What Does Layout Tell Us?

From the last lecture of my course, Writing for New Media, we learnt how a layout of a website tells the importance of the presented information. Let us first look at one simple example – the website of Apple.

With the recent release of iPhone 5, the advertisement of the smartphone (framed with red lines) takes up most of the space of the homepage. In the meantime, you can as well spot the boxes showing the latest news of Apple below the advertisement (framed with green lines). As for the top and the bottom of the page, navigation bars (framed with blue lines) can be found there. The layout of the website should be called ‘center-margin’. In a center-margin layout, the most important information is presented in the center while information that visitors may also be interested in can be found at the margins. This way can draw people’s attention to the latest news of a company. Obviously, the advertisement definitely drew your attention, right?

The same theory can be applied to the layout of my blog too!

 My blogposts (framed with red lines), for sure, take up most of the space of my blog site since they are the most important element of this blog. There is another section called ‘More Blogs, More Fun’ on the right hand column (framed with blue lines). In that section, you can find more blogs from my classmates. The column is smaller because it is not as important as the blogposts. (As mentioned previously, more crucial information is given more space.) Having said that, there is still a need for that column to exist undoubtedly. So, without further ado, just click on the links in that section and check out more awesome blogposts!