Use Direction Design Cues
Many web usability studies have shown over the years that readers only skim read pages looking for relevant information as opposed to reading word by word. To enable conversions, designers are faced with the task of providing explicit and implicit visual cues, not just to help guide the reader to find the content they need, but also to influence them to take action.
Explicit directional cues are usually more obvious, often taking the form of an arrow, line, or curve that creates a visual pathway¬–leading the viewers’ eye directly to the objective of the email. Implicit directional cues are implied and they include cues such as line of sight, colour, shape and size, and prioritization through visual weighting.
In an example that uses both explicit and implicit directional cues, this email from Anthropologie draws the reader to the calls-to action—to shop a specific category of necklaces, or shop all of the retailer’s jewellery offerings.
From a design perspective, you can see the explicit directional cues that visually guide the buyer to the call-to-action. A viewer’s eye is first drawn to the model (and her necklace), and then will follow the diagonal line, which is an explicit directional cue.
In the west viewers read from left to right, and will instinctually follow the line to the right and arrive at “the”, where the implicit directional cues of text style, and weight help move the viewer’s eye down to “New Exotics” to then finally land on the call-to-action.