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We use different styles of reading for different kinds of information. Designing within genre conventions helps our readers know what to do.
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We use different styles of reading for different kinds of information. Designing within genre conventions helps our readers know what to do.
We can recognise each of the examples below from their layout, even though they are too small to read. We recognise them because they follow the conventions of their genre (the word just means ‘type’ or ‘category’). Each is used in a different way.
The magazine is for entertainment – we can ignore it or browse casually. This page includes side-by-side comparisons of restaurants, panels with a recipe and an interview, and a hero image to anchor the page.
The academic journal is skimmed, starting with the abstract. Then we make a decision whether to read critically depending on what we find.
The user guide is read systematically and carefully, to help us solve a problem.
In each case, the design both signals and enables the expected way to read the document. There’s some research evidence that familiar genres are easier for people to read.1
1. Cohen, D. J., & Snowden, J. L. (2008). The relations between document familiarity, frequency, and prevalence and document literacy performance among adult readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(1), 9–26.