is conserving energy by skimming and reading words as a whole.

It also goes to show that;

The brain is kinda lazy.

So, don’t use complex words on your website that forces people to think.

Instead,

Use clear & simple language.

This way - it’s much easier to consume your content.

For god’s sake, don’t write stressful paragraphs

The worst thing I know is paragraphs that just goes on and on and on, without any visual breaks in the paragraph. Not only is it extremely stressful to read, but it also scares people away from starting to read those paragraphs in the first place.

I did it in the section above (on a smaller scale than what people normally do in their emails and website)

But…

Can you see how stressful that is?

I hope so…

So please, don’t do this.

TL;DR

You know how we talked about the brain being lazy and all of that?

You see, the thing is - I know your brain is lazy too. Especially on this Tuesday afternoon after a weekend filled with Fantasy football.

So - if you haven’t read anything I just wrote… then.

First of all; I’m very sorry for you. -

And…

Secondly, here’s a TL;DR for you in the form of questions you need to ask yourself when designing your website (or anything else for that matter)

If you simply ask yourself these questions, you’ll be fine

A) Is the page designed in a way where the most important message falls within the F-Shaped Design?

B) Is the copy clear & concise, or are we using too complex words that nobody really understands (including ourselves)

C) Have we added a good amount of visual breaks in the paragraphs, so we’re not forcing people’s brains to overload

D) Bonus question to ask yourself: Is long paragraphs of copy even needed - or can I convey the same message with icons and bullet points?

This is a much more digestible way of conveying information - so if you CAN do this, you should…

Thanks for reading along

As always, thanks for reading along.

I appreciate you and look forward to seeing you again on Sunday