Your product page has 3 seconds

You don't read a webpage.

You scan it.

Your eyes dart, jump, and linger in predictable patterns. Patterns most ecommerce teams completely ignore when designing their product pages.

And by the time you've consciously decided whether to keep scrolling or bounce?

Your brain already made that call.

Three seconds. Maybe less.

In those first moments, your visual cortex is doing triage. It's asking one question over and over: Where should I look next?

The answer to that question determines whether your shopper finds the "Add to Cart" button or the back button.

The F and the Z

Eye-tracking research has mapped how we actually process web content. Two patterns dominate.

The F-pattern is what happens on text-heavy pages. Eyes start at the top left, sweep right across the headline, drop down, sweep right again (but shorter), then scan vertically down the left edge. Like reading the first sentence of every paragraph, then giving up.

The Z-pattern shows up on cleaner, more visual layouts. Eyes travel from top-left to top-right, then diagonally down to the bottom-left, then sweep right again.

Except, there’s a catch. Your shoppers don't consciously choose a pattern. Their brains do it automatically, based on what they see.

If your product page looks like a wall of text? F-pattern. Which means everything on the right side of your page is basically invisible.

If your page has clear visual elements with breathing room? Z-pattern.

Which means you can actually guide where attention goes.

Most PDPs are a chaotic hybrid. They trigger neither pattern cleanly. So the brain does what it does when confused:

It abandons the hard task for an easier task.

What "above the fold" really means now

The fold used to matter because people didn't scroll.

That's no longer true. Most people do scroll, especially on mobile.

But this doesn’t lower the value of the real estate: the above-the-fold zone is the audition. It's where your page proves it deserves more attention. If it had a walk-out-song, it would be, “Should I Stay or Should I Go.”

Get it wrong, and they bounce without ever seeing your benefits, reviews, or that gorgeous lifestyle photography you paid a fortune for.

What belongs above the fold on a PDP?

The product image. Obviously.

But also: the product title (clear, not clever), the price (or a range if variants apply), star rating if you've got one, along with the number of total reviews, and a clear call to action.

Everything else is secondary. That's not a design opinion, it's a recognition of how visual processing actually works.

The first elements your shopper sees become the anchor for everything that follows.

If those elements create clarity, they'll keep going.

If those elements create confusion, they're looking for the exit.

The anchor effect in visual hierarchy

Here's something weird about attention: what you see first affects how you interpret everything after.

A bold price shown early anchors the shopper's value assessment. A buried price creates suspicion.

A product image that's clearly the hero establishes what this page is about. Competing visual elements dilute focus and slow comprehension.

This is why simplifying above-the-fold often outperforms adding more information. Not because shoppers don't want details. They absolutely do. Because the first visual impression determines whether they stick around to find them.

Visual hierarchy isn't about making things pretty. It's about creating an obvious path for attention to follow.

When complexity wins

Now here's where it gets nuanced.

Sometimes, more information above the fold actually helps. This tends to happen with high-consideration products where shoppers expect complexity, tech gadgets, financial products, ingredient-driven products (think supplements, personal care), and subscription services. To name a few.

In those cases, sparse PDPs can trigger suspicion. "Where's the rest of the information? What are they not telling me?"

The key is matching visual density to purchase complexity.

For impulse buys? Simplify ruthlessly.

For considered purchases? Provide enough visual information to signal "we take this seriously too."

But in both cases, the principle holds: guide the eye, don't confuse it.

Your page should have one dominant element, one obvious next step, and clear visual pathways between them.

The mobile attention problem

On desktop, you've got real estate. You can build horizontal hierarchies. Side-by-side comparisons. Complex grids.

On mobile, you've got a vertical column and a thumb.

This changes everything about visual hierarchy.

Mobile shoppers scroll fast. Their attention pattern is more like a waterfall than an F or Z. They're constantly making micro-decisions: Is this section worth reading? Is this image worth expanding? Is this worth slowing down for?

Your mobile PDP needs to answer "yes" within each scroll depth, or you lose them.

What does that mean practically?

Chunk your content. Create clear visual breaks.

Every scroll should reveal something new and complete. No split headlines. No dangling images half-off-screen. (Unless it’s a carousel you want people to swipe horizontally in.)

Your most important information (price, main CTA, or core value prop) needs to appear in every scroll depth somehow. Fixed headers with add-to-cart buttons exist for a reason.

The hierarchy that works on desktop often fails on mobile, not because the content is wrong, but because the pacing is wrong.

What you see vs. what you think you see

There's a gap between what you design and what shoppers actually perceive.

You know your product page intimately. You designed it. You approved it. You see it constantly.

Your shopper sees it once, in a split second, while probably distracted.

The value props you think are obvious? They don't even register.

The call to action that feels bold to you? It's one of seventeen competing elements to them.

Heat maps can mislead here. They show you where clicks happen, but they don't show you the confusion before the click, or the abandonment when confusion won.

The only way to truly understand visual hierarchy is to watch people who've never seen your page try to use it. Session recordings. Usability tests. Fresh eyes. A Revenue Friction Roadmap (cough, cough).

Because what matters isn't what your page contains.

It's what shoppers notice in the first three seconds.

Three seconds to earn more time. That's the game.

Looking forward,

Brian

P.S. Ready to grow revenue without having to grow traffic? Let’s talk.