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Decide on a layout for your site

Visual Hierarchy plays a big role in the layout of your content. Visual hierarchy suggests there is a proper way to view content visually: in a hierarchical way. In other words, there is a pecking order to things…some content should be viewed first, some second, some third, and on down the line. The most important content is at the top of the hierarchy. It’s the visual element you look at first, which then directs you to what to look at next. Just like a great writer starts with a interesting lead that sends you breathlessly into the next paragraph, a thoughtful designer will efficiently move the viewer from one piece of content to the next. Where as a weak hierarchy would seem cluttered and unorganized.

When considering your whitespace, use the whole space, and use fluid layout methods and techniques to allow your design to expand and contract to fit with the browser. Always keep the screen resolution in mind. A cluttered design can drive away users as a whole. You could also use color to help you defines spaces. With pages that have specific widths you could center the content and change the background to a different color. And when the page resizes in the browser, with large browsers it will show up as the background and with smaller browsers it will show a small background or just the content.

Think about your text widths. Refering to how many words are displayed on one line is often called ‘scan length’. Generally 7 to 11 words per line seems to be a comfortable length while anything much longer than that is hard to read, and any shorter and it becomes disjointed and distracting. Centering the text is usually frowned upon as a poor practice and it’s quite hard to visually scan.

Just remember however you decide to lay your content out to always keep your readers or users in mind and how to make it easier on them to read and scan your page.