Writing following the F-pattern is a horrible horrible idea

The F-shape reading pattern is a well-known UX design consideration. UI/UX designers make use of users’ tendency to scan only the first paragraph, first sentence of each paragraph, and subheadings, to create interfaces that’s easier to read. They may try to guide users with well-signaled subheadings, multiple columns and what some call a layer cake pattern .

It’s good practice for designers to guide users through landing pages, shopping websites and so on. It’s definitely not good practice for writers to compose their articles in such ways. It’s hardly a writing “practice”.

What we’re seeing here is a principle misused outside of its original scope. Designers consider F-shape pattern, while writers don’t. Some of them interpreted this pattern out of context, and decided to structure their writing with a layout design rule? Preposterous!

I had the same observation about a more recent term, Prompt Engineering. It’s now replaced with Context Engineering but used to be a big deal. Google wrote an essay about it. It was an industry standard practice, but somehow discovered by average users who are crazy about this “AI” technology. They misinterpreted it, and felt like it made them pro users to “prompt engineer” their chatbots. Some even made series of video courses and sold them online. At least that’s what I saw here in China.

It’s tempting to conclude with “F-shape pattern is a design rule. Don’t guide your writing with it!” and just leave it that. However, it raises another interesting question: Do writers really need to write shorter paragraphs and more subheadings to make readers pay attention?

First, let’s get the context straight. If you’re someone who earns a living by writing online, I say you do whatever it takes (in moderation) to make people read your stuff. If following the F-shape rule is the way to do it, then do it. From my perspective, as an independent blogger, I couldn’t care less about strangers giving up on reading simply because my paragraphs are “too long”. As a reader, I couldn’t hate more about writers mimicking poets when there’s nothing poetic about their writing. And it’s insulting to assume your readers are unable to read a well-structured long body of text.

A sentence is a statement, a proposition, an idea, an opinion or a fact. A leading sentence in a paragraph is usually a proposition, followed by sentences that supports or extends this proposition. A proposition is not convincing when it’s not supported, and might be confusing if it’s not properly extended. So, an essay consists of paragraphs with only one or two sentences is a collection of unsupported confusing propositions. At best, it’s a collection of propositions with their supporting materials scattered around and hard to put back together. Either way, it won’t be a good read.

If not an essay, but a journal or a prose, short paragraphs still make it hard for me, as a reader, to get into the flow. It’s like talking to someone who just can’t sort out their thoughts. As a writer, writing short paragraphs can leads to two things:

1. Pages that look long but does not contain much content.
2. Pages that look horrifyingly long, because the content simply won’t fit in short paragraphs.

An exception may be made with shortforms, where there isn’t much content to begin with and the reasoning is not that complex. I would’ve said in that case you would be better off posting on social media, but who am I to tell you what to write on your own blogs?

In conclusion, writers should look more into the F-shape reading pattern theory and realize it’s not a good writing technique. My advice is to organize your article by thoughts, not by page layout.