What is visual hierarchy?
Visual hierarchy is the order in which the eye moves through a page. You create it by making the most important element — usually one headline and one call to action — the most prominent, and letting everything else fall into a clear second and third place.
How do you create visual hierarchy?
Five levers, used together:
- Size — bigger reads as more important.
- Weight — bold pulls the eye before regular.
- Color & contrast — a high-contrast element wins attention.
- Spacing — whitespace isolates and elevates what it surrounds.
- Position — the top and left-of-center are seen first on most pages.
Where should the call to action go?
Put the primary call to action where the eye lands after the headline — typically high on the page, in your accent color, with clear space around it. Use one primary action per screen; competing buttons split attention and lower clicks.
How do you test if your hierarchy works?
The squint test: blur your eyes, or blur a screenshot, and see what still stands out. If the headline and call to action are the first things you notice, the hierarchy is working. If everything is equally loud, nothing is.
How do you keep hierarchy strong on every page?
Good hierarchy isn't luck — it follows from a consistent type scale, restrained color, and deliberate spacing. SketchXFlow composes pages with a clear hierarchy built in, and a critic step reviews contrast, rhythm, and emphasis to flag where a page is fighting itself — the same review a designer would do, on every page.