Visual Hierarchy Principles in Website Design — UI/UX [2025]

"It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it."

Ever heard/read this quote? Apparently, it was stated by the psychologist Albert Mehrabian in the context of a speech delivery. But the same can be said about how digital information is delivered. 

In website design, it’s not just about what your website copy and content says — it’s also about how it is designed and presented. That’s why visual hierarchy in website design or UI/UX design is such a crucial factor.

In this blog post, we’ll help you with the key principles and elements of visual hierarchy in web design and their importance in creating great UI/UX.

Let’s begin with some basics first!

What Is Visual Hierarchy in Web Design?

Visual hierarchy is a design methodology in which elements are strategically arranged and designed, in the order of their importance or relation, to guide the website visitors.

In website design, this methodology is implemented to create a smooth and cohesive UX/UI. It helps entice the website visitors to check out the important areas of web pages using different design elements such as colors, typography, size, and their placements, patterns, and repetitions.

The ultimate goal here is to make sure the visitors see the most important aspects and information to make the buying decision. And eventually, take the action to complete the purchase as well.

Why Use Visual Hierarchy in UI/UX Design?

If you confuse your website visitors, you’ll most likely lose them. Visual hierarchy can resolve this issue for you and help you convey your message effectively.

Here are some key benefits of visual hierarchy in website design:

• Enhance User Experience: When you have plenty of information on your website, your website visitors need help with navigation to find the important information. Visual hierarchy creates that invisible yet effective path for them.

• Better Storytelling: Want to make your story more compelling for your visitors? Use the visual hierarchy methodology to create a compelling story that will engage your website visitors.

• Increase Conversion Rate: With visual hierarchy and strategic use of design elements, you can attract website visitors to go through the buying journey. Ultimately, it can lead them to take the desired action as per your business goal, e.g., guiding them to complete the purchase or sign-up process.

Key Visual Hierarchy Principles or Elements

Now, let’s go through the principles, elements, or steps you may consider going through when creating your website with a visual hierarchy. Plus, we’ll also cover some great visual hierarchy examples for your reference.

1. Place and align content elements with composition rules.

The way you place and align content elements (text, images, videos, etc.) on your website can impact website visitors’ attention and engagement. 

So, now we’re going to talk about two interesting composition rules that have been widely used in movie making and photography — “the rules of thirds” and “the rule of odds.” These composition rules can also be implemented in website design. 

1.1 Use the rule of thirds to drive focus.

The rule of thirds is a design rule or technique where the whole design area is divided into nine equal-sized parts using grid lines that will create three horizontal and three vertical rows.

Each point where the gridlines intersect is considered a focal point.

When designing your website, you can consider these focal points to place and align important design or content elements.

1.2 Use the rule of odds to enhance visual appeal.

The rule of odds suggests that “using an odd number of elements/subject in your design’s foreground” makes it more aesthetically pleasing. For example, using three or five collection blocks inside a section instead of four or six. 

G FUEL’s awesome homepage design exhibits the rule of odds in important sections.

2. Create reading patterns strategically.

You’re reading this content right now from left to right. And that sounds quite obvious, right? But there’s more than that. When looking at the overall website design, you can draw a pattern as to how visitors usually go through content on your website. These patterns are called “reading patterns”. 

There are two main types of reading patterns: Z pattern and F pattern.

• Z-Pattern Layout: In this layout, information is designed in a way that readers can read from left to right at the top. As the user scrolls down, it creates a cross angle going to the bottom left, and then, again goes from left to right — forming a shape of the alphabet “Z”.

• F-Pattern Layout: In this layout, the user begins with left to right, but then, keeps coming back to the left side and reads horizontally, ending with bottom left — forming the F shape.

You can also check out the pattern of your website visitors using a heatmap tool. The whole idea behind this element is to design and present your content in a way that aligns with website visitors’ natural reading pattern.

3. Emphasize and prioritize elements with size and scale.

If there are multiple blocks placed on a single section, visible in one sight, you’re more likely to notice the biggest one first, right? Because that’s our general tendency.

But this influence of the element size can be used strategically in your website design to guide your readers to notice specific information first. And then, provide more details and guide them through a specific journey.

You must’ve seen this being implemented on many websites where brands use two copy elements in their above-the-fold section:

1. Heading copy — a one-liner copy which could be the brand’s USP, tagline, current promotion, etc.

2. Subheading copy — more detailed copy, expanding the heading copy in one or two lines.

Now, when placing the heading copy, you must keep those texts relatively bigger than the subheading copy to set the order of priority or importance. Let’s take the example of our website:

When you land on GemPages’ website, the first thing you may read would be this — “#1 Conversion-focused Shopify Page Builder” — and it’s because it’s written in the largest font size compared to all other content elements in that section.

Learn more: 10+ Best Above the Fold Website Examples + Tips

4. Use typography to convey the message or order of importance.

Typography is a key factor in branding and aesthetics of a website design.

You may want to use 2-3 different types of fonts to present your content in a visually appealing way. In that case, using a certain pair of fonts can create a cohesive typography design.

Also, we already learned one aspect of typography in the previous point: Varying the size of the text based on order of priority or importance. Similarly, you’ll find the typography design with different font sizes creating a hierarchy in blog post pages.

Let’s take a look at this blog post on the Bulletproof blog:

5. Maintain excellent color scheme and contrast.

You simply can’t “not talk about colors” when talking about website design.

Colors are one of the best elements in web design when it comes to expressing the feelings or emotions behind your message. Also, using a proper color contrast is not only important for the user experience but also to highlight an important element.

This product comparison section given on G FUEL’s product page is a great example of using colors to highlight its product and grab the attention:

G FUEL’s product is highlighted with a vibrant purple color, which has a great contrast with the background color. On the other end, the competitor's product is presented with a light grey color, which looks quite dull.

Learn more: 10 Best Shopify Color Schemes + New Color Palette Ideas

6. Use whitespace to give your content the needed room.

You might have visited such websites where everything looks so busy with several elements — it makes you exit the website due to the overwhelming amount of information.

While the whole crux of the matter is to use design elements, “not using any element at all” can also be a part of the design strategy. You don’t want to fill up the entire page with different elements and texts.

Basically, we’re talking about whitespace — meaning, an empty part of the webpage with no design or content element. This space allows your users some room to focus on what matters.

Now, keep in mind — it’s called “whitespace” but it doesn’t always have to be a “white” empty space. It depends on the core theme of the background color scheme. For example, if you’ve got a dark theme with a black color background, it would be an empty black background too. 

Spigen’s About page is a fitting example of using the whitespace to tell the brand’s story with a clean design.

7. Showcase the relation with proximity.

Proximity is a grouping principle in the visual hierarchy that suggests keeping related items together and separating unrelated items. It’s because when the elements are placed together in a group, it creates a perception that those items are related and equally important too.

For example, if you’re selling different types of products, the proximity principle can be quite useful to help website visitors quickly see what products are related.

8. Design with textures to create visual perception.

Textures in the visual hierarchy are elements that create an effect for the design or content elements that help them stand out. For example, using color gradients, shadow effects, or design patterns can add a visual appeal or create a sense of 3D design as well.

9. Use repetition to create a cohesive design.

The repetition principle in the visual hierarchy is about creating a cohesive and consistent design by repeating elements such as colors, icons, fonts, patterns, etc.

When designing your website, you may use various types of design elements. However, for certain use cases, you would want to repeat the same element. For example, your primary and secondary brand colors must remain consistent throughout the website even though you may play around with different colors in various sections.

Also, if your website requires a lot of icons, you can create different icons with your unique style and branding and use them throughout the website. For example, this product page on Huel’s website showcases several different ingredients, but they all have the same shape icon repeated behind them all — and it makes the design look quite visually appealing:

Final Thoughts on Visual Hierarchy as a Strategy

Your website design plays a crucial role in the success of your eCommerce business.

Make sure to create a stunning design that not only looks great visually but also enhances your conversion rate. If you’re building your eCommerce store with Shopify, install GemPages — one of the most loved page builder apps for Shopify.

GemPages helps you with professionally designed templates that you can easily customize with a visual drag-and-drop editor. No coding or even web design experience required.

Learn more about eCommerce marketing strategies, trends, and best practices on the GemPages Blog. Also, join the GemPages Facebook community to network and learn from like-minded entrepreneurs and experts.

FAQs About the Visual Hierarchy in Web Design