Design for the scan, not the read

Why this rule exists

People do not read interfaces; they scan them, hunting for the one word or control that gets them closer to what they came for. This is not laziness, it is how attention works, and a design that assumes patient, linear reading is designing for a user who does not exist. The eye moves in jumps, landing on headings, bold words, icons, and edges, and skipping the connective prose entirely. If the meaning of your screen lives only in full sentences, most of it will never be seen. The best interfaces are legible at a glance and reward the scan with structure: clear headings, short labels, and information arranged so the shape of the page tells part of the story before a single word is read. You are not writing an essay. You are building a map.