Four reading patterns that explain how people scan web pages

When was the last time you read every single word on a website? I bet it was a long time ago. People do not read on digital screens the same way they read physical paper books.

Why should a writer or web designer care about eye movements? Because if you place your most important thought where nobody looks, it does not exist for the reader.

When you understand how eyes travel across a screen, you can place headlines, key images, and call-to-action buttons directly into the natural line of sight. It is not about tricking people. It is simply about meeting the reader where their eyes already want to go.

This is where a new infographic from Kenny Song comes handy. It’s called Reading patterns – how people scan a page, and it explores four main reading patterns.

F-shaped reading pattern – the reader scans horizontally across the top section, moves down the left margin, and makes a shorter horizontal sweep lower down. It happens mostly on news portals, search results, and text-heavy pages. Eye-tracking research shows that the right side of lower paragraphs gets almost completely ignored.

Z-shaped reading pattern – the eye starts at the top left, travels across to the top right, cuts down diagonally to the bottom left, and moves across to the bottom right. This structure works well for simple layouts with low text density, such as landing pages, posters, or advertisement slides.

Markings reading pattern – the eyes stay fixated on a single spot or vertical column on the screen while the user scrolls through the page. You notice this behaviour on product listings, directories, and financial reports. Users look for a visual anchor, like an image or price tag, while everything else slides past.

Layer cake reading pattern – readers skim only the bold headings and subheadings, completely skipping the body text underneath until a specific heading triggers interest. This is how most people consume blog posts, tutorials, and technical documentation today.

If you want people to notice your work, stop designing pages like a dense printed novel from the nineteenth century. Use subheadings, put your core idea in the first few words, and arrange elements according to real human habits. Is your layout working with the human eye, or are you fighting against it?

Click on the infographic to see it enlarged, and make sure to visit Kenny Song‘s Facebook page for more visualis like this.

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