Z-pattern

The Z-pattern describes how attention tends to move on a sparse page in a left-to-right reading culture: across the top, diagonally down to the left, then across the bottom.

Its counterpart, the F-pattern, was documented by Nielsen Norman Group in 2006 from eye-tracking on text-heavy pages: readers cover the first lines fairly fully, then scan down the left edge, forming an F.

Which applies when

The two describe different content. Dense text produces something F-shaped, because there is too much to read and the left edge is where lines begin. Sparse pages with few elements produce something closer to a Z, because there is nothing to scan and the eye moves between distinct points.

Both are tendencies, not laws, and both weaken as soon as the page provides a stronger structure. A clear visual hierarchy overrides either, which is the useful conclusion: these patterns describe what happens in the absence of design.

The caution worth stating

They are culturally specific, derived from left-to-right scripts, and do not transfer to right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Hebrew.

In practice

Do not lay a page out along a Z. Use the idea in reverse: if the important elements happen to fall on that path, the design is working with the default rather than against it.