Audience perception follows a few basic rules. Complex visual inputs are normally processed in a zig-zag pattern, starting with the upper left, moving to the right, then down to the bottom left, and to the right. There have been studies that investigate whether there are differences in gender or culture on this point.todo
One question I have about this is if this holds true for people who’s first or only language is exclusively written from right to left, or top to bottom. For example, Arabic speakers with little to no exposure to written English or any other language written left to right. There have been studies that touch on this theme, but so far I haven’t found any that offer an answer. It’s a little concerning that most guides on visual design assume this processing pattern holds true for everyone despite that fact that we’ve only studied those exposed to Western education and culture. One example of both the impact of plurilingual technology and the lack of awareness among monolingual people is Shuck (2021) writing about a multilingual conference presentation on computer keyboards. We also know that both motion and position are attributes that can be interpreted differently depending on the culture.