08: Visual Hierarchy — Making Priority Obvious at a Glance
Design for Clarity (part 2 of 5)
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Where We Are
Last week, we talked about the five design principles and how journey mapping reveals where communication breaks down.
This week, let’s dig deeper into the principle that controls how people experience every message you send.
You’re sitting in that department meeting. The chair projects slide three of twenty-seven.
It’s a wall of text. Twelve bullet points, all the same size, all the same weight.
Your eyes scan for something—anything—to anchor to. Nothing stands out. Everything competes for attention. So you check your phone under the table.
By slide seven, you’ve retained exactly zero information.
Later that day, the uncomfortable realization hits: this is exactly how parents feel reading your newsletters. How teachers experience your policy updates. How students navigate your assignment instructions.
The problem isn’t that people don’t want to pay attention. It’s that when everything screams for attention, nothing gets heard.
The Science Behind the Scanning
Here’s what actually happens in your brain when you encounter a wall of undifferentiated text: your cognitive processing slows to a crawl.
Our brains process visual information far more efficiently than text, but only when that visual information has clear structure.
Without visual hierarchy, your brain treats every element as equally important, forcing it to evaluate each piece individually.
It’s exhausting. And exhaustion leads to one predictable outcome: disengagement.
The reality is that visual hierarchy controls the delivery of the experience. If you don’t know where to look, it’s almost impossible to extract meaning quickly…and in our attention-starved world, “quickly” is all you get.
But here’s the insight that changes everything: you already know how to create hierarchy. You do it every time you teach or deliver a presentation.
The Hidden Hierarchy You Already Use
Think about it: every successful lesson you’ve ever taught used visual hierarchy, just not on paper.
Watch yourself next time you’re explaining something complex to students. You naturally create hierarchy through the following:
Volume shifts: raising your voice for key points, dropping to a whisper for emphasis.
Temporal spacing: those strategic pauses that make students lean in.
Physical positioning: moving to different parts of the room to signal topic changes.
Gestural emphasis: those hand movements that underscore critical concepts.
Visual hierarchy is simply the written equivalent of what your body and voice do naturally. The question isn’t whether you can do it: it’s whether you’re translating that instinct to the page.
The Hierarchy Equation That Makes a Difference
After analyzing—and personally producing—thousands of school communications, I’ve identified a simple equation that works:
Impact = Size × Contrast × Isolation
Let me break it down with real examples:
Size alone isn’t enough. A large headline in a sea of other large text? Still invisible.
Contrast without purpose confuses. Five different colors competing? That’s visual noise, not hierarchy.
Isolation amplifies everything. One bold deadline surrounded by white space? Impossible to miss.
The most effective school communications use all three multipliers. And you don’t need to be a designer to do this.
But here’s another reality: even when we know the equation, we still fall into the same predictable traps. I see them everywhere, and I’ve been guilty of them myself.
The Democracy Trap
Treating all information equally because you don’t want anything to feel “less important.”
Result: nothing feels important at all.
The Highlight Hysteria
Using bold, italics, underlines, colors, and CAPS all in the same document.
When you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing.
The Bury-the-Lead Syndrome
Putting critical information after context, explanation, or pleasantries.
Mobile readers never make it that far.
The Wall-of-Text Intimidation
Dense paragraphs that look like work to read.
People’s brains literally rebel against these visual blocks.
The Footnote Fallacy
Putting essential information in small print because “it’s just details.”
If it’s essential, it shouldn’t be microscopic.
So how do we avoid these traps? Stop thinking about individual elements and start thinking in zones.
The Three-Zone System for Instant Clarity
Instead of thinking about hierarchy as a complex design principle, think of your communication as having three zones:
Zone 1: The Glance Zone
This is what people see without trying. It should contain only what matters if they read nothing else. In a 5-second drive-by reading, what must they know?
For schools, this is usually: deadlines, cancelled events, safety information, or required actions.
Zone 2: The Scan Zone
This is what people see when they’re interested enough to look closer. It provides context for Zone 1 and helps them decide whether to fully engage.
Think: brief explanations, key benefits, or simple next steps.
Zone 3: The Study Zone
This is for people who need complete information. They’ve committed to reading, so you can include details, background, and comprehensive instructions.
But here’s the crucial part: Zones 2 and 3 should never be required to understand Zone 1.
A Practical Toolkit You Can Use
The Headline Audit
Pull up your last five emails. Can someone understand the main point by reading only the subject lines and first lines? If not, you’re burying your lead.
The Squint Test
Display your document and squint until it’s blurry. The elements that remain visible are your true hierarchy. If everything blurs together, you have no hierarchy.
The 5-Second Challenge
Show your communication to someone for exactly 5 seconds. Take it away. What do they remember? That’s your actual hierarchy, regardless of what you intended.
The Highlighter Method
Print your communication. Use three highlighters:
Pink for “must know even if reading nothing else”
Yellow for “helpful context”
Green for “reference details”
If you have more than 15% pink, you’re trying to make too much “critical.” If you have no pink, you’re not prioritizing at all.
Your Move This Week
Choose your most problematic recurring communication. Apply this three-step hierarchy makeover:
Step 1: Identify Your One Thing
If people remember only one element, what should it be? Make that element at least 3x larger than anything else.
Step 2: Create Breathing Room
Add white space around your critical element. Think of it as a spotlight—the empty space makes the important content shine.
Step 3: Reduce Everything Else
Demote non-essential elements. Smaller size, lighter color, or move to Zone 3. Be ruthless. Your clarity depends on it.
What’s Coming Next
When Perfect Design Meets Phone Reality
You’ve mastered hierarchy. But what happens when your beautifully designed email gets opened on a phone in a noisy Starbucks?
Next, we dive into context: why 78% of your carefully formatted messages are failing on mobile, and how to fix it.
The complete Design for Clarity mini-course—with video walkthroughs, interactive templates, before/after libraries, and implementation tools—will be available at the end of this series for those who want the full system.
Your Experience
What’s the worst hierarchy disaster you’ve encountered in school communications? That document where you literally couldn’t figure out what mattered?
Reply and tell me about your hierarchy transformation this week. Send me your before/after. I love seeing these transformations in action!
Systematically yours,
G
About the Author:
G (short for Gitane) is co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at EKG Collective, helping international schools turn communication complexity into systematic clarity. Learn more at ekgcollective.com.