Gaze draws an F
Eye-tracking studies show people rarely read long web text in full: they read across the top, read a shorter line a little lower, then scan down the left side, producing an F-shaped heat map. Granka et al. (2004) found gaze concentrated on top search results, Cutrell and Guan (2007) showed snippet length changes gaze and performance, and Buscher et al. (2009) used gaze data to predict salient page regions.
Myths and facts
Pernice (2017) stresses the F-pattern is not a principle to follow but a symptom of pages without headings or emphasis, where bottom-right information goes unread. Mobile differs: Kim et al. (2015) found gaze and search behaviour differ on small screens, and Lagun et al. (2014) reported mobile attention concentrates in the middle of the viewport rather than the top. Short lines shrink the F's horizontal bars and increase vertical scanning.
Writing for scanners
Accept that people scan and give them structure: lead with conclusions in an inverted pyramid, write headings that summarise, and start paragraphs and list items with key words. Use visual hierarchy of size, weight and spacing, as Lidwell et al. (2010) describe. This lowers cognitive load, keeps key points visible within mobile-first design, and clear heading structure supports SEO.
FAQ
- Should I design for the F-pattern?
- No; it is a symptom of weak structure. Headings and key words help people find what they need.
- Does the F-pattern appear on mobile?
- Yes, but short lines increase vertical scanning and attention tends to centre mid-screen.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-27
References
- Pernice, K. (2017, November 12). F-shaped pattern of reading on the web: Misunderstood, but still relevant (even on mobile). Nielsen Norman Group. Explains the F-pattern as a symptom of weak structure, not a design goal.
- Buscher, G., Cutrell, E., & Morris, M. R. (2009). What do you see when you're surfing? Using eye tracking to predict salient regions of web pages. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 21–30). ACM. Uses eye tracking to predict salient regions of web pages.
- Cutrell, E., & Guan, Z. (2007). What are you looking for? An eye-tracking study of information usage in web search. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 407–416). ACM. Shows snippet length changes gaze and performance in search results.
- Granka, L. A., Joachims, T., & Gay, G. (2004). Eye-tracking analysis of user behavior in WWW search. In Proceedings of the 27th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (pp. 478–479). ACM. Early eye-tracking evidence that gaze concentrates on top results.
- Kim, J., Thomas, P., Sankaranarayana, R., Gedeon, T., & Yoon, H.-J. (2015). Eye-tracking analysis of user behavior and performance in web search on large and small screens. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(3), 526–544. Compares reading behaviour on large versus small screens.
- Lagun, D., Hsieh, C.-H., Webster, D., & Navalpakkam, V. (2014). Towards better measurement of attention and satisfaction in mobile search. In Proceedings of the 37th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (pp. 113–122). ACM. Finds mobile attention centres on the middle of the viewport.
- Lidwell, W., Holden, K., & Butler, J. (2010). Universal principles of design (Rev. ed.). Rockport. Layout principles such as hierarchy and alignment for scannable pages.