🔍⏱️ Designing for scanning behavior

Have you ever observed someone interacting with a page of dense information? They rarely read from top to bottom. Instead, they scan, jump around, and hunt for specific answers to their questions. This behavior becomes even more pronounced when people are in crisis or feeling stressed—exactly when many human services or other aid is most needed.

Creating a better user reading experience isn’t just a matter of convenience. When someone under pressure can’t quickly find the information they need because it’s buried in dense paragraphs, they might miss critical deadlines or give up entirely.

What should this mean to you?

• Break up your content visually. Use headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs to create clear visual “chunks” that allow readers to scan efficiently.

• Front-load critical information. Place the most important details at the beginning of paragraphs, sections, and pages. Users often read only the first few words of each paragraph when scanning.

• Use numbered lists. If your information can be structured into a process with ordered steps, do so. Make each step, with a number, a heading, to help readers quickly find where they are in the process and what the next step should be.

• Create clear pathways through complex information. Design with non-linear reading behavior in mind by using clear signposts and making each section stand on its own.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic, as I worked on a project with Karen Heredia to create a set of heuristics (essentially, a really long checklist) to evaluate content-rich websites.  Check it out: Essential Guidelines for Content Rich Websites (free subscription required) . We’ve created a practical framework that can help organizations identify and fix common usability issues, especially for content that needs to be understood quickly and under stress.

How your users actually engage with complex information (rather than how we imagine they do) is the focus of my webinar, now available by recording “How Web Visitors Digest Complex Information” (free subscription required). I  talk about how your visitors approach content (likely very different from how your subject matter experts do!), what the research says about effective content strategies, and practical techniques you can implement immediately.

This 30-minute session is perfect for website managers and content creators, but I especially encourage you to invite your subject matter experts and technical staff to watch as well—they should know this too!