textheavy

Textheavy is an adjective used to describe content that relies predominantly on written text to convey information, with relatively little use of images, videos, or interactive media. In practice, a textheavy work presents material primarily as prose or technical documentation rather than multimedia elements.

Common contexts for textheavy material include academic papers, legal documents, technical manuals, long-form journalism, encyclopedic entries, and certain forms of literature analysis. Such content prioritizes precision, nuance, and completeness over visual storytelling.

The advantages of textheavy content include detailed explanations, thorough citations, and strong discoverability through text search. Drawbacks include increased cognitive load, lower accessibility for readers with comprehension or vision challenges, slower scanning, and reduced engagement for audiences accustomed to multimedia formats.

Design and editorial strategies to mitigate issues involve clear structure with headings and subheadings, deliberate paragraph breaks, concise sentences, varied typography and whitespace, and the use of lists, diagrams, or tables to supplement text where appropriate.

Readers can gauge text density by metrics such as word count per page, sentence length, and readability scores like the Flesch reading ease. In some contexts, balancing density with visual elements and interactive features can improve comprehension and retention.

Related terms include dense prose, information density, and typographic density.