If you’ve ever opened up a responsive website, seen a movie with good cinematography, or taken in any other well-designed media, you’ll notice that your eyes are instantly drawn to certain areas and follow a natural path that smoothly guides your experience.
This was done on purpose.
Designers, cinematographers, writers, editors, and others spend countless hours to make their end product a thing of beauty that not only presents the information, but does so in a coherent way. Essentially, they try to follow Richard E. Mayer’s Signaling Principle: “People learn better when cues that highlight the organization of the essential material are added.”
For instance, which of these would you rather read?
If you chose the one on the right, you’d be in the majority. But why? Both texts say the same thing, so should it matter?
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