Z-pattern layout
Putting the key elements at the corners of a Z so the eye sweeps across, down the diagonal, then across again. For sparse pages.
See it
What it is
The Z-pattern is a placement recipe for sparse pages. It assumes the eye enters top-left, sweeps right along the top edge, cuts diagonally down through the middle, then sweeps right again along the bottom. So you park the four things that matter on those four points: brand top-left, nav or secondary action top-right, the visual or the argument on the diagonal, headline and support copy bottom-left, primary call to action bottom-right. Stack several of them down a long page and you get the zig-zag variant.
It only applies to pages with very little text: hero sections, landing pages, splash screens, ad creative. The moment the page becomes a wall of copy, people switch to the F-pattern instead, which is the behaviour Nielsen Norman Group actually measured in eye-tracking studies. Pick the pattern from the density of the content, not from taste.
Gotcha: the Z is a heuristic, not a measured law. Eyes go to contrast, faces, and motion first, so a loud element in the middle of the page overrides the whole path. Treat the Z as a checklist for where the important things should sit, then verify with the squint test. Second gotcha: it depends on left-to-right reading, so in Arabic or Hebrew layouts it mirrors into a backwards Z, and on a phone it collapses to a single column and stops existing at all.
Ask AI for it
Compose this hero as a Z-pattern. Put the logo at the top-left, a single secondary link or login at the top-right, the product visual along the central diagonal, the headline and one line of support copy at the bottom-left, and the primary call-to-action button at the bottom-right, so the eye traces top-left to top-right to bottom-left to bottom-right and lands on the button. Keep the page sparse: at most one headline, one sentence of support copy, and one button. Give the CTA the strongest contrast on the screen and keep the diagonal clear of anything competing with the product visual. Fit it all above the fold at 1440x900, and collapse it to a single centred column below 768px.