Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition
by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
099 Inverted Pyramid
The presentation of information from most important to least important.
The inverted pyramid refers to a method of information presentation in which key information is presented first, and then additional elaborative information is presented in descending order of importance.1
In the pyramid metaphor, the base represents the most important information, while the tip represents the least important information. To invert the pyramid is to present the important information first, and the supplemental information last. The inverted pyramid has been a standard in journalism for over 100 years and has found wide use in instructional design and technical writing.
The inverted pyramid consists of a lede (critical information) and ...
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