Designing for Reading Styles

Be sure to accommodate all three reading styles in your content.

Demographically speaking, all people read magazines in the same way. Irrespective of age, profession, or location, all readers respond to good design and compelling content with interest and appreciation.

But when seeking ways to capture those readers’ attentions in the first place, magazine publishers must grapple with three distinct reading styles:

1. Readers. These are the easy ones. Readers consume your publication with patience and diligence. They scrutinize articles in full and seek to comprehend the details and insights. They’re looking for deep engagement.

2. Skimmers. This group won’t invest the time in your content unless something grabs them as their eyes pass across the pages. They want the gist, not necessarily the fine points.

3. Scanners. These folks seek something specific from your content and won’t stop to read until they find it. They’re looking for familiar keywords or imagery.

Magazine publishers — and, especially, designers — must plan for all three reading styles. It might not be necessary to embellish a feature story with pullquotes, photo captions, callouts (like statistics or lists) or sidebars for the benefit of Readers. But for Skimmers and Scanners, those elements might be their only interactions with your story. Those elements must be both informative and memorable.

But they shouldn’t come at the expense of Readers. Those folks are putting in the effort to fully digest what you’re serving; don’t feed them leftovers. Make those page embellishments into unique elements that enhance the story, not repeat it.

It requires patience and, above all, planning to successfully manage for all three reading styles. It’s a shared effort among publishers, editors and designers. The very best results are achieved through collaboration, not by staking out positions on an assembly line. Make sure your workflow is up to the task.