Skip to main content
Laws of UX

Selective Attention

People focus on stimuli relevant to their current goal and filter out the rest. Important information must be visually prominent — not hidden in dense layouts. Banner blindness is selective attention at work.

In plain terms

People focus on what they came for and tune out the rest — so make the important things genuinely stand out.

Why this matters

People filter out anything that looks irrelevant — including, often, the important part. If a key message or control isn't visually prominent, large numbers of users simply won't see it.