The success of your direct marketing communications depends heavily on how well it is designed to help readers grasp your message quickly. But most people—even many designers themselves—don’t know how to improve comprehension when presenting products for sale. It’s actually pretty straight-forward. Here are several key principles that improve comprehension in communications, whether you are using direct mail, a space ad, a catalog, an email or a webpage.

1. EMPLOY DESIGN THAT IS IMMEDIATELY UNDERSTOOD

   Organization plays a key role in comprehension. One of the easiest ways to make overall design more decipherable is to organize the presentation so the reader achieves an immediate grasp on what they’re looking at. This might involve a variety of applications:

   • Create features and sub-features, to prioritize your presentation.
   • Use columns, keyed copy, or bold leadins to help readers easily find product descriptions.
   • Employ a grid (invisible or with rule lines) to help organize dense or complex information.
   • Apply universally understood design tools, like page number locations, footer content, and headlines at the top of a page.

   Photography should deliver a clear depiction of the product. There is no time for guessing if the barbecue grill has a side burner, how big the vase is, or whether this dress has pockets. Why crop off the bottom of the pants so the reader is left guessing how the pants fall? Dramatic lighting may get in the way of understanding the fabric’s texture or design. Photography needs to supply a maximum amount of information, immediately. Your art director and photographer need to understand this principle and take responsibility for achieving it.

   Icons can be a wonderful tool to communicate features or benefits at a glance. Icons should look like what you’re telling the reader. For example, for a no-iron shirt, you might use a picture of an iron with a slash through it.

   Insets, call-outs and bullets help communicate features, construction and quality, especially for high-priced products with complicated features. Frontgate would never be able to sell a $5,000 grill without completely dissecting the product and calling out all its features.

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2. MANAGE TYPE SELECTION AND PLACEMENT

   For the benefit of the skeptics out there, all it will take is one read of Colin Wheildon’s Type & Layout: How Typographyand Design Can Get Your Message Across – Or Get in the Way. The book quotes test results and statistics on comprehension levels for various applications of type, headlines, captions and art. Some key principles from Wheildon research:

   • Use serif type, versus sans serif. We were educated on serif type in schoolbooks and newspapers, so it’s not surprising that this principle has become a maxim in the print industry. But serif type really does make a difference in your communications. Wheildon found that a serif typeface like Times New Roman is more than FIVE TIMES easier for average readers to comprehend than a sans serif type such as Helvetica or Arial.
   • Avoid reverse type. It’s harder to read white or knock-out type than black type on a white background. According to Wheildon, when text was printed black on white, readers reported good comprehension 70% of the time, fair comprehension 19%, and poor comprehension 11% of the time. When text was printed white on black, good comprehension fell to ZERO, while poor comprehension rose to 88%. If you have to use reverse type, use it for secondary copy that’s not critical to selling.
   • Avoid color type. It’s harder to read and slower to comprehend than black. And because color type is composed of more than one color, it can get out of register, appear blurry and be harder on the eye, unless you’re using a fifth color on press.
   • Avoid all caps. They are harder to read than upper/lower case sentences or headlines.
   • Long columns are harder for the eye to follow than shorter, managed columns.
   • Use left justified type. Centered type or right justified is much harder to grasp.
   • Captions and copy-blocks belong UNDER photographs , not above them. Newspapers train us to look for copy below the thing they’re talking about. If they can’t be below, then put them to the side.
   • Headlines are most read when they are at the top of a page. Headlines in the middle or low on a page have much lower comprehension scores.
   • Type reads best on white backgrounds. Comprehension starts to diminish when colors or photography is used for type background.
   • Avoid extensive use of bold type . Text printed in bold type is harder to comprehend than regular type.

   Using the techniques outlined above will not only improve your customers’ experience, you’ll increase performance and generate more revenue.